The giant Joshua

the long version

Considered a classic in historical fiction, The Giant Joshua was first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1941, and has never been out of print. Set in the 1860s at Utah’s Dixie Mission, The Giant Joshua is the deeply moving story of a far-flung outpost in the desert where a band of Mormons, like the giant Joshua, fight to survive in an arid land. A young Mormon girl—innocent, tender, courageous—finds herself torn between fear of her older husband and love for his son; between her passionate faith in the stern tenets of Mormonism and her equally passionate desire for beauty and gaiety.