This historical novel recounts the hazardous journey of Aiden and his younger sister Maddy, two strong-willed orphans, who join a wagon train that will take them to a new life out west.

I felt so bad that maddy died. ( )

When The Devil’s Paintbox by Victoria McKernan opens in April 1865, Aiden and his sister are barely surviving on their family homestead in Kansas. Over the last winter, their parents and other brothers and sisters have died and they have been reduced to eating dirt to quell their hunger pains. Luckily a wagon train master arrives and although he plans only to take them into the nearest town, Aiden convinces him to allow both himself and his sister to travel west to Seattle to work in the lumber camps.

They are told at the beginning of their journey, “There’s a grave a mile along the Oregon Trail. Aside from disease, there’s storms, Indians, stampedes, and pure awful accident. Anyway you can think up to die is out there.” This dire warning proved true as tragedy indeed struck. The story then makes an abrupt change as we follow Aiden into the lumber camps, but eventually this story evolves into the quest for getting smallpox vaccinations to the Indians.

I felt like I was reading two separate books as the story changed so completely. Either plot would have been an excellent story, but the mash up of the two just left me rather confused. Underlying all was a darkness that hung rather heavily on the pages, making it difficult to see this book as a YA. Although a well written book, I was left a little disappointed as this wasn't the story I had envisioned. ( )

Grim story. ( )

Reviewed by Allison Fraclose for TeensReadToo.com

As the only surviving members of their family, 15-year-old Aiden Lynch and his sister, Maddy, have barely made it through the harsh winter alone. Not much remains in their part of Kansas after the flood and the fires, and the two are reduced to living off clay from the river and the occasional grasshopper.

It's been five months since they've seen another human being, so when Jefferson J. Jackson arrives on their land, looking for leftover sodbusters to work in the lumber camps of Seattle, Aiden can hardly believe it. With the news that the Civil War has ended, along with Aiden's only hope of joining the army to provide for himself and his sister, their lack of choice is clear, and the two manage to convince Jackson to take them along.

Brother and sister thrive and even make a few friends during their journey with Jackson's wagon train - Aiden with the Nez Pearce Indian, Tupic, and Maddy with the haunted doctor, Carlos. The two dare to dream of the lives they will create for themselves once Aiden's term of indenture is over, but there are many ways to die on the Oregon Trail, and hardship strikes the Jackson train many times over.

Once the train trail splits off and everyone goes their respective ways, Aiden loses himself in the mindless work of the lumber camps, cutting himself off from all emotion. When Tupic tells him of the horrible plague of small pox that has invaded the Indian community, Aiden must decide whether he will continue to hide from all responsibility, or if he will bother to fight for a cause that may already be lost.

This achingly emotional story explores some of the hardships that surrounded the travels of pioneers on the Oregon Trail and the myths that remain of the American government's approach toward Native Americans and small pox. Bittersweet and raw, this is one historical tale that will stay with the reader for a long time afterward. ( )