The Mighty Mississippi: The Life and Times of America's Greatest River - Hardcover

Vieira, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802789447 ISBN 13: 9780802789440

Publisher: Walker Childrens, 2005

Synopsis

The winding, epic history of one of America's greatest natural wonders.

The mighty Mississippi River has wound its way through our country's heartland―and the course of history―for thousands of years. Formed when the last glaciers of the Ice Age melted, the river became a 2,550-mile-long drainage basin for almost half of the United States. Before Europeans arrived in the New World, it was a means of exploration and trade for Native Americans. It later witnessed some of the most pivotal events in American history, from the Revolutionary War to the Trail of Tears to the Civil War. It has survived flooding, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

Linda Vieira and Higgins Bond use their talents and expertise to explore the science and the history of the great Mississippi River, showing us why the Ojibwe Indians called it "Mes-sipi," Father of Running Waters.

About this title

About the Author:

Linda Vieira has written The Ever-living Tree, Grand Canyon, and The Seven Seas for Walker & Company. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her Labrador retriever, Hannah.

Higgins Bond earned her BFA from the Memphis College of Art. She is the illustrator of several children's books, including Walker & Company's The Seven Seas and I Am Sacajawea, I Am York. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 4-6–In describing the formation and history of the Mississippi River, the author has encapsulated a great deal of information with mixed results. The book is organized into a series of full-color, pictorial spreads; two or three other illustrations or maps are inset into the larger picture, and two or three paragraphs of text appear in an orange-colored box on the right. On some pages, the colors in the large and small pictures are similar, making it hard to distinguish their boundaries. When more than one topic is discussed, it can be hard to find a correlation between the text and the pictures, and many difficult or possibly unfamiliar words are undefined in the text. Some spreads are more effective than others. A large map of the U.S. that shows the drainage basin of the Mississippi River is impressive. However, the states are not labeled. The acrylic paintings are vivid and appealing, and a time line runs along the tops of the pages to help readers get a sense of time passing and the changes that have come to the river, but the overall book design mutes the impact of both elements. The lack of an index further limits the book's usefulness.–Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA
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About this edition

• Publisher: Walker Childrens
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0802789447
• ISBN 13: 9780802789440
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Bond Higgins