Customer Reviews

Tales, Trails and Tommyknockers: Stories from Colorado's Past

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I love this book. I read it the first time in 3rd grade for our Colorado history unit and I'm on my fourth copy, having worn all the others to bits (still have them, but need a presentable copy on the shelves). I've used them as a camp counselor and I'm buying copies for each of the families coming to Colorado for my wedding so they have something to read as they explore our great state.

Thanks Myriam!

My 12 year old grandson loved this book. His interest was peaked after a visit to a gold mine in Colorado and was told about the Tommyknockers. The book was of interest to me as we had visited many of those places in Colorado, Leadville, Marble, Molly Brown's House in Denver, to name a few. I plan to buy my own copy of the book, "Tales, Trails and Tommyknockers: Stories from Colorado's Past" for my house guest to enjoy reading while we tour some of the places told about in the book.

Since I moved to Colorado I have developed an interest in Colorado's past. This is a delightful book that I am enjoying.

The modern individual regularly encounters presentations of the American west that are modified for entertainment purposes. Movies, television shows and an enormous number of books in the western genre present an artificial view of what living in the west was like. This book contains 21 short and accurate stories about the history of Colorado written at the level of the adolescent.
Live was indeed hard in those days, work was generally backbreaking, sometimes monotonous and in many cases dangerous. Travel off of the railroads and well-traveled trails was generally extremely difficult and dangerous. Winter weather was brutal and often led to days if not weeks of isolation and being caught in a sudden storm could be a death sentence. Finally, towns sprang up almost overnight when a mine opened up and then closed down even faster when the vein of ore ran out. All of this led to the generation of a great many stories, some of which were true and others in the area of folklore.
Most of the stories in this collection are true, examples of the hardy and adventurous people that felt the urge to seek out new experiences, even when it meant risking their lives. The fact that they are true makes them all the more interesting, for these people were literally remaking a land. No embellishment is needed to depict these people as heroes; their actions are more than enough to do that. Those that are not true are folklore, legends that developed from some facts open to interpretation.
In the cloud that is entertainment, facts can prove more interesting, which is the case with this book.

Myriam..for heaven's sakes where are you? i am Marilyn Hays Lewis from Boulder. Please contact me. assuming you read your reviews, i guess..