Explore the Wild West! 25 Great Projects, Activities, Experiments invites young readers ages 6–9 to experience the spirit of the Wild West. Kids learn about explorers who mapped the American West, Native Americans, gold miners, cowboy culture, cattle drives, Wild West legends, frontier towns, peacekeepers, lawbreakers, and much more. Through projects ranging from making a settler’s soddie to mining for gold, kids develop a better understanding of the rich history of the Wild West in the 1800s.

Now the kids of today can walk in the boots of wranglers of the Wild West. This new activity-packed addition to the American Kids in History Series transports readers to a cattle ranch near Cheyenne, deep in the Wyoming territory of the 1870s.

New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient Steve Sheinkin welcomes young readers to the thrilling, tragic, and downright wild historic adventure of America’s westward expansion in Which Way to the Wild West? Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn’t Tell You About America’s Westward Expansion, featuring illustrations by Tim Robinson. 1805: Explorer William Clark reaches the Pacific Ocean and pens the badly spelled line “Ocian in view! O! the joy!” (Hey, he was an explorer, not a spelling bee champion!) 1836: Mexican general Santa Anna surrounds the Alamo, trapping 180 Texans inside and prompting Texan William Travis to declare, “I shall never surrender or retreat.” 1861: Two railroad companies, one starting in the West and one in the East, start a race to lay the most track and create a transcontinental railroad. With a storyteller's voice and attention to the details that make history real and interesting, Steve Sheinkin delivers the wild facts about America's greatest adventure. From the Louisiana Purchase (remember: if you're negotiating a treaty for your country, play it cool.) to the gold rush (there were only three ways to get to California--all of them bad) to the life of the cowboy, the Indian wars, and the everyday happenings that defined living on the frontier. “An engaging...medley of anecdotes about the Wild West in nine lively chapters starting with the Louisiana Purchase and ending with the Lakota massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Casual vignettes of famous figures and ordinary people come to life.” —School Library Journal “Sheinkin builds his conversational narrative around stories of the men and women who peopled the west, with particular attention given to African Americans, Chinese workers, and everyday farmers and cowboys. There's plenty of humor here, but Sheinkin's strength is his ability to transition between events.”—The Horn Book Also by Steve Sheinkin: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America

"During the 1800s, many settlers moved westward across North America to seek their fortunes as farmers, ranchers, and miners. In the Wild West, there were few towns and few people paid much attention to laws. Readers will take a trip through this thrilling period of American history as they join Louise and Nat for a tale of cowboys in a frontier town. They will find out how people lived, worked, and traveled in the Wild West, and much more."--Publisher's description.

On 14 May 1804, one Captain Meriwether Lewis and his companion William Clark led a thirty-three-man expedition to the new lands of Louisiana. 8,000 miles and two years later, after rafting up the Missouri and crossing the Rocky Mountains, they reached the far side of the world, the Pacific Ocean. Fredrick Nolan explores the first US settlers of the American West, including the remarkable stories of unsung heroes and heroines, the bloody battles between settlers and the native American inhabitants, the crimes committed by corrupt Sheriffs, and the occasions when citizens had to take the law into their own hands. This is the story of the men and women who answered the call of the West.

Saddle up and get ready for a ride back into the wild and wooly past of the American West. The west was at its wildest from 1865 to 1895, when territories west of the Mississippi River remained untamed and lawless. Famous for cowboys, American Indians, lawmen, gunslingers, pioneers, and prospectors, this period in US history captures the imagination of all kids and now is brought vividly to life.

Will Wright explores the continuing popularity of the myth of the Wild West, demonstrating how, as a cultural icon, it speaks deeply to a desire for individualism and liberty. The author discusses the myth through market and social theory.

Re-explore the Wild West, where America's legends and myths were made, for the first time with fully colorized images by best-selling author and cinematographer John Guntzelman. The lure of the Wild West has been a driving force in the American experience. Originally the stuff of dreams, dime novels, and Wild West shows, the fascination continued in motion pictures such as The Great Train Robbery, High Noon, The Magnificent Seven, the so-called spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood, and hundreds more. Whether through the appeal of wide-open spaces, the control of our own destiny, or just the desire for a better life, the Wild West still strikes a chord that resonates within. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the country expanded westward ready to grow--and grow it did. The evocative landscapes of these unexplored lands were recorded by a number of excellent photographers: John C. H. Grabill; Edward S. Curtis; John K. Hillers; and Timothy O'Sullivan, the famed Civil War photographer. Many of their striking images survive and continue to inspire us today. These iconic and incredibly evocative photographs from another era capture the reality and immediacy of that time and only require the careful addition of color to make them far more accessible, believable, and meaningful to present-day readers. The Wild West in Color includes over 200 of the best black-and-white photographs from that time, fully colorized to bring this lost world back to life! It offers a new glimpse into a period of the American experience that has inspired countless books, motion pictures, and stories--a time that continues to resonate and inspire us to the present day.

Spotlights significant people and events in the history of the American West.