How to Get Rich on a Texas Cattle Drive: In Which I Tell the Honest Truth About Rampaging Rustlers, Stampeding Steers and Other Fateful Hazards on the Wild Chisolm Trail

How to Get Rich Series

by Tod Olson, Scott Allred (Illustrator), Gregory Proch (Illustrator)

How to Get Rich on a Texas Cattle Drive follows the adventures of a 15-year-old cowhand on the famous Chisholm Trail through Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, as he battles stampedes, rustlers, angry Comanche braves, territorial Kansas farmers, and half a continent’s worth of dust. With a combination of tongue-in-cheek humor and actual historical detail, this fictional account draws from the personal accounts of cowhands who drove cattle from the plains of Texas to the railheads of the Midwest in the 1800’s to capture the American drive towards success and riches.

National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

Genres: Nonfiction

48 pages, Library Binding

First published March 9, 2010

About the author

Tod Olson is author of the historical fiction series HOW TO GET RICH, a Booklist Top Ten Series Non Fiction for Youth selection (don't tell them, but it's fiction). The first two books in his narrative nonfiction series, LOST, are now available. Tod lives with his family in Vermont and holds an MFA from Vermont College of the Fine Arts.

Reviews

[Tricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for third graders or fourth graders studying the Western Expansion. This is a National Geographic book. I was so happy to stumble upon this book at a Library Book Sale!
Teachers, this is a treasure to have in your classroom library, plenty of great illustrations and a terrific “Encyclopedia” of western terms and short biographies of several individuals who were involved with shaping the Western American Frontier.
How to Get Rich on a Texas Cattle Drive: In Which I Tell the Honest Truth About Rampaging Rustlers, Stampeding Steers and Other Fateful Hazards on the Wild Chisolm Trail
Tod Olson

[Dawn Fielder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book to use to teach the Cattle Kingdom unit of 4th grade Texas History.

[Jessi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is set up like a scrapbook of a young cowhand, with a very interesting visual elements that draw the eye into wanting to look at every tidbit of information. Each section has a diary entry written by a young protagonist with pictures (real or wonderfully drawn) that illustrate what each aspect of cattle-driving life was like. The most attention getting items on the page are the historical facts that are captions for each picture. There are also interesting maps of important areas and how-tos on things like branding and driving a herd. There are other primary source-ish documents like account ledgers and old encyclopedia entries.

This is great for those interested in history. It would be awesome for a classroom library or even for a history teacher trying to engage students with something different. It brings this period of history to life in a way that I have not seen before.

[Deanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting blend of fact and fiction makes this account of life on a Texas cattle drive a must-read. An excellent list of further reading and online resources accompanies the Encyclopedia of the Texas Cattle Drive "in which unusual words and historical figures are defined and described...." Beautifully illustrated with a mix of historically authentic lithographs and "Little John Larken's" drawings. The humor and lively telling of Larken's adventures make this book a colorful and interesting introduction to the period.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always wanted to be a cowboy. I remeber watching movie of the Lone Ranger and reading about Tom Mix , Buck Jones, Tim McCoy. The main story in this book is about a great cattle drive and the hard living the cowboys would go thru to get the cattle form one place to another. The illustrations are great and I think the children will appreciate this book.

[Duane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for any young/preteen reader interested in the Wild West. Geared more as a scrapbook/journal, the "author" recounts his years of being a cowboy. With great illustrations and photographs,readers will learn quite a bit about the rough & tumble of the cowboy years. My only complaint is the use of a "cuss" word. Seemed like it was out of place in a juvenile non fiction book.

[Gail Shipley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cowboy who wrote this has a sense of humor which comes out in the writing. Boys will love this book. It has so much going on on each page with the drawings, photos, sidebars and descriptions of events in the life of a cowboy. Very informative. Well done.