Why a Booktrail?
1934: A novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras–the Great Depression.
The Four Winds
What you need to know before your trail
Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.
In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli–like so many of her neighbours–must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
Locations
Reset- America/USA - TX
- A: Dalhart - Railroad Street
- B: Dalhart -XIT museum
- America/USA - Virginia/CO
- C: Lone Tree
- D: CO- Welty
- America/USA - CA
- E: Mojave Desert
Travel Guide
Discover the Dust Bowl and the Great Plains with Kristin Hannah
The Great Plains is a broad expanse of flat land (a plain), much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland, located in the interior of North America. It lies west of the Mississippi River tallgrass prairie in the United States and east of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. and Canada.
This novel is fictional but inspired on real events and places. What is real, is the poverty, despair and misery and the author describes that very movingly. It is a thoughtful read. What happened to people who were affected by the Great Depression and so they fled to California under false promises and what they found when they got there.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Four Winds
Destination/location: Texas, Dalhart, California Author/guide: Kristin Hannah Departure Time: 1934 – 1940s
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