Bound For Oregon

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1994

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Background

Authorial Context: Jean Van Leeuwen

Jean Van Leeuwen is an American author who began her career in journalism and publishing. She was born in 1937 and grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. As a child, Van Leeuwen was a self-declared bookworm and delighted in stories that mirrored her interests, particularly in dogs, horses (she loved Black Beauty by Anna Sewell), and mysteries. She tried her hand at writing her own novel when she was 11 years old but quickly gave up on the project. Years later, Van Leeuwen studied journalism at Syracuse University in New York State. Because few women worked as reporters at the time, Van Leeuwen found a job at a publishing company after graduating from Syracuse. While working in publishing, she read and edited countless children’s manuscripts. This work inspired her to start writing children’s books of her own. Her relationships and experiences with her own children also fueled her early writing projects. Van Leeuwen has since gone on to publish 17 picture books, 20 children’s books, 18 middle grade novels, one young adult novel, and an autobiography. She is particularly well known for her stories about Oliver and Amanda Pig, and her wide array of historical fiction.

Van Leeuwen branched out from picture and children’s books as her children grew up and she had more time to develop full-length works of fiction. Her early interest in detective and mystery stories and in journalism inspired her curiosity about American history “and especially how our country was settled” (“Meet Jean Van Leeuwen.” Jean Van Leeuwen). Her 1994 novel Bound for Oregon came about via Van Leeuwen’s research into the Oregon Trail. Curious “about what the journey had been like for children,” Van Leeuwen says in the Author’s Note of the source text that she decided to “retell Mary Ellen [Todd’s] story” to capture this angle on the pioneering experience (165). Since then, different aspects of this experience have been depicted in many novels for children and young adults, such as Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee. Van Leeuwen’s experience writing children’s literature and working with children inside and outside of schools throughout her career also has helped her to access Mary Ellen’s character with empathy.

Historical Context: Westward Expansion and the Oregon Trail

Bound for Oregon is set in 1852 America during the westward expansion of white settlers following the Louisiana Purchase. The negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase effectively doubled the size of the United States for white colonizers and allowed the US government to claim Indigenous territories forcibly as they moved westward. Leeuwen’s story focuses on the experiences of Mary Ellen, a young white girl moving with her family in search of safety and prosperity out west. On Mary Ellen’s journey, she and her family have numerous encounters with Indigenous Americans. While Mary Ellen’s father has an empathetic and open-minded view towards the plight of Indigenous peoples, many others were less accepting. During this westward expansion, countless Indigenous people lost their lands, homes, and families simply because they were exploited by white colonizers seeking to claim land they felt they innately deserved.

This historical setting forms the backdrop for the novel. Needing to escape encroaching epidemics and find plentiful, fertile land, many families took to the Oregon Trail to travel westward. The trail was a 2,170-mile wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. Fur traders and trappers were responsible for blazing the trail throughout the first half of the 19th century. From the mid-1830s to the late 1860s, the trail became a primary route for pioneering settlers to migrate from east to west. Roughly 400,000 people made their way along the Oregon Trail during this period.

In Bound for Oregon, Mary Ellen Todd’s family is one of the many pioneering families who give up their homes, safety, and communities to venture out into the uncharted western territories. Van Leeuwen has shaped Mary Ellen’s first-person account of her time on the Oregon Trail from historical documents, journals, and letters. As Van Leeuwen explains in the source text’s Author’s Note, according to her research, Mary Ellen’s family dealt “with most of the problems commonly faced along the trail: disagreements among members of a wagon train, dangerous river crossings, illness, injuries, shortages of food and water, loss of livestock” (166). Van Leeuwen incorporates these challenges into Mary Ellen’s account throughout Bound for Oregon. This historical backdrop therefore inspires the majority of the novel’s conflicts and distinguishes Mary Ellen’s coming-of-age experiences from other such contemporary tales. The Oregon Trail offered families like Mary Ellen’s the possibility of a new life on the other side.