Our daughter has recently read this book. She has dyslexia and read it without hesitation. She is 10 and the author mentioned in this book how she wrote easy reading for children who needed that type of reading. She targeted the audience perfectly in our situation. I found the book as refreshing as our daughter did. I have purchased the book on Amanzon.Com because it was the first available of a book that is not in circulation. The book and author has touched our lives in ways you will only know if you are in the world of dyslexia.

... I really liked this book. Betsy and her cousin George and their families are traveling west in the 1800s. George does everything he can to bother Betsy. It works everytime! There was no T.V. or radios to enertain the children, they had to make up games. It was fun to read about how things where in that time of history. If you have to read a historical fiction for a book report, this is a good one to choose.

I'd give this book six stars if it were allowed! Zenas Leonard came out to the American West as a fur trapper in 1831, this is his own narrative. He started out under the leadership of Captain Gant trapping beaver and traveling extensively throughout the west. Later he joined in with the famous Captain Joseph Walker expedition to explore a passage to California. You simply can not put this book down! Indians, grizzlies, starvation and thirst, freezing temperatures, more Indian troubles, first white men to see Yosemite and the Redwoods, one adventure after another! Vivid descriptions of what it was like back then. An engrossing book!

This book is very, very interesting. My seven year old daughter loved this book. The book is about the dfferent homesteads that Laura and her family had lived and the adventures of not only Laura's, but Jack, her bulldog, as well. This book is bound to keep any child on the edge of their sits with the dangerous experiences that Laura and Jack and her family face. The reader of this book with experience many different emotions from being happy to tears of sadness. I recommend this book to all children.

An excellent first hand narrative with lively and descriptive writing by one of the first pioneers to help settle the untamed Northwest. Alexander Ross joined Astor's Pacific Fur Company expedition in 1810 and this is his story of the day to day struggles which he and the other men had to overcome. He left New York on the soon to be ill-fated, doomed ship the Tonquin, with a pompous and overbearing Captain Thorn. They sailed around the tip of South America, then to Hawaii and finally to the mouth of the Columbia River, all the while prevailing over many hardships during this voyage. Upon landing and without delay, the men began to construct the trading post Astoria. Ross' detailed descriptions of their adventures amidst the forces of Mother Nature, Indian relations, the Northwest Fur Company, geography, etc. makes this book a real page turner. They all had many obstacles to overcome, and as I said, his writing skills are exemplary. He devotes the last few chapters to the culture and customs of one of the local Indian tribes. The man was a keen and acute observer of all his surroundings and this is an energetic effort on his part to put it in writing.

For anyone curious about the mystique of Alaska, this is a must-read. If you can't make a trip to Alaska, this is the next best thing. Not only for women, anyone will enjoy this book.

Terry G. Jordan and Matti Kaups studied America's frontier culture to discern its ethnic heritage. Most historians of the American frontier locate its origin in the vicinity of the Delaware Valley.

Jordan and Kaups consider evidence from literature, anthropology and architecture. The authors discussed the equipment carried by frontier hunters, the primitive and ecologically exahustive farming and homesteading techniques, the building of log cabins and even the notches in fence rails to trace the possible origin of American frontier culture.

Anyone interested in frontier or colonial history should consult this work, as should anyone studying the history of ethnic diversity and racism in North America. This book is a particularly good supplement to David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, which considers localized seedbeds for four regional cultures. The authors repeatedly acknowledge the Indian contribution to the frontiersman's capability. The debt to Native America is clear. Sadly, the authors illuminate few particulars in this regard.

The scholarship is meticulous, the investigation fastidiously detailed. The authors were determined to prove their case; they have done so in a style that is both interesting and convincing.

When I started this book I didn't think it would be any good, but as I read more I found it was great. I highly recomend this book.

Compiled and edited by Emily Foster, American Grit: A Woman's Letters From The Ohio Frontier is an inherently fascinating collection of correspondence from the first half of the nineteenth century, written by Anna Briggs Bentley, a devout Quaker wife determined not to lose contact with her mother and sister. Filled with emotion, a willingness to work, love for her family and her many children, and a great deal more, American Grit provides contemporary readers with a compelling and enjoyable look through a kind of "window of time" at daily life in rugged terrain. A fine work enhanced with brief annotations for clarity, American Grit is very highly recommended for Women's Studies and American History Studies collections and reading lists.

Truthfully, I cannot stand biographies. However, my literature class required me to read a biography, which I must admit, I looked upon with much dismay. I happen to be a very lucky indeed, though, because I had really been meaning to read this book forever (I happen to have known Joyce Anders since I was very young and I love her very much, but my review isnt biased), and what could have been a more opportune time than this? I read it with growing relish and it proved to be a very fascinating book indeed. I loved it and I hope other people have enjoyed reading Joyces story as much as I have. It is a history that is, with in itself, unmatched in uniqueness by any other and I whole heartedly recommend it to the biography shy.