York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark: An African-American's Part in the Great Expedition

by Rhoda Blumberg

Book Overview

Relates the adventures of York, a slave and body servant to William Clark, who journeyed west with the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060091118
• ISBN13: 9780060091118
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.8" x 11.4"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Award winner

Love the pictures. Great story, a perspective not heard much about. Read aloud with your Lewis and Clark unit.

Nonsentimental and straightforward

An overlooked character is given a very three dimensional portrait in this book. The book should be given credit for portraying all the people in the expedition what is most likely a more honest rendering (ie, that Lewis and Clark both owned slaves, weren't always kind to them, and that at the end of his life, York was not treated very fairly by Clark, and the two parted company in a sour way.) The expedition is presented in a way that is easy to follow, and with a historical perspective not typically seen in childrens book.

Oprah pick of the week

Rhoda Blumberg's YORK'S ADVENTURES WITH LEWIS AND CLARK: An African-American's Part in the Great Expedition, cries out for an Oprah spotlight. Blumberg painstakingly and faithfully recreates how York worked, starved, sweated, suffered, and trailblazed alongside Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea (one of several slaves married to one of the expedition's interpreters, rough-and-tumble Toussaint Charbonneau), and the rest of the crew. A phenomenal human story and a tragic lesson of how prejudice causes society to undervalue a great man's contributions to American and world history.