Check out These Great

WAGON TRAIN BOOKS




Check out this great selection of children's Wagon Train books



If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon
by: Ellen Levine, Elroy Freem (Illustrator)

Children's Literature - Paperback, July 1992
Age Range: 7 to 10

A provocative question-and-answer format and a multitude of facts bring to life the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. New larger format with full-color illustrations. This book answers many questions you have about kids on the westward trail. What did they do for fun? What were their chores? What did they eat? If you enjoy history you'd enjoy this book.

If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon
If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon


Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl
by: Marissa Moss

Children's Literature - Paperback, April 2001
Age Range: Young Adult

Covered wagons, glowing buffalo muffins, raging river crossings, mouse pills, and friendly Indians are the images shared through the words and drawings of Rachel. She and her family bravely press on beyond the Continental Divide, left at the Oregon Trail, through the desert to the Sierra Mountains, and on to California. In her journal, Rachel chronicles her family's adventures traveling by covered wagon on the Oregon Trail in 1850.

Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl
Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl


Wagon Train
by: Sydelle A. Kramer

Children's Literature - Paperback, October 1997
Age Range: 6 to 10

Some writers glamorize the facts for young children. This recent non-fiction entry avoids that trap. In simple language and with few words on each fully illustrated page, the true story of the hardships, frustrations, setbacks, and joys of wagon train travel is told. Readers follow one wagon train as it leaves Missouri, bound for California. Along the way, they share the pioneer experiences of fording rivers, climbing mountains, crossing deserts, meeting Indians! The illustrations complement the hard-working text with drawings that radiate the colors of the American heartland.

Wagon Train, Vol. 2
Wagon Train, Vol. 2


Going West (My First Little House Books Series)
by: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Renee Graef (Illustrator)

Children's Literature - Paperback, September 1997
Age Range: 5 to 9

Another in the "Little House Books" series, by Laura Ingalls of the TV series fame. These children's historical narrations have been cherished by millions of readers ever since they were first published over sixity-five years ago. In this edition a young pioneer girl and her family prepare to leave the big woods of Wisconsin and travel west in their covered wagon.

Going West (My First Little House Books Series)
Going West (My First Little House Books Series)


Daily Life in a Covered Wagon
by: Paul Erickson

Children's Literature - Paperback, June 1997
Age Range: Young Adult

This thoroughly researched and abundantly illustrated book tracks the Larkin family as they travel west to Oregon from their home in Indiana in the year 1853. Their journal entries help the author tell an authentic and de-glamorized tale of pioneer life. Discover how a typical family really lived: how they dressed; what they ate; what they saw; how they survived the hazardous journey.It's a fascinatingly personal view of the daily reality for travelers on a Wagon Train west.

Daily Life in a Covered Wagon
Daily Life in a Covered Wagon


Westward To Home: Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary
by: Patricia Hermes

Children's History - Paperback, July 2002
Age Range: 7 to 10

In 1848, nine-year-old Joshua Martin McCullough writes a journal of his family's journey from Missouri to Oregon in a covered wagon. During their seven-month-long journey, many of the other families on the trail suffer devastating losses, but Joshua's is spared. However, Joshua must conquer his paralyzing fear of water to cross the many rivers on their way and rescue his sister from drowning.

Westward To Home: Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary
Westward To Home: Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary


Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails
by: Verla Kay, S. D. Schindler (Illustrator)

Children's History - Hardcover, September 2000
Age Range: 5 to 8

This inventive rhyming tale makes American history accessible to young children. Using four lines per page, and usually no more than four syllables per line, the author describes a pioneer family's journey to California. As their voyage progresses, prized possessions are abandoned out of necessity, and rough weather and terrain chisel away at the entire wagon train. The family finally arrives in the Sacramento Valley with little more than the bare essentials. A simple map offer additional insights into the hardships of the trip and the resourcefulness of the travelers bold enough to undertake it.

Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails
Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails


The Wagon Train
by: Jill Bryant

Children's History - Hardcover, January 2003
Age Range: 8 to 12

Set in a time when America was young and ever expanding westward this book explores what it was like to travel across the vast plains and Rocky mountains by wagon train. It has many details, including first-hand accounts about such things as cooking on the trail, or the endless dangers and obstacles faced almost daily.

Wagon Train
Wagon Train


West by Covered Wagon: Retracing the Pioneer Trails
by: Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, William Munoz (Illustrator)

Children's History - Hardcover, October 1995
Age Range: 9 to 12

This is a unique chronicle of the westward movement because it is paired with a modern-day reenactment of a wagon-train expedition. The photo-essay collaboration follows a Montana family on a weekend covered wagon journey across the Flathead Indian Reservation, comparing their experiences with those of nineteenth-century pioneers. Although many elements of the trek remain the same (open-air wagons pulled by livestock across unpaved terrain), contemporary travelers take advantage of modern conveniences, including fresh drinking water, ready-to-eat foods, and up-to-date camping supplies. Munoz's crisp, color photos appear on nearly every page, clarifying details of the text for young readers.

West by Covered Wagon: Retracing the Pioneer Trails
West by Covered Wagon: Retracing the Pioneer Trails


Words West: Voices of Young Pioneers
by: Ginger Wadsworth

Children's History - Hardcover, November 2003
Age Range: 12 to Young Adult

Among the tens of thousands of pioneers who left home in covered wagons in the 1800s, some forty thousand were children. These children became an integral part of U.S. history. In this unique approach to the history of the wagon trail and western expansion, here are the moving stories of these young pioneers, told in their own words through letters home, diaries, and memoirs.

Words West: Voices of Young Pioneers
Words West: Voices of Young Pioneers


Along the Santa Fe Trail: Marion Russell's Own Story
By: Marion Russell, Marion Sloan Russell, Ginger Wadsworth (Editor), James Watling (Illustrator)

Children's History - Hardcover, August 1993
Age Range: 7 to 11

In 1852, seven-year-old Marion Russell, her mother and brother traveled in a train of 500 wagons along the Santa Fe Trail, from Fort Leavenworth, Kans., to California. The narrative shows the child's daily routine as she comments on the sights and stops along the way, the weather, the lack of water, the animals they encountered, and the hostile and friendly Indians. The flowing text is complemented by Watling's evocative paintings of placid buffalo, the wagon train in a storm, and the bustle of Santa Fe. A solid choice as a personalized view of westward expansion, told from a woman's point of view.

Along the Santa Fe Trail: Marion Russell's Own Story
Along the Santa Fe Trail: Marion Russell's Own Story


Wagon Wheels A'rollin'
by: Daisy Belle Ackley

First Person History - Paperback, December 1999

Daisy Bell Catherine Brown was only eight years old in 1880, when her physician father, her mother, grandmother, siblings and other relatives decided to join a wagon train and head for Oregon on the Old Oregon Trail. Seventy-two years later when she was eighty years old she began writting her book. In her lifetime she married three husbands, and outlived them all. She died at the age of ninety-three. Daisy saw it all, from a wagon train crossing the plains to astronauts in space. She tells how it was on the American frontier, when men were men and women were glad of it.

Wagon Wheels A'rollin'
Wagon Wheels A'rollin'


Covered Wagon Women: , Vol. 1
by: Kenneth L. Holmes (Editor), Kenneth Holmes (Compiler), Anne M. Butler (Introduction)

Historical Diaries - Paperback, October 1995

In 1852 a record number of women helped keep the wagons rolling over the perilous western trails. This volume of Covered Wagon Women is devoted to families headed for California. Diaries and letters of six pioneer women describe the rigors en route, trailside celebrations and tragedies, the scourge of cholera, and encounters with the Indians.

Covered Wagon Women:, Vol. 1
Covered Wagon Women:, Vol. 1


Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850, Vol. 2
by: Kenneth L. Holmes (Editor), Kenneth Holmes (Compiler), Lillian Schlissel (Introduction)

Historical Diaries - Paperback, May 1996

The personal diaries of women crossing America in covered wagons told of the ingenuity, courage, bravery, loneliness, fear, boredom, excitement and danger they encountered "Margaret Frink's" diary was a great discovery describing her observations of the cholera epidemic, the social encounters with the Indians who followed the wagons, the cost of provisions along the way.

Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850, Vol. 2
Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850, Vol. 2


Covered Wagon Women Volume 3
by: Kenneth L. Holmes (Editor & Compiler), Susan H. Armitage (Introduction)

Historical Diaries - Paperback, September 1996

Expectations of gold, rich farmland, and healthful climate propelled some fifty thousand overlanders. Among the women making the trip west to California and Oregon in 1850 were six whose diaries and letters give distinction to this volume of Covered Wagon Women. The Book describes preparations for the journey, lodging and camping along the way, landmarks, encounters with Indians, the problem of finding grass and water for the livestock, and early days in Sacramento.

Covered Wagon Women Volume 3
Covered Wagon Women Volume 3


The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
By: David Dary

History - Paperback, REISSUE, February 2002

This book tells the story of the Santa Fe Trail, that runs for 900 miles between Missouri and Kansas and New Mexico. Firsthand accounts by native Americans, trappers, soldiers, and men and women of many nationalities give insight on daily life. It has an unforgettable procession of dreamers and doers, losers and winners, villains and heroes and heroines. It's a well-told and carefully researched book which includes many b&w photos and illustrations.

The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore


Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865
by: Sarah Raymond Herndon

First Person History - Paperback, April 2003

In 1865, as the Civil War finally came to an end, twenty-four-year-old Sarah Raymond headed west with her mother and two younger brothers. Traveling by wagon train over the Great Plains toward the Rocky Mountains, the Raymonds had no certain idea of where they would settle, but they were determined to leave war-torn Missouri behind them. Sarah's diary provides a unique first-person account of life on the trail. Her detailed recording of each day's activities and adventures provides a rare glimpse into the private lives and hardships endured by the many pioneers. Originally published in 1902, this book, is an inspiring tale of a remarkable young woman and a tribute to all the emigrants who made their way west.

Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865, the Diary of Sarah Raymond Herndon
Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865, the Diary of Sarah Raymond Herndon




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