Letters from Yellowstone [J0362]

2000 PB in nice clean condition. A warmhearted and award-winning epistolary novel about a spunky young woman who joins a makeshift field study in Yellowstone National Park at the end of the nineteenth century. In the spring of 1898, A. E. (Alexandria) Bartram-a spirited young woman with a love for botany-is invited to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park. The study's leader, a mild-mannered professor from Montana, had assumed she was a man, and is less than pleased to discover the truth. Once the scientists overcome the shock of having a woman on their team, they forge ahead on a summer of adventure, forming an enlightening web of relationships as they move from Mammoth Hot Springs to a camp high in the backcountry. But as they make their way collecting amid Yellowstone's beauty, the group is splintered by differing views on science, nature, and economics. Brimming with humor, excitement, and the romance of the Yellowstone landscape, Letters from Yellowstone is a love letter to the joys of scientific discovery and America's majestic natural beauty, as well as a thoughtful reflection on environmentalism, Native American displacement, and feminism at the dawn of a new century.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I love an epistolary story and this one was incredibly well done. The conservationist attitude was much appreciated, as well as the feminist commentary, not to mention the racial and ethnic/cultural appreciation for the native members in the story."; "This book has everything a naturalist would love. The ability to bring the time of 1898 into a clear vision with its time is incredible. And with this, one can be part of the explorations of its time with our first National Park declared by President Theodore Roosevelt."; "Cute, heartwarming, coming of age told in a series of letters. While I was expecting more romance I really enjoyed how it ended ambiguously."