The Long Way Westward (I Can Read Level 3)

This sequel to The Long Way to a New Land was the perfect choice for our family's unit study about the Westward Expansion. My first grader was able to read aloud easily, and my four year old was able to comprehend the story well when read to. The characters (Carl Erik, Jonas, and their family) are easy for children to connect to. With so many books written about this period featuring girls as the main characters, it was refreshing to offer my son interesting male characters.

The Long Way to a New Land and The Long Way Westward are companion books that chronicle a family's journey from their Swedish farm, which is suffering from an extended drought, to a new home in Minnesota. The books describe the difficulty and dangers of the journey in a way that is non-complaining and full of optimism for a new life in America. Teachers, these books are wonderful for integrating with other subjects and topics, such as immigration, westward expansion, steamships, trains, geography, and American life in the 1860s.