Beside the Long River: A Novel of Colonial New England

When Sarah Lyman leaves England with the rest of her Puritan family, she does not expect to have an easy life. She does not even expect a better one, as her father insists they will have in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She is reluctant to leave her home and her friends, but has little choice; at only thirteen, she is bound to obey her father, no matter how she bristles against it.

Her independent spirit is not curbed in the least by the difficult sea journey, or by the travails of her new land. If anything, she grows emboldened, befriending the nearby Pequots and speaking out against rules she finds unfair. At times, her spirited nature seems to belong more to a modern teen than to a girl from the early seventeenth century, but she is also a delight to read about.

The book is a fun, stirring adventure that I would rather recommend to teens than to adults. I say this partly because Sarah is a teen but mainly because the writing felt more like a young adult novel than one meant for adults. I would have enjoyed it as a teen, and I’m sure plenty of teens today will enjoy it as well.