Who Was Sacagawea?

My 1st grader had to read a biography for a class project and this book fit the bill perfectly. Her reading level is right at the Merlin Mission Magic Tree House book level -- about a hundred pages, give or take, and pictures are still necessary to break up and amplify the text. This book is probably best for kids in the 6-10 year old range and it's not going to win any literary awards, but it's informative without being overwhelming, has lots of pictures (which are simple line drawings, nothing really artistic) and is a good gateway to other biographies. My 6 year old like this book so much she ran around pretending to be Sacagawea for about a week afterward. We went out and got a few more titles in the series, purely because they're so readable. One caution is that some biographies include some of the less savoury details about their subjects. The Thomas Jefferson bio contains information about his affair with Sally Hemmings, his black slave (not withstanding the fact that this affair is hotly debated by historians). While this is handled in mild and appropriate ways, parents need to be aware that it's there in case they would prefer not to have their children read it. The Tom Jefferson one is one we skipped because we didn't feel it was appropriate for a 6 year old to be reading, nor did we feel like explaining it to her at this age. Just be aware that some of the bios may raise topics you might not want to address if your child is on the younger end of the reading range.

My 9-y/o daughter absolutely loves this series of biographies and could not be persuaded to wait until our Lewis & Clark unit before she read this. While it didn't strike me as a particularly outstanding book, and the illustrations are mediocre at best, she enjoyed the fact that she could easily read and understand it. The book sparked an interest in Sacagawea and the Expedition, and she obviously learned a lot from reading it. Here is the twenty-star review she wrote for me (to be read very dramatically): "There is a story about a young girl who was captured by Minnataree, was brought on an expedition featuring exciting adventures, leading men across rivers and through mountains with a newborn baby on her back. She found food when they were hungry, medicine when they were sick... Her name is - Sacagawea."

I gave this book to my 6 year-old granddaughter and this really got her interested in "history." This has turned out to be her favorite book. It helps for her to live in Charlottesville, VA (home of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello). There is a statue of Lewis & Clark downtown. If you look carefully and don't blink your eyes you'll see Sacagawea in the back of them, sitting at their feet. I explained to her that it should have been the other way around. She should have been prominent and they should have been at her feet because if it wasn't for this young native woman, the now famous trek commissioned by "Mr. Jefferson" (as the locals say), they would have starved to death/and or killed long before reaching their destination.

This book starts out in Idaho. It's about a woman named Sacagawea, who was taken away from her family. A few of her friends left her. The men who came for her called her bird woman.Sacagawea got married when she was 15 and had a baby. She guided Lewis and Clark across the Western United States. They had to map it out for Thomas Jefferson after the Lousianna Purchase. It took a long time for them to travel to the Pacific and back. She was a huge help to them because she knew what food was safe to eat and what to use for injuries, and helped communicate to the Native Americans they encountered along the way. Lewis and Clark and her took a ship to find here family and they did. Lewis shot himself. Sacagawea died in1896. I think another title for this book should be The Life About Sacagawea. I think she should have lived longer. I will like to tell people to read this book because it's a great educational book. The best part was when she had her baby. The part that I didn't like was when she died. She is a true American heroine.