A Fourth of July on the Plains - Hardcover

Van Leeuwen, Jean

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803717717 ISBN 13: 9780803717718

Publisher: Dial, 1997

Synopsis

Young Jesse and his family are with a wagon train traveling from Indiana to Oregon when they stop to celebrate the Fourth of July and Jesse makes his own contribution to the celebration

About this title

Reviews

Grade 1-4. Evoking another era with a story of a familiar celebration, this picture book focuses on the antics of a creative but mischievous boy named Jesse. He is left out of the preparations for this special day on the wagon train, a welcomed respite in the arduous journey from Indiana to Oregon. Jesse joins forces with his chums to invent some lively, homemade musical accompaniment to the "speechifying" and feast. The boys' contribution is very much appreciated, and the day ends triumphantly for Jesse, creating memories that will last a lifetime. The day is important to these hardy pioneers, and their emotions shine through in the hazy, yet realistic, pastel-toned artwork, executed in a combination of watercolor, colored pencils, and ink. Van Leeuwen has based her descriptions of food, dress, and customs on an actual celebration of the Fourth along the Oregon Trail in 1852, and on the memoirs of seven-year-old Jesse Applegate. This story could be used in conjunction with the author's Going West (Dial, 1992), as well as with David Williams's Grandma Essie's Covered Wagon (Knopf, 1993) and Scott Sanders's Aurora Means Dawn (Bradbury, 1989). This happy coordination of art and text is cause for celebration.?Martha Rosen, Edgewood School, Scarsdale, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Van Leeuwen (Blue Sky, Butterfly, 1996, etc.), a fictional look at a Fourth of July celebration held by pioneers headed for Oregon. They had figured on a journey of two months; after eight weeks they are only halfway there. The narrator, Jesse, who is a bit of a rascal, tries to follow the men up into the hills to hunt, but his father won't let him. He tries to join a company off to collect firewood, but his mother says no. With everybody else busy at some special chore, Jesse is without purpose and bound for trouble until he has a flash of inspiration: He and other boys transform themselves into a washtub-and-whistle marching band. Van Leeuwen infuses this feast day with a genuine sense of what a child's life was like on the Oregon Trail. Sorensen's watercolors have the blurred, dreamlike quality of faded photographs, furnishing the proceedings with a sense of events that took place long ago. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 4^-8. Based on a diary account of a Fourth of July celebration on the Oregon Trail in 1852, this combines a child's voice and viewpoint with handsome paintings that capture the pioneer experience. When the wagon train from Indiana stops to rest the weary cattle and hold a feast for July fourth, Jesse is too young to join the men who go hunting, and he can't help the women baking and the older girls sewing a flag, so he and the other young boys find whistles, bells, and makeshift drums, and they surprise everyone with their marching band's rousing rendition of "Yankee Doodle." The touching details of Jesse's personal story, drawn from a real Jesse's lively memoirs, make us imagine what it was like for a family on the trail. Sorensen's watercolor double-page spreads, in warm shades of yellow and brown, with ink and colored pencil, focus on strong portraits of the individual people as they work and celebrate together among their tents and covered wagons on the stretching plains. Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: Dial
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803717717
• ISBN 13: 9780803717718
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32