The quiet drama of everyday living comes alive within the pages of The Journal of Callie Wade. Debut author Dawn Miller has chosen the challenging form of journal entries, entries that are poetic in their spare and straightforward accounting of a young woman's journey across the western frontier.

Day by day, Callie Wade holds fast to her memories amid the turbulent changes she endures as she travels with her family from Independence, Missouri to California. In 1859, that journey is daunting. Long miles of barren wasteland give way to mountains that seem insurmountable. The landscape serves as a metaphor for the challenges of spirit Callie faces as she grows from girlhood to true pioneer woman.

In a genre that usually relies on shoot-'em-ups or grand epic scale, such as Lonesome Dove or Travels of Jamie McPheeters, Miller's telling of Callie's story speaks for all the women who packed up their lives and worldly goods and set out on what would seem to be a man's quest for adventure.

"When the train finally pulled out, the men shot off their guns and hollered their cheers for the new territory. For the men, these journeys seem to hold such adventure. But what of the women?" asks Callie Wade.

In the women who share Callie's journey are many faces. The face of Rose, her sickly younger sister, a "lunger" who looks with hope toward the place where she can run free. Grace, the "widder" Hollister, leading her three children to a new life. Enduring the derision of the "righteous" women among the wagon train. Women like Della Koch, judgmental of others so she doesn't have to judge herself. And Amanda Wade, the mother who gave Callie the journal, whose grave remains under a cherry tree near Independence. Yet whose spirit guides Callie every mile, every ordeal, every triumph along the journey.

The men in Callie's life are painted with vivid word pictures in the entries in her journal. Pa, willing to give up everything familiar for the gamble that a change in locale will restore Rose's health. Her brother, Jack Wade, a man restless in soul who must seek his own way. (A way, thankfully, the telling of which is promised in the sequel, Letters to Callie.) Stem, the stoic Negro scout. Quinn McGregor, the Irishman, first Callie's friend. And as the journey continues, that friendship, that bond strengthens just as each finds their own inner strength.

One day, midway through their trek, Callie writes to Maggie, the friend she's left behind: "I've changed, too, I guess. Oh, I suppose
I look the same, save for a few more freckles across my nose and so much sand in my hair I wonder if I'll ever get it out. But I feel different. I was real scared when we first started out. Homesick, too, I don't mind saying. But then that part of me I'd kept hidden since Mama died, it started to come alive again. It's almost like I've woken up from a long sleep and I can't help but look around me and wonder."

Ultimately that strength is the true foundation of Callie Wade and the courageous women and men who travel with her.
The Journal of Callie Wade is in the grand tradition of epic, quest novels, yet told on such a human, personal scale that its characters will be as familiar as our own great grandparents. Some daily entries are sparse as grass in alkali sand, only a few lines, yet Callie's emotions reach out from the pages. Other days, words flow from Callie like flooding rivers.
Opening this book, following Callie's story day by day, is like opening an old trunk in the family attic and pulling out a musty old volume, its pages weathered by time, and beginning to read and finding treasure.

"Memories are gifts, given to get us through the toughest of times." This refrain runs throughout Miller's story. In this debut novel, she gives us all much to remember.