From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6. Readers are invited along on a canoe trip down what remains of the Erie Canal to explore the history of its construction and economic impact. Lourie starts his journey in Buffalo and ends three weeks later in the Champlain Canal; he paddles through locks, past quiet vistas, and alongside busy highways. The chapters are sandwiched between a prologue that explains why the Erie Canal was built and why the author wanted to explore it by canoe, and an epilogue asking questions about how the canal will fit into the future. Lourie's enthusiastic narrative is punctuated by commentary about what he sees along the way. He includes decisions he had to make regarding his canoe and technical information about the lock system, how the canal amended over the years, and the impact it had on the people involved in its construction. The leaps from historical information to observations about traffic jams can be rather challenging for less-than-able readers to navigate. Archival black-and-white photos, drawings, excerpts from songs about the Erie Canal, and the author's full-color photographs greatly aid in appreciating its size and history. A good choice for students interested in transportation, Western expansion, or exploration.?Joan Soulliere, formerly at Wenham Public Library, MA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Gr. 5^-8. Lourie, whose wanderlust has previously taken him down the Missouri and into the Amazon Basin and the Everglades, stays closer to home in his latest excursion. A helpful color map sets the stage for his attractively packaged expedition across New York State. The text is a smooth, if not dramatic, combination of Lourie's travels and colorful historical facts about the waterway and its construction. Like many of the author's other books, this isn't structured for quick reference. There's no index, and the contents page won't help. Nor is there documentation for the facts or for the multitude of fascinating period photos. It's children who read nonfiction and history for pleasure who will probably like this best. Lourie's descriptions of such things as going through the locks and his open regard for the canal builders' achievement put dry textbook approaches to shame.
Stephanie Zvirin
