Liberty-Perry (aka Wapahani) Alumni Association

Alone: The Journey of the Boy Sims, by Alan K. Garinger (Softcover)

  Don't lose the land.  Thirteen-year-old Joshua Sims could not forget his dying father's last request. But how could he and his sister manage to survive on the Indiana frontier, miles from any neighbor and with no means to pay off their father's debt?  Joining the federal survey crew for the new Michigan Road seems to be the only way Joshua can keep his promise to preserve the family's homestead.

     While attempting to cross the Tippecanoe River in northern Indiana, the crew loses crucial supplies, including the particular ink needed to create maps and record survey details.  To his surprise, Joshua is chosen to travel to the survey headquarters in Detroint, a difficult trek through sparsely settled country, to obtain the ink that will keep the operation moving.

     Along the way Joshua encounters runaway slaves, Native Americans, canal builders, fur traders and other figures of the rapidly changing frontier.  He finds help in unexpected places even as he faces danger in the unfamiliar terrain.  Joshua's journey forces him to re-evaluate his beliefs as he begins to understand the consequences of pioneer settlement and industry for the land he now calls home.

     Alan K. Garinger is a past recipient of the Indiana Outstanding Young Educator and Indiana Outstanding Community Educator awards.  Garinger is also the author of the Jeremiah Stokely series.  His novel, Torch in the Darkness:  The Tale of a Boy Artist in the Renaissance, was a Young Hoosier Reader Award nominee.

     130 pp., 5x7, b/w illustrations, glossary.  July 2008. Indiana Historical Society Press, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, IN  46202

     30% of the retail price of this book will benefit Alumni Association scholarships.     

$7.95 only