Books for Independent Reading
VERY EASY
- Bill Pickett: Rodeo Ridin' Cowboy
- by Andrea Davis Pinkney
(Multicultural)
Harcourt 1996 (32p)
In 1881, ten-year-old Bill Pickett invented bulldogging, a form of steer-wrestling that helped make him one of the most famous cowboys on the rodeo circuit.
- Wagons West
- by Roy Gerrard
(Social Studies)
Farrar 1996 (32p)
The westward trip to Oregon by a group of farmers is breezily recalled in rhyme years later by a young woman who went on the journey as a child.
- Sod Houses on the Great Plains
- by Glen Rounds
(Social Studies)
Holiday 1995 (32p)
The author, who was born in a sod house in South Dakota, explains how the first homesteaders across the Missouri River built sod houses from the only material available to them.
- Pioneer Cat
- by William Hooks
(Social Studies)
Random 1988 (64p) paper
A young girl traveling west on the Oregon Trail with her family discovers a stowaway cat and her kittens, who keep her company on the long trip.
EASY
Mississippi Mud: The Prairie Journals- by Ann Turner
Harper 1997 (48p)
Amanda and her two brothers each keep a journal as their family travels by wagon train from Kentucky to Oregon, and each sees the trip in a different way.
- A Fourth of July on the Plains
- by Jean Van Leeuwen
Dial 1997 (32p)
Based on Jesse A. Applegate's Recollections of My Boyhood and the Diary of E. W. Conyers, this story relates how young Jesse and his family celebrated the Fourth of July on the plains, despite the hardships of traveling the Oregon Trail.
- A Pony for Jeremiah
- by Robert H. Miller
(Multicultural)
Silver 1997 (64p)
When Jeremiah and his family escape from slavery and end up in Nebraska, Jeremiah and a Cheyenne boy name Blue Feather become friends.
- How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis and Clark
- by Rosalyn Schanzer
National Geographic 1997 (48p)
Lively art illustrates direct quotations from the journals of Lewis and Clark detailing their arduous 7,689-mile journey across America.
- The Sweetwater Run: The Story of Buffalo Bill Cody and the Pony Express
- by Andrew Glass
(Social Studies)
Doubleday 1996 (48p)
In 1861, fourteen-year-old Will Cody carries the news that Abraham Lincoln has been elected president.
- Pony Express!
- by Steven Kroll
(Social Studies)
Scholastic 1996 (40p)
When gold was discovered in California, William H. Russell created the pony express to bring mail from home to the thousands who flocked west in search of gold.
- West by Covered Wagon: Retracing the Pioneer Trails
- by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
(Social Studies)
Walker 1995 (32p)
Each year the Montana Wagoneers, a pioneer-reenactment society, celebrate Memorial Day with a week-end wagon train journey that duplicates as near as possible the journeys of earlier pioneers.
- Dandelions
- by Eve Bunting
(Social Studies)
Harcourt 1995 (48p)
In the 1800s, Zoe and her family journey to the Nebraska Territory, where they build a soddie that can't be seen from a distance until Zoe plants dandelions on top.
AVERAGE
- My Name Is York
- by Elizabeth Van Steenwyck
(Multicultural)
Northland 1997 (32p)
- A Right Fine Line: Kit Carson on the Santa Fe Trail
- by Andrew Glass
Holiday 1997 (48p)
Despite his parents' plans for his future, sixteen-year-old Kit Carson ran off to join a wagon train heading over the Santa Fe Trail and to a life of adventure that would make him famous.
- Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847
- by Kristiana Gregory
(Social Studies)
Scholastic 1997 (128p)
A young pioneer girl relates her family's experiences during their rigorous journey west.
- Sodbuster
- by David W. Toht
(Social Studies)
Lerner 1996 (48p)
The hardshihps and good times of pioneer life are expressed in this collection of diary excerpts, songs, games, recipes, and medicinal remedies.
- The Santa Fe Trail
- by David Lavender
(Social Studies)
Holiday 1995 (64p)
From 1822 to 1879, traders made the dangerous journey along the Santa Fe Trail to take supplies to the pioneers and bring home silver coins and furs.
- Buffalo Gals: Women of the Old West
- by Brandon Marie Miller
(Social Studies)
Lerner 1995 (88p)
Authentic entries from their diaries help convey the difficult life faced by the hundreds of women who traveled west on the Oregon Trail.
- Children of the Westward Trail
- by Rebecca Stefoff
(Social Studies)
Millbrook 1996 (96p)
From actual journals and letters of pioneer children, the reader learns what the journey westward was like during the 1840s and '50s.
- Bent's Fort: Crossroads of Cultures on the Santa Fe Trail
- by Melvin Bacon and Daniel Blegen
(multicultural)
Millbrook 1995 (72p)
Bent's Fort re-creates the history of the Santa Fe Trail, with emphasis on the Native American and Mexican cultures and how people of various cultures were brought together on the trail and at the trading post.
CHALLENGING
- Westward Ho! An Activity Guide to the Wild West
- by Laurie Carlson
(Social Studies)
Chicago Review 1996 (149p)
The crafts, recipes, songs, and games included in this activity guide will give students a glimpse of the daily life of the pioneers heading west.
- Black Frontiers: A History of African American Heroes in the Old West
- by Lillian Schlissel
(Multicultural)
Simon 1995 (78p)
The author focuses on the African Americans who went west as soldiers, homesteaders, and mountain men, with biographical sketches of Jim Beckwourth, Stagecoach Mary, Bill Pickett, Biddy Mason , and others.
- The Ballad of Lucy Whipple
- by Karen Cushman
Clarion 1996 (208p)
When her mother moves the family to a California mining town called Lucky Diggins, Lucy, forced to help her mother run a boarding house, is miserable and tries to find comfort in books and letters while planning how to get back to Massachusetts.
- The West: An Illustrated History for Children
- by Dayton Duncan
(Social Studies)
Little 1996 (144p)
A companion volume to the PBS documentary, this book offers a clear history of the west, along with personal stories of many of its inhabitants. In the same series, see also People of the West and The Gold Rush.
- The Life and Death of Crazy Horse
- by Russell Freedman
(Multicultural)
Holiday 1996 (144p)
Called the greatest of the Teton Sioiux warriors, Chief Crazy Horse grew from a shy, sensitive youth to a warrior who tried desperately to save his people's land and way of life and eventually defeated General Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
- Black Women of the Old West
- by William Loren Katz
(Multicultural)
Atheneum 1995 (84p)
As the text and archival photographs show, African American women were a part of Western frontier life in a number of capacities from homesteaders, cooks and nurses, to cowgirls, schoolteachers, and shopkeepers.
Now Available in Paperback
- An American Safari: Adventures on the North American Prairie
- by Jim Brandenburg
Walker
- Bess's Log Cabin Quilt
- by D. Anne Love
Yearling
- Bound for Oregon
- by Jean Van Leeuwen
Puffin
- My Prairie Year: Based on the Diary of Elenore Plaisted
- by Brett Harvey
Holiday
- If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon
- by Ellen Levine
Scholastic
- The Bite of the Gold Bug: A Story of the American Gold Rush
- by Barthe DeClements
Puffin
- Snowshoe Thompson
- by Nancy Levinson
HarperTrophy
- The Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark
- by Rhoda Blumberg
Morrow
- On to Oregon!
- by Honoré
Morrow
- Caddie Woodlawn
- by Carol Ryrie Brink
Aladdin
Now Out of Print
- The Great American Gold Rush
- by Rhoda Blumberg
- Townsend's Warbler
- by Paul Fleischman
- George Caitlin: Painter of the Indian West
- by Mark Sufrin