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Book Title: Who Was Daniel Boone?
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Author: Sydelle Kramer
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Illustrator: George Ulrich
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Awards
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Book Type: Chapter
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Approx. Reading Level: 3.8
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Age
of Content Appropriateness: grade 3 and up
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Date Published:
2006
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Genre and Topic: Biography, Social Studies, Frontier,
Early American Exploration
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Personal
Rating of the Book: 4
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ISBN: (13 or 10 digit) 978-0448439020
B008H1C6DI
(Kindle)
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Summary- This book is about one of our
American legends. It is part of a series
of “Who was” books on historical figures.
The life and times of the real Daniel Boone are described here in
appropriate detail for a third grade audience.
It covers his youth as a headstrong boy, determined to be outside more
than he was ever inside. He was more at
home in the wilderness than any place else.
As he grew he became skilled at tracking and hunting and became known as
“the great pathfinder” when he blazed the trail to what is now Kentucky and
helped to build a fort at Boonesborough.
This book does a good job of covering his involvement and wars with the
Shawnee Indians, his two captures by them and his dedication to the
frontier.
Ideas
for using this book
·
It may
be interesting to do a KWL chart to see what students know or think they know
about this legend. This book does shed
light on some less well-known facts about slave ownership and other information
that may be surprising to readers who think they know who Daniel Boone was.
·
Daniel Boone Show with Fess Parker- it
may be interesting to have students watch part or all of an episode of the “Daniel
Boone” show from the 1970s and do a compare/contrast of the facts offered in
the book and the Hollywood image of Daniel.
One thing to note is that the show depicts him as having a sidekick
almost who is an Indian. While Daniel
did interact with the Shawnee and lived with them for many months during his
capture, he was not, according to the book, great friends with them and in
fact, betrayed his word to them to defend the settlers at Boonesborough, who
later tried him for treason because they thought perhaps he was siding with the
Shawnee. It was a complicated position
for him but he came down decidedly in favor of the settlers.
·
This is
certainly a book that could be used during a history unit on the interactions
between colonists and indigenous people during westward expansion.
Vocabulary
Frontier-(page 12-location 83) – the extreme limit of settled land, beyond
which lies wilderness, esp. referring to the western U.S. before Pacific settlement
“long
hunt”- (page
17-location 104) –and Indian term for a hunting trip that lasted all fall and
part of the winter
Sharpshooter- (page 20 location 119)- someone
who is really good at aiming and shooting a distant target, usually in just one
shot.
Blacksmith- (page 24-location 140) –the
person in an early settlement who worked with metal. This person would make any tools needed and
made and attached horseshoes.
Treason- (page 91-loation446)- a
charge that a person has betrayed their country- Daniel was charged with treason
by some settlers in Boonesborough who believed he was helping the Shawnee and
the British to attack the settlement. He
was found not-guilty.
Trait
of the 6 + 1 Traits to Highlights
I would look at the organization of this
book. The book follows a chronological
order to tell about Daniel Boone’s life.
I would have students write an auto-biography of their own life and tell
it in a chronological order. I would
also want to discuss other ways of telling a person’s story that might not
follow this traditional model.
Concerns
with This Book: (if any) none
