Overview
What was the Louisiana Purchase?
For this sale of more than 800,000 square miles (2 million sq. kilometers) of land, the United States paid France $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States overnight!
Inside, You'll Find:
What was known as the "first frontier";
Maps, a timeline, photos-and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show;
Surprising True facts that will shock and amaze you!
Synopsis
What was the Louisiana Purchase?
For this sale of more than 800,000 square miles (2 million sq. kilometers) of land, the United States paid France $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States overnight!
Inside, You'll Find:
What was known as the "first frontier";
Maps, a timeline, photos-and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show;
Surprising True facts that will shock and amaze you!
Children's Literature
Despite the title, this book in the "A True Book" series unfolds more like an arm-wrestling match than a westward migration. The first two chapters deal primarily with international territorial disputes, proclamations, ordinances, and land purchases. The adventures of Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and mountain men Davy Crockett and Jim Beckwourth are touched on in chapters two and three. Jessie Benton Fremont also gets credit for inspiring westward migration through the writings dictated to her by her explorer husband John C. Fremont. The laws and battles to remove Native Americans from their lands take up chapter four. In chapter five, the Oregon Trail and the migration of 5,000 Mormons to Utah share space with the discovery of gold in California and the short history of the Pony Express. Like the sudden conclusion of an arm-wrestling match, chapter six declares the westward expansion accomplished entirely. The selection of words to be accompanied by parenthetical pronunciation throughout the text is somewhat random. A few of the suggested pronunciations seem a little off, but one is wrong entirely. In a paragraph on the Battle of San Jacinto in the special section "The Big Truth," the pronunciation given for San Jacinto is (HA-seen-toe); however, according to docents at the San Jacinto Monument and Museum of History, which commemorates the battle, the San Jacinto College, and the San Jacinto County tax office, the American pronunciation (Ja-SIN-toe) is correct for this conclusive Texas conflict. The Spanish pronunciation refers to a city and a mountain in California. Another flaw is that over half of the entries in the "True Statistics" section are not statistics. Other end material includes a glossary, a resource list, an index, and an author's page. Reviewer: Heather N. Kolich