Soft Rain: A Story of the Cherokee Trail of Tears

It all begins when Soft Rain's teacher reads a letter stating that as of May 23, 1838, all Cherokee people are to leave their land and move to what many Cherokees called "the land of darkness". . .the west. Soft Rain is confident that her family will not have to move, because they have just planted corn for the next harvest but soon thereafter, soldiers arrive to take nine-year-old, Soft Rain, and her mother to walk the Trail of Tears, leaving the rest of her family behind. 
 
Because Soft Rain knows some of the white man's language, she soon learns that they must travel across rivers, valleys, and mountains. On the journey, she is forced to eat the white man's food and sees many of her people die. Her courage and hope are restored when she is reunited with her father, a leader on the Trail, chosen to bring her people safely to their new land.
 
Praise for Soft Rain: 
 
"An eye-opening introduction to this painful period of American history."--Publisher's Weekly 
 
"The characters themselves transform a sorrowful story of adversity into a tale of human resilience."--Kirkus Reviews 
 
"This gentle child's-eye view will move readers enormously."--Jane Yolen 

 

• Only the Names Remain: The Cherokees and The Trail of Tears
• Trail of Tears (Step-Into-Reading, Step 5)
• Forced Removal: Causes and Effects of the Trail of Tears (Cause and Effect: American Indian History)
• Bound for Oregon
• Freedom Crossing (Apple Paperbacks)
• Children Of The Covered Wagon
• The Boy in the Alamo
• The First Strawberries (Picture Puffins)
• If You Lived With The Cherokees
• How the Stars Fell into the Sky: A Navajo Legend (Sandpiper Houghton Mifflin Books)