History Revealed: Grasshoppers In My Bed

Grasshoppers in My Bed: Lillie Belle Gibbs, Minnesota Farm Girl, 1877
Terry Swanson and Peggy Stern
History Revealed Series
Program Date: Thursday, August 4, 2022
Video on YouTube

In partnership with the East Side Freedom Library & Roseville Library

Author Terry Swanson and illustrator Peggy Stern present their new historical fiction book, Grasshoppers in My Bed, based on the journal of 11-year- old Lillie Gibbs of Gibbs Farm. It is 1876—Christmas day—which just happens to be the eleventh birthday of Lillie Belle Gibbs. Her mother and father present her with a new journal. Now she must decide how to fill the pages. Grasshoppers in her bed, a smudge pot to keep the mosquitos at bay, the one-room schoolhouse across the road, popping corn in the Victorian parlor, hired hands who work on the farm half the year, and her best friend, Minnesota Mae Hendrickson, all make appearances. Using clues Lillie left behind through writings as a child and an adult, this important work of historical fiction is filled with stories and illustrations detailing a year in the ordinary life of a real Minnesota farm girl from the 1870s.