The Survival Series that celebrates the awesome history of us. "a must for every reading list" The shocking story of the doomed Donner Party expedition is told through the eyes of a brave young pioneer in this powerful survival adventure. From multi-award winning Ellie Crowe and Scott Peters.15-year-old Zeke is thrilled to be heading west with over eighty settlers on the famed Oregon Trail. But when their wagon train takes an ill-advised short cut, the pioneers find themselves trapped in a frozen mountain pass. As howling winter storms rage around the Donner Party, there's no way forward or back. Soon, starvation sets in. Zeke is faced with a terrible choice: join the other survivors in an unspeakable deed to survive, or attempt to walk out of the wilderness on sheer willpower alone. Can he ever hope to make it to California? Can he ever hope to escape? This is the 5th children's book in the I Escaped Series about brave kids who face real world challenges and find ways to escape. Sure to appeal to fans of books like I Survived by New York Times Bestseller Lauren Tarshis, stories about the Titanic, and readers of Alan Gratz. An important, relevant read about bravery and friendship during a terrible tragedy in American history.

15-year-old Zeke battles hunger, bears, and blizzards when their pioneer-wagon-train takes a wrong turn on the Oregon Trail. The parent-approved Survival Series that celebrates the awesome history of us. From multi-award winning Ellie Crowe and Scott Peters comes a riveting, kid-powered survival adventure. Short attention spans | Chapter book | Ages 9+ | B&W Illustrations | 15-year-old Zeke is thrilled to be heading west with over eighty settlers on the famed Oregon Trail. But when their wagon train takes an ill-advised short cut, the pioneers find themselves trapped in a frozen mountain pass. As howling winter storms rage around the Donner Party, there’s no way forward or back. Zeke is no mountain climber. He's a horseback-riding fanatic from Illinois. He's way out of his element. Faced with starvation, Zeke must attempt to walk out of the wilderness on sheer willpower alone. Can he ever hope to make it to California? Can he ever hope to escape? This is the 5th I Escaped adventure in the children's series about brave boys and girls who face real-world challenges and find ways to escape disaster. Follow these inspiring kids while they brainstorm, help others, and hone their problem-solving skills. The short chapters make for easy wins, and Zeke's gripping situation keeps even reluctant readers turning pages just to find out what's going to happen next. Based on actual survivor accounts, this inspirational story is exceptionally vivid, swift-paced, and stirring. The Westward Expansion is a tale of Indians and pioneers, mountains, deserts and places where the buffalo roamed, of covered wagons and horses and a new country taking shape. Great for kids book clubs and classrooms--a study guide is available at https://scottpetersbooks.com/worksheets Packed with a special section on facts about the Oregon Trail, Westward Expansion, and much more. An adrenaline-charged, nonstop action adventure tale of values and courage. Collect the whole I Escaped Series "a must for every reading list" Can Zeke survive disaster? Read it and find out!

Tells the story of a group of California bound American settlers who set out in the spring of 1846and became snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas during the winter of 1846 and 1847.

George and Tamsen Donner and their children, among the very first to leave from Illinois, joined emigrants headed to California in the spring of 1846. Beyond Fort Bridger, Captain Donner led a large party through a much-advertised shortcut. Delays and difficulties caused them to be snowbound in the High Sierras, facing the grim specter of starvation and extreme suffering. Though only four years old at the time of the expedition, the captain’s youngest daughter, Eliza Donner, would never forget the excitement of crossing the prairies—or the horror of that winter. Details impressed on her young mind were later substantiated by the recollections of her older sisters and other survivors. Her book, originally published in 1911, is an intimate and authoritative account of the Donner disaster. George and Tamsen Donner and those who shared their fate are fully humanized in the telling. Eliza also relates what happened to her and a sister after being rescued and what it was like to grow up in a world that turned the Donners into a grisly legend.

“Compulsive reading—a wonderful account, both scholarly and gripping, of a horrifying episode in the history of the west.” —Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. The tragedy of the Donner party constitutes one of the most amazing stories of the American West. In 1846 eighty-seven people—men, women, and children—set out for California, persuaded to attempt a new overland route. After struggling across the desert, losing many oxen, and nearly dying of thirst, they reached the very summit of the Sierras, only to be trapped by blinding snow and bitter storms. Many perished; some survived by resorting to cannibalism; all were subjected to unbearable suffering. Incorporating the diaries of the survivors and other contemporary documents, George Stewart wrote the definitive history of that ill-fated band of pioneers; an astonishing account of what human beings may endure and achieve in the final press of circumstance.

From multi-award winning Ellie Crowe and Scott Peters comes a harrowing escape based on true tales of recent Amazon River pirate attacks. When river pirates attack their ferry in the middle of the night, Nick and his family escape on a surfboard. But the Amazon River's wild currents separate Nick and his stepsister from their parents. One minute they're together, the next, Nick and Maddie are lost and alone in a deadly rainforest filled with piranha, jaguars, caimans, and giant anaconda. Worse, they've got angry pirates on their tail and a box of stolen gold. 15-year-old Nick is responsible for 8-year-old Maddie—but it's not easy when his stepsister acts like she hates his guts! Can they find a way to get along and survive in the deadly jungle? Can these brave but frightened kids escape disaster? 100% kid-tested, no-boring-parts guaranteed! This is the 4th children's book in the I Escaped Series about brave boys and girls who face real-world challenges and find ways to escape disaster. Sure to appeal to fans of New York Times Bestseller Lauren Tarshis's I Survived Series and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. A study guide is available at https://tinyurl.com/escaped-pirates Features a special section on pirates and piracy on the Amazon River including fascinating facts about illegal gold mining, deforestation, clearcutting in Brazil, Peru, and the whole South American region. A story of sibling rivalry, values, and courage that's packed with adrenaline-charged, nonstop action adventure.

Snow Mountain Passage is a powerful retelling of the most dramatic of our pioneer stories—the ordeal of the Donner Party, with its cast of young and old risking all, its imprisoning snows, its rumors of cannibalism. James Houston takes us inside this central American myth in a compelling new way that only a novelist can achieve. The people whose dreams, courage, terror, ingenuity, and fate we share are James Frazier Reed, one of the leaders of the Donner Party, and his wife and four children—in particular his eight-year-old daughter, Patty. From the moment we meet Reed—proud, headstrong, yet a devoted husband and father—traveling with his family in the "Palace Car," a huge, specially built covered wagon transporting the Reeds in grand style, the stage is set for trouble. And as they journey across the country, thrilling to new sights and new friends, coping with outbursts of conflict and constant danger, trouble comes. It comes in the fateful choice of a wrong route, which causes the group to arrive at the foot of the Sierra Nevada too late to cross into the promised land before the snows block the way. It comes in the sudden fight between Reed and a drover—a fight that exiles Reed from the others, sending him solo over the mountains ahead of the storms. We follow Reed during the next five months as he travels around northern California, trying desperately to find means and men to rescue his family. And through the amazingly imagined "Trail Notes" of Patty Reed, who recollects late in life her experiences as a child, we also follow the main group, progressively stranded and starving on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Snow Mountain Passage is an extraordinary tale of pride and redemption. What happens—who dies, who survives, and why—is brilliantly, grippingly told.