Laurel Means, known as the “Green Prairie Trials” author, finds her inspiration in the stories and imagery of the Minnesota prairies of pioneer times, especially when it involves a journey coming into contact with the supernatural. Wagon Trail to Nowhere is her first young adult novel, and she grew so fond of Sarah Pearl that she continued her story in its sequel, Spirits of the Surging Waters, out shortly. Her young adult novel, Runes Beyond the Edge, is also about a journey across the prairies, but set in 1362. What? You might say? Who was there then? Norse explorers, of course, who left a rune stone as a record of the voyage of discovery. And we haven’t seen the last of Harald Bjornson, either, when his sequel journey takes him far, far, beyond the prairies.