If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon (1986)

I absolutely love this book. This series of books are so helpful and interesting to include in content studies in the classroom. All of Levine's books, help the reader understand what life would be like in all different situations and times in history. These books do a great job grabbing the attention of the reader and teaching important historical information in a fun way. This book focuses on the time in history when settlers were moving West. It discusses the troubles they face such as Indians and running out of supplies as well as life on the Oregon Trail and living in covered wagons. This would be great resource to include in a history lesson about moving West. ( )

Reason for Reading: read aloud to the 9yo as part of our history curriculum.

Comments: Presented in a question and answer format this book tells of daily life for the people who crossed the American West travelling the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. The questions start out with "What was the Oregon Territory?" and each subsequent question follows in a natural order from the previous. The book is very thorough and covers pretty much anything a kid could want to know from how they crossed rivers to how they made butter to what the children did all day long. The answers are written as if speaking directly to the reader and have both a sense of humour and amazement making history fun and interesting. The illustrations, which were replaced in 1992, are wonderful bright realistic watercolours. The 9yo really enjoyed this book. I also found this to be a great entry in the "If You" series. ( )

Genre: Informational
Critique of Genre: This book was wonderful for covering basic facts about the Oregon Trail. There were big pictures and simple definitions of new vocabulary words that were age appropriate. Sometimes informational books can be overwhelming with dry facts, but this makes the trail come alive!
Age Appropriateness: 5-10 ( )