Which Way to the Wild West?

Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About America's Westward Expansion

By: Steve Sheinkin

Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Steve Sheinkin

New York Times best-selling author and Newbery Honor-recipient Steve Sheinkin welcomes young listeners to the thrilling, tragic, and downright wild historic adventure of America’s westward expansion in Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn’t Tell You About America’s Westward Expansion.

1805: Explorer William Clark reaches the Pacific Ocean and pens the badly spelled line “Ocian in view! O! the joy!” (Hey, he was an explorer, not a spelling bee champion!)

1836: Mexican General Santa Anna surrounds the Alamo, trapping 180 Texans inside and prompting Texan William Travis to declare, “I shall never surrender or retreat.”

1861: Two railroad companies, one starting in the West and one in the East, start a race to lay the most track and create a transcontinental railroad.

With a storyteller's voice and attention to the details that make history real and interesting, Steve Sheinkin delivers the wild facts about America's greatest adventure. From the Louisiana Purchase (Remember: If you're negotiating a treaty for your country, play it cool.) to the gold rush (There were only three ways to get to California - all of them bad.) to the life of the cowboy, the Indian wars, and the everyday happenings that defined living on the frontier.

“An engaging...medley of anecdotes about the Wild West in nine lively chapters starting with the Louisiana Purchase and ending with the Lakota massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Casual vignettes of famous figures and ordinary people come to life.” (School Library Journal)

“Sheinkin builds his conversational narrative around stories of the men and women who peopled the west, with particular attention given to African Americans, Chinese workers, and everyday farmers and cowboys. There's plenty of humor here, but Sheinkin's strength is his ability to transition between events.” (The Horn Book)

©2010 Steve Sheinkin (P)2021 Listening Library

Relatable and compelling, good for kids and adults

This book is well-narrated, well-organized, and well-written. My 9 year old has listened to it several times. At times the information shared is disturbing to me as a parent (Donner party, conflicts, especially Native American conflicts) and I tried to skip the more graphic parts, but my son was not overly bothered by it. I do find value in teaching kids even those parts of our history, and this book is very compelling and informative for kids and adults. The author relates things in a way that makes the history very relatable.

Awesome !

I wish all books will be as excellent as this one. Explained plainly, interestingly and engagingly.

good on the back of cornflakes

as the author admits his career involved writing textbooks. After listening to a few chapters i.know understand why most Americans have little historical context.
Horrible