Pedro's Journal: A Voyage with Christopher Columbus, August 3, 1492-February 14, 1493

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0590462067 ISBN 13: 9780590462068

Publisher: Scholastic, 1992

Young Pedro, a boy who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his voyages, recounts in his journal the sights he sees and the adventures and dangers he encounters on the trip. Reprint.

About the Author:

Pam Conrad (deceased) has written many outstanding novels for young people, including Stonewords and Prairie Songs, which won the 1986 International Reading Association's Children's Book Award.

Peter Koeppen (deceased) is the illustrator of A Swinger of Birches: Poems of Robert Frost for Young People, which became an American Book Awards Nominee.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 3-6-- Pedro, one of three ship's boys on board the Santa Maria, acknowledges that he was hired on not for his seamanship, but for his ability to read and write. Conrad uses the device of a journal to tell of his adventures with Columbus, a man whom Pedro admires, but who also engages in fiery rages and penitent Hail Marys. The details of mutinous murmurings, falling stars, and false land sightings that are described in Susan Martin's I Sailed with Columbus (Overlook, 1991), Miriam Schlein's I Sailed with Columbus (HarperCollins, 1991), and Genevieve O'Connor's The Admiral and the Deck Boy (Shoe Tree, 1991) appear in this narrative as well, but in a tighter, more concise telling. Pedro's journal is a vivid revelation of the details of the voyage as well as the time period. Readers see the boy's discomfort in the explorer's proprietary treatment of the natives and, in particular, his shame that these people are allowed to believe that the Spaniards are deities. Koeppen's line drawings, many of the ships and their equippage, add dimension to the plot. One of the most pleasing of this season's Columbus offerings, Conrad's story will serve as an attractive alternative to nonfiction reading on the subject and certainly as a read-aloud. --Sylvia V. Meisner, Allen Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.