On the Trail of Lewis and Clark: A Journey Up the Missouri River [Hardcover]

Peter Lourie (Author, Photographer)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-7-Lourie and three friends set out in a riverboat, and further upstream a canoe, to follow Lewis and Clark's route on the Missouri River from near Omaha, NE, to its headwaters in Montana. The author moves back and forth between excerpts from the journals of Lewis and Clark and commentary on the Corps of Discovery Expedition and his own party's adventures, leading to some disjointedness, and, possibly, a lack of clarity for young readers. One digression about Sitting Bull, prompted by his gravesite overlooking the river, seems particularly out of place in an account woven around the Lewis and Clark journey. There is an interesting recounting of meeting a former tribal chairman at the Fort Peck Reservation, which brings to life the contemporary, if not historical, relationship of the Assiniboin with the river. An episode with a hapless Bureau of Land Management river guide, who runs out of gas and lacks a spare fuse when the boat's electrical system blows, results in a long night's trek cross country for the modern-day explorers. When Lourie writes, "We began to lose all hope," one is reminded of the "undaunted courage" of the original Corps of Discovery. The attractive layout incorporates clear, full-color photos of sites, artifacts, and the modern-day travelers and some black-and-white reproductions. An additional purchase.
Nancy Collins-Warner, Neill Public Library, Pullman, WA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 3-5. The subtitle, A Journey Up the Missouri River, would make a more precise title for this book, because it deals with Lewis and Clark's expedition only as a sidelight to the writer's own trip up the Missouri. Some sections here sound quite similar to portions of Lourie's longer account of the same journey, The Path of Lewis and Clark: Traveling the Missouri (1997), recommended for grades 6-9. And don't confuse this with Lourie's On the Trail of Sacajawea (2001), which is in the same format as the new title but records a trip Lourie took with his wife and children along the Missouri, west from Fort Mandan and overland to the Pacific. The latest book describes a journey from Omaha, Nebraska, to Three Forks, Montana. Along the way, Lourie relates his trip to the experiences of Lewis and Clark, whose journal entries he sometimes quotes. Many crisp, color photographs and a few period pictures illustrate the clearly written text. Though the narrative approach limits usefulness for research on Lewis and Clark or the Missouri River, this book may interest children intrigued by either topic. Bibliography appended. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Boyds Mills Press; 1st edition (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563979365
• ISBN-13: 978-1563979361
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,826,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Lourie was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and grew up in New England, Ontario, Canada, and New York City. He holds a BA in classics from New York University, an MA in English Literature from the University of Maine, and an MFA in nonfiction creative writing from Columbia University. He has taught writing for many years (Middlebury College, Columbia College, University of Vermont), and now makes his living traveling, writing and photographing. He also visits schools to share his adventures with students and teachers. He lives in Vermont where he is now working on an ongoing NSF-funded digital story-telling project about the Arctic, and a book about the Leakey family on Lake Turkana, Kenya.

http://peterlourie.com
http://peterlourie.com/bio/index.htm
http://arcticstories.net