Synopses & Reviews
Oct. 22, 1803
Capt. Lewis noticed that I kept a journal. I told him Ma had sent it to me. That I wrote in it faithfully so that she and the others back home might one day read of my adventure.
Hearing this, Capt. Lewis got all worked up, the way he does. "That's it, Pup!" he said. "Write your story, a private's story, of the Expedition!" He said I must put down exactly how I see things. He said he would never ask to read my journal. That it would exist for posterity, that was what mattered. He went on and on, and I lost him in parts. He finished by saying, "Write a true and honest story, Pup. Tell how you left your home and your family, how you left America and all that you knew to voyage out into the Great Unknown!"
Naturally, I said, "Yes, sir!"
Synopsis
In 1804, 16-year-old George Shannon joined Lewis and Clark on their perilous two-year journey across the continent. Based on extensive research, this fictional journal tells the story of George's adventures with the Corps of Discovery. Maps and spot art.
About the Author
Kate McMullan is the authorof many books for young readers, includingI Stink!, winner of a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor; I'm Mighty; and Meg's Prairie Diary, a historical fiction trilogy set in St. Louis and Kansas in 1856. She has been fascinated by the Lewis and Clark Expedition since the age of ten, when an uncle told her about an ancestor who had gone on the expedition. That ancestor was sixteen-year-old George Shannon. Ms. McMullan lives in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York, with her husband and collaborator, noted illustrator Jim McMullan, their daughter, two cats, and a dog.