Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

To the Wilds of Alaska: A New Life in the Alaskan Wilderness is a non-fiction biography written by Janette Ross Riehle. Jim Childers knew he had to do something to ensure the survival of his family during the Great Depression. Their farm in the Rogue River Valley of Southern Oregon was no longer a viable operation, and they had basically become subsistence farmers. He was out working on the family's strawberry patch with his fourteen-year-old daughter, Sylvia, when he broached a topic that had long been capturing his imagination. Alaska seemed to be a place where there were still plenty of opportunities, even for someone who was no longer all that young and had the responsibility of a family. Plus, there was the chance that they could be homesteaders with acreage to develop. Sylvia loved the idea. She enjoyed working outdoors on the farm, and often hunted and fished with her dad. When Jim learned of the government's plan to relocate Minnesotans to the Matanuska Valley area of Alaska, he decided to get in on the homesteading there while he could still have his choice of a good-sized homestead. It would be tough, and the family would have to sacrifice what few luxuries they presently still had, but the combined lure of adventure and opportunity had the entire family in its grip.

Janette Ross Riehle's non-fiction biography, To the Wilds of Alaska: A New Life in the Alaskan Wilderness, reads like an adventure tale, and it had me riveted from beginning to end. I love reading the accounts of Alaskan settlers, and have read quite a few, but this book really caught my imagination. The challenges this family takes on are prodigious, and Sylvia's own story is truly inspirational. This biography is so well-written and reads so smoothly that sometimes I'd have to stop and check to ascertain that it was, indeed, a non-fiction work. Then I'd see the marvelous pictures that the author includes in her story, and they made it all so very vivid and real. To the Wilds of Alaska follows Sylvia from the time she's fourteen years old through to the completion of the first year of her marriage, and I'm hoping that the author will be publishing a sequel to this compelling and fascinating account. To the Wilds of Alaska: A New Life in the Alaskan Wilderness is most highly recommended.