York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark

Blumberg, Rhoda. 2004. "York's Adventures with Lewis and Clark". New York: Harper Collins. pp 88. ISBN: 0-06-009111-8

From Booklist

Gr. 4-8. Blumberg, author of The Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark (1987), now offers an account of the same journey featuring York, the only African American member of the Corps of Discovery. William Clark's playmate as a child and later his personal slave, York joined his master on the expedition, where his strength, skills, and courageous acts were recorded in the journals. His black skin and strong physique amazed and impressed many of the Native Americans, perhaps helping the corps gain acceptance. Blumberg notes that without York, the expedition might have failed. Reproductions of paintings, prints, photographs, documents, and artifacts illustrate this large-format book, which concludes with a bibliography, Internet sites, and several pages of endnotes, containing background information and citations for the many quotations from books, letters, and journals. Although much of York's life was unrecorded, this clearly presents what is known and acknowledges speculation where it occurs. Your shelves may be bulging with Lewis and Clark expedition books in this bicentennial year, but make room for this one. Carolyn Phelan
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This book takes a traditional subject for a student and puts a new twist on it. They suddenly see the story from a diverse perspective rather than the traditional way of two white men discover the west. It may interest the African- American students much more. One of my goals as a teacher is to get something to relate to all in the classroom. This is a great book to implement in a social studies class to teach another dimension of Lewis and Clark.