It’s 1924 and Ida Bidson goes to a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains of Colorado. When her teacher must leave, her fellow students choose her to become their teacher. But it must all be done in secret.
My family and I have a mountain cabin high in the Elk Valley of Colorado. As we drive there we see a fair number of buildings that used to be one-room schoolhouse. One of them is still functioning! My interest caught, I began to read about one-room schoolhouses and found that for many years in our country’s history one-room schoolhouses were truly everywhere—by the thousands! There are many folks today who were educated in one-room schoolhouses. And if they weren’t, their grandparents were. It was a very different kind of schooling than most kids experience today. When you talk to them about it, they truly loved the sense of community and fun they experienced. This book tries to capture what it was like, and tells the story about a very plucky young heroine. One of my favorite books.