Life on the Oregon Trail

by Sally Senzell Isaacs

The Picture the Past series looks at the many kinds of communities in America's past. Each book describes what made each community different and what children and adults did each day. Life on the Oregon Trail In this book, discover what it was like to be a part of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. Find out how children went to school on the trail. Visit a fort on the trail to learn how travelers traded with Native Americans. Discover how travelers found and prepared food. Then use a recipe to cook an Oregon Trail mealbacon stew!

32 pages, Paperback

First published July 25, 2000

About the author

Sally Senzell Isaacs grew up in Evansville, Indiana, and graduated from Indiana University. She served as Editorial Director of Readers Digest Educational Division before becoming a professional writer. She has written over 40 books about American history and other social studies topics for children. In 2005, her book Cattle Trails and Cowboys (Heinemann Library) won the award for Best Childrens Book on Texas History, given by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a great introduction to the Oregon Trail. We read this as part of TruthQuest History (2nd grade). Although books with a narrative are by far our favorite way to learn history, this wasn’t as dry as a textbook and introduced facts in an interesting way. My 8 year old wore her pioneer bonnet during the reading of this, and was so intrigued by pioneer life, she requested I buy her and her sister pioneer girl costumes (which I already did - thank you, Amazon!). I’m excited to delve into more living books on this subject.