The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/My Antonia

MY ANTONIA By Willa Sibert Cater,. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

This is a story of pioneer farmers in Nebraska, the men and women who lived in dugouts and were the first to bring under the plow the fertile rolling prairies beyond the Missouri. In form it is a record of the memories of a boy who grew up among the Bohemian and Scandinavian settlers and returned to visit his early home many years later, when he was a successful lawyer in New York. There is no plot, but the story centers around Antonia Shimerda, a remarkable Bohemian girl of strong character and unusual vital force. The story has a peculiar ending in leaving us a picture of Antonia as a farmer’s wife with nearly a dozen children around her.

To Bohemian farmers of Nebraska and neighboring states, especially the older generation, the book is sure to appeal. It makes real those early days of hardship and its descriptions of prairie life and scenery are well drawn.

 

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