Pony Express!

by Steven Kroll, Dan Andreasen (Illustrator)

The story of the first Pony Express ride captures the spirit of the California Gold Rush and places the modern mail service in an entirely new perspective with a mini-museum of the Post Office that details pre-Pony Express activities. Reprint.

Genres: History, Childrens, Picture Books

Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Stephen Kroll spoke at schools and conferences all over the world. He was married to the journalist, Kathleen Beckett, and they lived in New York City and an old carriage house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. When he was not writing or traveling, he played a lot of tennis and walked around looking at everything.

Reviews

[Madison Ramsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is telling the history of the Pony Express. The story is that of the riders who traveled long distances to send communications for Americans. This system was not the fastest way to communicate, but at the time, it was a great improvement from the system of sending mail by ship around the tip of South America.

This story would be perfect for upper elementary. It could be used in a history unit about the Gold Rush. I loved the historical accuracy and the different images and maps in the back of the book that gave a more comprehensive representation of the Pony Express system.

[Shari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations however story is less than desirable for reading aloud to children. Very hard to keep the attention of my kids since it was pretty dry filled with so many names and dates. Read more like a textbook with pretty pictures.

[Stephanie Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has beautiful illustrations and tells a fascinating story, but takes too long to do so! Not a book you can sit down with a group of kids and read to from beginning to end.

[Falan Miller]

"Pony Express" is about how back in 1848 the big gold rush was beginning. The people wanted to get word back and fourth from home quickly. William H. Russell decided to invent the Pony Express. The rest of the book talks about the riders who delivered the mail and all the different challenges they faced.

This book was okay. I didn't really like it because it almost had too much information on each page. I feel like children would get bored quickly. This book just seemed like it tried to fit too much information into one book.

This book could be used in a classroom for teaching children about history of the west and how things came about.

[Tori Davenport]

This was a good book about the Pony Express. It was entertaining as well as informational. It would be a great book to read to students when studying the old west of America. It is a great telling of the first run of the Pony Express. It tells all of the places they went and explains about what happened after the pony express stopped, and why it stopped. This would also be a good book for students who are writing about this topic or this time period.

[Kaitlyn Elmerick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genre: Informational
Grade level: Intermediate/Upper Elementary
This book would be for upper elementary students. It is a good book to explain the Pony Express and has pictures which help with understanding what is going on.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too many dates and a little tricky to follow for younger listeners but interesting. I learned a lot!

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

In service for only about 18 months, the Pony Express carried the mail between St. Louis and California in just days before the trancontential telegraph was completed.

[Dexter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good look at the Pony Express that makes it easy to understand and interesting, also with nice pictures.