"If Laura Ingalls Wilder had lived in Alaska, she might have written this novel . . ."-- Kirkus Reviews      It's 1934, and times are tough for Trip's family after the mill in their small Wisconsin town closes, leaving her father unemployed. Determined to provide for his family, he moves them all to Alaska to become pioneers as part of President Roosevelt's Palmer Colony project. Trip and her family are settling in, except her mom, who balks at the lack of civilization. But Trip feels like she's following in Laura Ingalls Wilder's footsteps, and she hatches a plan to raise enough money for a piano to convince her musical mother that Alaska is a wonderful and cultured home. Her sights set on the cash prize at the upcoming Palmer Colony Fair, but can Trip grow the largest pumpkin possible--using all the love, energy, and  Farmer Boy  expertise she can muster? “If Laura Ingalls Wilder had lived in Alaska, she might have written this novel. . . . Heartwarming.” — Kirkus Reviews “With conscious homage to Wilder’s Little House books, Dagg evokes the same pioneering spirit in a Depression-era setting.”— The Horn Book “Fact and fiction and real and imagined personalities and events are seamlessly woven into this quaint, energetic, and engaging story.” — School Library Journal Carole Estby Dagg (www.caroleestbydagg.com) also wrote the middle-grade historical novel The Year We Were Famous . She was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and has lived in Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. She has degrees in sociology, library science, and accounting. Her real-life adventures include tiptoeing through King Tut’s tomb, sand boarding the dunes of western Australia, riding a camel among the Great Pyramids, paddling with Manta rays in Moorea, and smelling the penguins in the Falkland Islands. She is married with two children, two grandchildren, a husband, and a bossy cat who supervises her work. She splits her writing time between her study in Everett, Washington, and a converted woodshed on San Juan Island. CHAPTER 1  Terpsichore Johnson Cooks Dinner    November, 1934—Little Bear Lake, Wisconsin  It was because Terpsichore was the only unmusical Johnson that she dragged a hatchet across the yard toward a pumpkin as big as a pickle barrel. She stumbled over an icy hillock of mud where her mother’s roses had been uprooted to make way for potatoes. The wind howled and whipped her skirt around her knees. It snatched notes from her sis­ters’ piano duet, which escaped through the crack in the parlor window and swirled up to meet the chimney smoke. If Terpsichore had not made that foolish bargain with her mother, she could have been inside with her sisters, warm. She would not have to attack that monster pumpkin like a lumberjack.       She raised the hatchet over her head and heaved it down with the full weight of her seventy-three pounds behind it. The strike vibrated up her arms and clear through her shoul­ders to her jaws. After several more blows, she finally hacked off a section light enough to carry into the kitchen.       Terpsichore’s father said she was a wizard with pumpkins. After all, she could turn a hunk of pumpkin into pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pancakes, pump­kin custard, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin fritters. A good thing, too, because pumpkin was about all that was left to eat.      By the time she’d boiled the pumpkin long enough to make it edible, though, everyone was too hungry that night to wait for her to turn it into muffins or fritters. Instead, she just mashed it and decorated it with a sprinkle of parsley from her mother’s window garden.      “Yuck, Trip! Pumpkin mash?” Polly poked her fork at the mound of pumpkin on her plate. Cally poked her mound, too.      Terpsichore’s ears cringed at hearing the twins’ nickname for her that announced to the world “This girl’s a stumblebum!”      “You’re not a baby anymore, Polly. You can say my whole name:  Terp-sick-oh-ree!  And if you don’t like pumpkin mash, don’t eat it, fancy fingers.” She shot the twins what her father called her piercing basilisk glare, a glare so intense that it usu­ally bent them to her will, at least for a little while. “Let’s see how good you are with a hatchet.”      “What’s a hatchet got to do with dinner?” Cally poked her mash again.      “I’m sure Terpsichore worked very hard to make us this nourishing dinner,” Mother said. She spooned a bite of pumpkin into baby Matthew’s mouth. With a flick of his tongue, the pumpkin oozed back out of his mouth, dribbled down his chin, and sat in a blob on his bib.       Terpsichore poked her own mound of pumpkin mash. She had bargained herself into the role of family cook to get out of piano lessons. Mother had always made time for Terpsi­chore’s lessons, even when baby Matthew kept her up most of the night. One day last summer, after fumbling through the first few bars of “Für Elise,” Terpsichore had slammed her palms down on the piano ke