This book had the potential to be really good.  It started out as a story about a boy, Daniel, going in search of his fur-trapper father.  Daniel joins a group of pioneers, and begins walking to Oregon, looking for his father, whom Daniel believes to be in trouble.  On the way, Daniel meets Rosalie and the two strike up an unlikely friendship.  But then the book veers off onto a lesson about the evils of the white man.  I have no problem with historical fiction dealing honestly with the violence that explorers and pioneers inflicted on native peoples.  But Daniel’s Walk treats the subject in such an abrupt and preachy way that it comes off as contrived and ruins the rest of the story.