Product Description

Sacagawea was only sixteen when she made one of the most remarkable journeys in American history, traveling 4500 miles by foot, canoe, and horse-all while carrying a baby on her back! Without her, the Lewis and Clark expedition might have failed. Through this engaging book, kids will understand the reasons that today, 200 years later, she is still remembered and immortalized on a new golden dollar coin.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42433 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5-This accessible, accurate biography provides brief contextual information about the tribes in which Sacagawea lived, from her own people, the Shoshone, to her captors, the Minnetaree and Mandan. Since almost all that is known about her is from the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition, this work necessarily focuses on that event and her part in it. Unfortunately, the black-and-white illustrations are dreadful. The cover borders on caricature and does nothing to invite interest or non-prejudicial awareness. The sketches of Lewis and Clark within the text are equally bad. Only those that detail specific material, such as a Shoshone tipi, Mandan lodge, or travois pass muster as good, informative, and text-enhancing. Another problem with the book is the lack of source information. David A. Adler's A Picture Book of Sacagawea (Holiday, 2000) is for younger students and Judith St. George's Sacagawea (Putnam, 1997), for older readers. Wait for a better choice to fill the gap.
Nancy Collins-Warner, Neill Public Library, Pullman, WA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Solid, If Not Inspired
My 1st grader had to read a biography for a class project and this book fit the bill perfectly. Her reading level is right at the Merlin Mission Magic Tree House book level -- about a hundred pages, give or take, and pictures are still necessary to break up and amplify the text. This book is probably best for kids in the 6-10 year old range and it's not going to win any literary awards, but it's informative without being overwhelming, has lots of pictures (which are simple line drawings, nothing really artistic) and is a good gateway to other biographies. My 6 year old like this book so much she ran around pretending to be Sacagawea for about a week afterward. We went out and got a few more titles in the series, purely because they're so readable.

One caution is that some biographies include some of the less savoury details about their subjects. The Thomas Jefferson bio contains information about his affair with Sally Hemmings, his black slave (not withstanding the fact that this affair is hotly debated by historians). While this is handled in mild and appropriate ways, parents need to be aware that it's there in case they would prefer not to have their children read it. The Tom Jefferson one is one we skipped because we didn't feel it was appropriate for a 6 year old to be reading, nor did we feel like explaining it to her at this age. Just be aware that some of the bios may raise topics you might not want to address if your child is on the younger end of the reading range.

In the words of a nine-year-old...
My 9-y/o daughter absolutely loves this series of biographies and could not be persuaded to wait until our Lewis & Clark unit before she read this. While it didn't strike me as a particularly outstanding book, and the illustrations are mediocre at best, she enjoyed the fact that she could easily read and understand it. The book sparked an interest in Sacagawea and the Expedition, and she obviously learned a lot from reading it. Here is the twenty-star review she wrote for me (to be read very dramatically):
"There is a story about a young girl who was captured by Minnataree, was brought on an expedition featuring exciting adventures, leading men across rivers and through mountains with a newborn baby on her back. She found food when they were hungry, medicine when they were sick... Her name is - Sacagawea."

Great Book for a Young Reader Interested in History
I gave this book to my 6 year-old granddaughter and this really got her interested in "history." This has turned out to be her favorite book. It helps for her to live in Charlottesville, VA (home of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello). There is a statue of Lewis & Clark downtown. If you look carefully and don't blink your eyes you'll see Sacagawea in the back of them, sitting at their feet. I explained to her that it should have been the other way around. She should have been prominent and they should have been at her feet because if it wasn't for this young native woman, the now famous trek commissioned by "Mr. Jefferson" (as the locals say), they would have starved to death/and or killed long before reaching their destination.