Tree in the Trail: A Cottonwood Tree Witnesses American History on the Santa Fe Trail for Kids (Ages 10-12)

Great way for the kids to learn. The old books bring up so many more questions and conversations.

This uplifting book is from a simpler time before all the present day woke crap. The author is also a great illustrator ,and that makes his books good for children to grow up with. His book "Paddle to the Sea" is excellent.

I remember reading this book as a child decades ago. It ages well and I bought it for my grandchildren.

Holling does great work with the illustrations and even better work with the stories he tells. I learned a great deal about the American west reading this children's book. The drawings in the margins are like an encyclopedia of knowledge about the artifacts and culture of the American West. Must reading for every American.

Read these in primary school, loved them then, still educational and beautiful now.

This will be a gift for my grandson. I had the book when I was young and loved it.

Holling Clancy Holling's stories are not your typical kiddy fare that fills the shelves today...you, know, the lame storylines or action books with bad grammar. You won't get bad grammar and mindless mass-produced stories in these books. You will get an engaging tale that sparks the imagination and instructs the intellect. We enjoyed these with our homeschooled children and now use them in unit studies with others we tutor. They are great to use for younger students to launch history and geography studies. (We can recommend getting the Beautiful Feet geography maps that supplement these books...more expensive than a map print off from the internet but so beautifully constructed that the project becomes something the child and family want to keep.) The Holling stories ARE from a 1950's perspective, and they ARE from a secular viewpoint, so you do get some old fashion "campfire" mythology. You also get old-fashion American pioneer enthusiasm for adventure and an opportunity to reflect on the full panorama of American life without all the modern cynicism...very refreshing for many of us. We simply chose the panorama as opportunity to discuss our family values as need be. Tree in the Trail tells the tale of social development in the Southwest from Indians to missionaries to white settlers. The "campfire" mythology of the tree is more prevalent than Paddle to the Sea or Seabird, but still remains only a backdrop and does reflect how some Indian mythology while not embraced was acknowledged and passed along by many of the early white settlers. Tree in the Trail did feel a little longer than Paddle to the Sea and Seabird, but only by 2 pages. I felt I could have skipped the last 2 page non-illustrated denouement. Of this series, I can't recommend Minn of the Mississippi. It is written in a much more difficult reading style, assumed some secular science which would require higher reasoning discussion for families than the series style generally supports (although the illustrations Holling uses came from a opponent of Darwinism), and the story in Minn of the Mississippi simply was a far less engaging and had far less useful side-bar lessons.

The story of the tree on the Santa Fe trail was so so good, I want it to be true so I could see the yoke made from it. The illustrations were fantastic. We used it for homeschooling and we learned so much about the trail and the people that traveled it. I HIGHLY recommend this book.

this is a wonderful book, which captures the history of the West through the narrative of the tree.

This book was part of my children's geography homeschooling. What a fun, interesting book. it would be even more interesting if it were Canadian :) - but I really enjoyed the book, and so did my children. We colored maps, adding on the places mentioned in the book, drew our own pictures of the tech (flintlock guns, the yoke, stockades), jotted down information in our illustrated notebooks, and it was a fun little addition.

grand daughter read it liked it

Lovely book, lovely illustrations, A4 size too which was a nice surprise,

Excellent book, highly recommended.