Those who found The Bone Wars to be rewarding reading may find Beyond the Divide, an earlier title of Lasky's also set in the Old West, an interesting tale.

This novel vividly describes the adventures of a teen-age Amish girl of the 1840s who migrates west in a wagon train. Meribah Simon leaves Pennsylvania and the family farm to accompany her outcast father on a grueling twothousand mile journey from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the great continental divide of the Rocky Mountains, to the west coast and California. On this journey, as recorded in her drawing book, the young woman encounters sublime natural vistas, meets her first Indians, struggles across difficult terrain, and witnesses both the best and the worst in human nature. By the end of the book, Meribah has established herself as a physically tough and mentally independent personality—a genuine survivor.

The...