Prairie Whispers by Frances Arrington (Philomel, 2003)  Set in the grasslands of Nebraska in the 1860's, this is a study of how a lie can snowball until it's out of control. 

I picked this up to read after teaching my Wednesday night class, to disengage so I could get to sleep.  Ha!  I didn't turn the light off until after midnight and the end of the book.  The history is minimalized--not much more than a stage setting really.  In it's quiet way, it very effectively intensifies the overarching moral drama. Well done!

Publisher Marketing

• Publisher: Philomel Books
• US SRP: $ 17.99  US  -  (avail. at 25% off from CCF)
• Binding: Hardcover 
• Pub Date: May 2003
• Ages: 5th Grade to 9th Grade
  
  Publisher Marketing: Colleen didn't mean for Ma and Pa to think that the wagon woman's baby was their own. It was almost an accident, the way her stillborn little sister got switched with the dying woman's newborn; Ma was too ill to know what was happening, and Pa was away. The woman begged Colleen to take the baby girl and keep it safe from her cruel husband, so how could Colleen refuse? She meant to tell Ma and Pa the truth about that night, but somehow it never seemed the right moment ... now what if they think she did the wrong thing? Would baby Bonnie be taken away? Can she really keep the secret forever, though? Frances Arrington, author of the critically acclaimed Bluestem, vividly evokes the lonesome, wild beauty of the 1860s American prairie in this gripping tale of secrets that leads to lies.