Synopsis
As a school project, sixth graders recreate a westward trek to Oregon with all the perils that faced real pioneers.
Reviews
Grade 4-5?For two weeks in January, 68 fifth graders take part in "Wagons Out West," a wagon-train simulation project. Dinah, the class clown and the tallest student, is paired with Orin, the class dork, who is almost a foot shorter. "Traveling" from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon, they keep journals, study history and maps, "buy" supplies, and participate in creative dramatics. The students also learn about one another, group dynamics, problem solving, and themselves. In her usual manner, Gilson has created a humorous story with characters that are lively and engaging and a setting that is believable and realistic.?Darcy Schild, Schwegler Elementary School, Lawrence, KS
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
For a fifth-grade class project about the Oregon Trail, awkward Dinah with the size-11 feet has to "marry" the shortest, strangest boy in the class, Orin. Not only that, they have to pretend he's a doctor and she's his pregnant wife, riding a wagon train west with a bunch of bossy companions (actually their annoying classmates). The plot-within-a-plot mostly works well in the deft hands of Gilson (Hobie Hanson, Greatest Hero of the Mall), whose gift for snappy dialogue will have kids laughing. And beneath the hilarity is the subtle lesson that being a misfit as a kid doesn't condemn a person to misfit status forever: Orin and Dinah see glimmers of the dynamic grown-ups they might be someday when they're no longer the goofy oddballs in Mr. Marconi's class. Gilson misses the mark once in a while?a story line about Dinah accidentally dyeing her hair green is none too fresh and, in a plot device that features journal entries students write in their pioneer characters' voices, the point of view can become disconcertingly adult. Still, the slips in no way hobble this buoyant story, which reaches its destination with all wheels intact. Ages 8-up.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
When the whole fifth grade embarks on a two-week simulation of a wagon train, Dinah is paired with Orin, a boy she despises, and grouped with an unpleasantly contentious bunch of children who seem set on ruining the game with their constant bickering. As they make their way west, encountering crises both real and imagined, they discover--of course--that the whole exercise may be more meaningful than they thought. Interspersed with the third-person narration are the diary entries the students write in the voices of their pioneer characters. Gilson (Soccer Circus, 1993, etc.) starts with and sticks to a relentlessly truthful depiction of a group of disagreeable children who will be too similar to most readers' classmates for comfort. It's usually to an author's credit to render such a realistic picture of school, but in this case the authenticity--with a predictable plot to boot--is numbing. (Fiction. 10-12) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Gr. 4^-6. Dinah, the tallest girl in the fifth grade, and Orin, the shortest boy, have been dubbed Dinahsaurus and the Dork by their classmates. So it's inevitable that this odd couple will wind up "married" when the kids in Mr. Marconi's class are paired off for the two-week duration of the annual Wagons Out West program. WOW for short, this is a mock re-creation of the classic pioneers' journey from Missouri to Oregon. Gilson has some cheerful fun with a clever premise, and her readers will painlessly learn a little history on the figurative way west. Unfortunately, the episodic plot and most of the jokes are as creaky as the real pioneers' wagons, but the characters are likable, growing and changing with their imaginary journey; Dinah's hair even turns green, not from hardships but from a run-in with Kool-Aid that provides a--er--golden opportunity for an eye-catching dust jacket. Michael Cart
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