The Story of Stagecoach Mary Fields (Stories of the Forgotten West)
Kindergarten-Grade 3?According to the author's note, Mary Fields was the first African American woman to carry the United States mail, driving a stagecoach route from Cascade to St. Peter's Mission, MT. Miller tells youngsters a bit about her and how she came to accomplish this feat. Her subject's story, like many tales from the "forgotten West," is a fascinating one; however, the narrative is choppy, jumping from incident to incident, and impersonal. Fields does not emerge as an individual of substance. Readers get very little sense of her life as a person of color, or as a woman living a nontraditional lifestyle. The finely detailed, watercolor-washed illustrations provide some texture to the account, as they beautifully capture the subject's expressions at significant moments, but the backgrounds are oddly flat. Nonetheless, this book does offer an appealing glimpse of a little known aspect of American history and, as such, is a worthwhile addition to most collections.?Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, New York CityCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.