Customer Reviews

You Wouldn't Want to Be an American Pioneer!: A Wilderness You'd Rather Not Tame

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Illustrations are done by the illustrator and are meant to be fun not stereotypical. This is the best series there is for children and kids know better than to think everyone in the book (illustrations) are real reflections of the actual events and characters.

This book provides kids with the nitty gritty bits of information on the American Pioneers in the mid-1800s. When holier than thou information fails to woo students into enjoying and being interested in the topic, give them the bad stuff and they love it! People do learn better when they can connect and understand what others had to do to be successful. What pioneers went through in order to live makes for good reading and they become more interesting.

While the promised rewards in the Oregon Territory were substantial and some of the actual results were close to those promised, the journey there was hard. At the pedestrian yet reasonable pace of 2 miles per hour, the wagon trains made the trek from the Missouri River across the great prairie, over the Rocky Mountains and then down the valley of the Columbia River. It was an arduous journey and many found only their grave on the side of the trail.
This book, written at the level of the late elementary school child, makes the dangers and struggles clear to the reader. While there is an occasional degeneration to the level of the cartoon, the images add to the story and entertainment value rather than detract from it. A good book for courses in the history of the American movement westward, the right balance between education and entertainment is struck.

This historical fiction picture book is meant to be humorous but fails miserably. Instead, it offers tired and racist stereotypes of native americans, complete with insulting illustrations of native americans with enormous noses, pot bellies and war paint. Buy this book only if you need a good example of stereotyping in children's books.