Search Results

Homesteaders moving onto the Great Plains found themselves in an almost treeless land where the only building material at hand was the tough prairie sod itself

Describes the construction materials and methods used by the Inuit to build different types of shelters suitable to their environment.

"From one of Fine Homebuilding's best-loved authors, Larry Haun, comes a unique story that looks at American home building from the perspective of twelve houses he has known intimately. Part memoir, part cultural history, A Carpenter's Life as Told by Houses takes the reader hous...

Ten year-old Jake shares a special bond with his grandfather, Billy, but when Billy asks Jake to build him a sod house, Jake is not sure he wants to do it.

When A Lantern in Her Hand came out in 1928, critics took little notice, but people everywhere soon discovered it. By the end of 1919, even as the Great Depression set in, Bess Streeter Aldrich's novel was in its twenty-first printing. Now translated into over twenty languages, A...

Pioneer Girl is the true story of Grace McCance Snyder. In 1885, when Grace was three, she and her family became homesteaders on the windswept prairie of central Nebraska. They settled into a small sod house and hauled their water in barrels. Together they endured violent storms,...

How the early settlers, or "sodbusters," of the Middle Border adapted their houses and home life to the materials at hand.

"The North American prairie is an ecological marvel. One cubic yard of prairie sod contains so many organisms that it rivals the tropical rainforest for biological diversity. And like the rainforest, it showcases nature's prodigious talent for symbiosis. The lush carpet of grasse...

Okpik: Little Village in the Arctic is a stunning and eye-opening documentary about one family's pursuit to becoming fully self-sufficient, living off the land in a remote location on the north end of the Mackenzie River. Using local materials and traditional knowledge Inuit/Gwic...

"Christmas romances filled with the spirit of the Old West. It is hard for a woman to make a decent living in the Wild West of the late 1800s, and as the Christmas season approaches, prospects for a happy celebration seem dim. In 'A Pony Express Christmas' by Margaret Brownley, s...

The fourth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's treasured Little House series, and the recipient of a Newbery Honor-now available as an ebook! This digital version features Garth Williams's classic illustrations, which appear in vibrant full color on a full-color device and in rich bla...