Animals on the Trail with Lewis and Clark - Hardcover

William Munoz has an avid interest in ecology and the environment and has taken the photographs for a number of books written by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent. Mr. Munoz lives in Hamilton, Montana.

Dorothy Hinshaw Patent holds a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the recipient of the Washington Post--Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award for her body of work, which includes more than 130 books for children and young adults on subjects ranging from biodiversity to the spirit bear. She lives with her husband in Missoula, Montana. You can learn more about her on her web site: www.dorothyhinshawpatent.com.

Gr. 4-8. The coming bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery (1804-1806), better known as the Lewis and Clark expedition, has already inspired a number of books, but few as handsome as this one. The spacious page layouts, beautiful illustrations, and well-written text help ensure that this historically significant story will be read and enjoyed. Patent explains that President Jefferson sent out the Corps in hopes that the explorers would find a navigable waterway to the Pacific, establish good relations with Native Americans, and observe, describe, and collect specimens of animals "unknown to science." In this book, readers follow the expedition westward from the Mississippi, across the plains and the mountains to the Pacific, and back again. Patent tells the broader story well, but the strength of this book is its focus on the animals discovered by members of the expedition, as recorded in the journals of Lewis and Clark. Appended are the author's notes, which provide some of her sources and recommending resources for further reading, and a list of 121 species of vertebrate animals, indicating when and where the explorers first saw them. In addition to a few maps and reproductions of period paintings, Munoz's excellent color photographs of animals, landscape, artifacts, and sites offer vivid pictures of the world explored by the Corps of Discovery. Carolyn Phelan
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