Crazy Creek, by Evelyn Sibley Lampman, for Timeslip Tuesday

Crazy Creek, by Evelyn Sibley Lampman (1948), tells how an Oregon girl named Judy patched up an old wooden boat and was swept down the titular creek back into the 19th century.  There she spent a year living with her great grandparents and their children (including her own grandfather, who had told her many stories of his youth that she was now living alongside him).  There are lots of details of 19th century life, pleasantly told, many small happenings and pleasures, lots of hard work and mud, and no financial or agrarian worries to disturb the peace. As an added bonus, it has one of the best 19th-century Christmases I can recall. 

It was really good time travel--Judy's family in the past was fortunately able to overlook and try to explain away all of Judy's nonsense, and she in turn was able to find a place in there where she loves and is loved.  A poignant note brings the book to a close, as Judy, reunited with her grandfather, very old and unwell, tries to tell him she's been back to his childhood.  "That's where I figure to go now," said Grandpa, and his eyes closed gently.  "I go there all the time, Judy."

The problem with mid-20th century books about time travel back to the 19th century frontier is that the depiction of Native Americans is almost always horrible.  And sadly, Crazy Creek, though not as bad as many, still manages to dehumanize the three Native Americans Judy meets. Though there are inklings that the kids are starting to have a more nuanced perspective, with Judy, for instance, starting to realize it's not fair that their land got taken from them, and a touch of compassion taking the place of fear and prejudiced distaste, it is still pretty awful and makes it hard. even impossible, to stay peacefully complicit in the happy family life that is otherwise such very pleasant reading.