Weaver's Daughter

Most of the time, ten-year-old Lizzie Baker is happy with her family's life on the Tennessee frontier in the 1790s. Except for every fall, when Lizzie's asthma becomes so terrible that she can barely breathe. And this fall, it was so bad that Lizzie nearly died. The doctors and the local midwife try several treatments, but none of them really seem to work. Lizzie resigns herself to dying, and decides to just try and enjoy the year she has left until next fall, which she surely won't survive - each fall, her asthma gets worse and worse, and she couldn't possibly survive an attack worse than the last one. Lizzie enjoys spending time with visitors to the community - a wealthy surveyor and his wife and son. The wealthy family, the Beaumonts, live by the sea in South Carolina. Some people say that the sea air might help Lizzie's lungs. When the Beaumonts offer to adopt Lizzie and take her to South Carolina, she must make a choice - stay in Tennessee, where she will surely die but with the comfort of her family nearby, or go far away where she could still die, far from home? I highly reccomend this book. It's a great historical novel and an inspiring story about a young girl's amazing courage and determination. I don't think I could ever be as brave as Lizzie.