Wagons West! - Hardcover

Gerrard, Roy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374382492 ISBN 13: 9780374382490

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 1996

Synopsis

Saddle up for excitement on the Oregon Trail!

Way back in eighteen-fifty, when Americans were thrifty,
The times were hard, so most folks had to toil;
My mama, my pa and me labored hard to guarantee
That we'd earn a living from the barren soil.

In this rowdy adventure, the narrator and her parents and neighbors embark on a wild journey on the Oregon Trail, hoping to find rich green land out West. These hardy pioneers and their trusty leader, Buckskin Dan, fight off outlaws near Fort Laramie, rescue a lost Indian boy, and raft down the rocky Columbia River, eventually starting new lives in the fertile Willamette Valley. Readers young and old will relish Roy Gerrard's rollicking verse and distinctive illustrative style.

About this title

About the Author:

Roy Gerrard (1935-97) wrote and illustrated many books for children, including Rosie and the Rustlers and Sir Cedric.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 2-4?Gerrard returns to the frontier setting of Rosie and the Rustlers (Farrar, 1989) to tell this story in verse of a wagon train's journey west. Buckskin Dan leads a young protagonist and her family and neighbors over rough terrain and through deep rivers until they reach "...Oregon at last, with all hazards safely past." In one turn of events, the convoy rescues an Arapaho child and is aided by the tribe when confronted by cattle bandits. The rich, dramatic scenes are rendered in earth-toned watercolors and peopled by the artist's familiar stocky caricatures wearing large hats. At first glance, the ABCB rhyme scheme (with internal rhymes in A & C) is occasionally distracting; some lines have an extra syllable or two, forcing readers to backtrack. By the second reading, immersion in the pattern yields the necessary adjustment for a smoother result that exposes the offbeat humor. The author's fans will not be disappointed. A good read-aloud choice to use in conjunction with Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's West by Covered Wagon (Walker, 1995) to compare fiction and reality.?Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0374382492
• ISBN 13: 9780374382490
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Gerrard Roy