Sacajawea of the Shoshone

by Natasha Yim, Albert Nguyen (Illustrator)

Overview

One minute she was picking berries and the next her tribe was under attack. Running for her life, Sacajawea was scooped up and taken far away from her village and family—and into history. From her mountain home to the banks of the Missouri River, over the majestic Rockies to the pounding waves of the Pacific, Sacajawea would travel farther than any American woman of her time.

Richly illustrated and smartly narrated, this book brings to life the story of the real and remarkable Shoshone princess who helped Captains Lewis and Clark navigate their way across the American West.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780984509867
Publisher:	Goosebottom Books
Publication date:	10/06/2012
Series:	Thinking Girl's Treasury of Real Princesses Series
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 10.50(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	1030L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 13 Years

About the Author

Natasha Yim is a children’s author and an accomplished playwright. Her books include Otto's Rainy Day, published by Charlesbridge Publishing and selected as a Kids’ Pick of the Lists, Cixi “The Dragon Empress” in The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames, and Sacajawea of the Shoshone in the The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses. A new picture book, Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas, is due out from Charlesbridge in 2014. Natasha has also written plays that have been staged in the U.S. and abroad. She lives in Northern California with her family.

Responsible for the pen-and-watercolor illustrations that bring our princesses to life, Albert Nguyen received his MFA from the Academy of Art in 2006. He grew up in Minnesota before moving to San Francisco. In addition to being fond of drawing, painting, comics, and cartoons, Albert has a special affection for chubby animals.
The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses are his first children’s books.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 3–4—Sporadic fictionalization and speculation make this book an uneven resource. Sacajawea, an iconic figure in United States history, became a legend for guiding explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark through the newly acquired Louisiana Territory from 1805 to 1806. Yim's account of Sacajawea's story vacillates between straightforward facts and unsupported speculation. The first page tells a sensationalized version of Sacajawea's childhood kidnapping, during which "clouds of dust swirled across the plains," Sacajawea's "heart thudded against her chest," and "a pair of muscular arms scooped her up." Although the rest of the book stays closer to verifiable facts, nothing indicates that Yim has taken some artistic liberties for this exciting introduction. The author also offers a poor model for young researchers when she postulates that Sacajawea "certainly must have preferred" a tepee to an earthen hut, and "must have been very glad" to share a home with her husband's first wife, but does not offer any supporting evidence of the young woman's feelings. Some visuals, including photos of Lewis and Clark's diaries, are appropriate inclusions; others, such as a roaring grizzly bear and a WikiCommons photo of unidentified plains, merely fill space. Poor design devalues the useful pictures of primary sources by shrinking them to the point of indecipherability and placing several of them in the middle of the gutter. Joyce Milton's Sacajawea: Her True Story (Grosset & Dunlap, 2001) is a more responsible biography for young readers.—Allison Bruce, Bank Street Library, New York City

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