Author Description

"Based on extensive research into personal accounts of the Oregon Trail, comic authors David Lasky and Frank Young have created a graphic narrative of one family's epic journey. The main character is an 11-year-old girl whose family is setting course for the west to seek new opportunities and to escape the "overcrowded and filth" of the eastern city where they had been living. Revealed is all of the planning, equipment, and logistics involved in such a trip. The book features a series of two-page spreads detailing a visual inventory of everything the family has with them - the parts of a covered wagon and a personal annotated map of the trail. Readers get a ground-level feel for what it was like to be part of this storied migration west - not a dry recitation of dates and facts, but an immediately memorable living history"-- "Based on extensive research into personal accounts of the Oregon Trail, comic authors David Lasky and Frank Young have created a graphic narrative of one family's epic journey on the Oregon Trail--from St. Louis across the high plains, mountains, and on to Oregon. Along the way they encounter all manner of difficulties and triumphs on this most arduous route. The main character is an 11-year-old girl whose family of four is setting course for the west to seek new opportunities and to escape the "overcrowded and filth" of the eastern city where they had been living. Revealed is all of the planning, equipment, and logistics involved in such a trip (remember, this is 1850). The book will feature a series of two-page spreads that detail such matters as a visual inventory of everything the family has with them; the parts of a covered wagon; Native Americans of the time; and a personal annotated map of the trail. Readers will get a ground-level feel for what it was like to be part of this storied migration west--not a dry recitation of dates, facts, and place names, but rather a living history that is immediate and memorable"--