Catalog Search Results
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.1 - AR Pts: 2
Lexile measure
890L
Language
English
Description
Jacob and George Donner were among the thousands of Americans who answered the beckoning call of the West in the 1840's. In the spring of 1846, the Donners left Illinois and, with other emigrant families, headed west in wagons pulled by teams of oxen. The going was rough. But, they were determined to reach their destination by winter. Tragically, the Donner Party discovered that the so-called shortcut was not a shortcut at all.
Author
Language
English
Description
In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the...
Author
Publisher
Tomato Enterprises
Pub. Date
1989.
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 4
Lexile measure
1040L
Language
English
Description
A wooden doll recalls the hope with which a group of pioneers begins their journey and the ordeals they face as they travel from Springfield, Illinois, to California.
Author
Publisher
Best Day Books for Young Readers
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"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. 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?...
Author
Publisher
Candlewick Press
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.9 - AR Pts: 9
Lexile measure
HL 760L
Language
English
Description
"In powerful, vivid verse, the master behind The Watch That Ends the Night recounts one of history's most harrowing--and chilling--tales of survival. In 1846, a group of emigrants bound for California face a choice: continue on their planned route or take a shortcut into the wilderness. Eighty-nine of them opt for the untested trail, a decision that plunges them into danger and desperation and, finally, the unthinkable. From extraordinary poet and...
9) The hunger
Author
Publisher
G.P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos....
12) Old bones
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"Nora Kelly, a young but successful curator at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, is approached by a historian, Clive Benton, with the opportunity to lead an expedition unlike any other. It begins with the story of the ill-fated Donner Party, who became permanently lodged in the American consciousness in the winter of 1847, when the first skeletonized survivors of the party stumbled out of the California mountains, replete with tales of courage,...
14) The Donner Party
Publisher
PBS Home Video
Pub. Date
[2009]
Language
English
Description
Chronicles the tale of the pioneer group that set out for California in the spring of 1846 and ended in disaster in the snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains the following winter.
Author
Publisher
Scholastic Inc
Pub. Date
[2021]
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 4
Lexile measure
940L
Language
English
Description
"William Deeds is an orphan with nothing to his name except the two hundred dollars he got in exchange for his family's farm, and a horse named Barney. So, he is ecstatic when Mr. George Donner lets him 'tag along' on his expedition to California. All he wants is to 'eat a fresh peach in December and never be cold.' What he gets, of course, is an adventure marked by tragedy. He is a strong boy, though, whose will keeps him going through the toughest...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the High Sierras. But Smoke Jensen and his children, Louis and Denise, won't let a little snow stop them from heading to Reno for the holidays. There are two ways for them to get there: the long way, going around the Sierra Nevada Mountains, or the short way, going right through them. Smoke decides to take a gamble. They'll follow the trail that, decades earlier, brought the legendary Donner Party to...
Author
Pub. Date
2001
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 4
Lexile measure
920L
Language
English
Description
Douglas Deeds, a fifteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his travels by wagon train as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party, which became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47.
Author
Publisher
Candlewick Press
Pub. Date
2016.
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG+ - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 4
Lexile measure
860L
Language
English
Description
The journey west by wagon train promises to be long and arduous for nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Graves and her parents and eight siblings. Yet she is hopeful about their new life in California: freedom from the demands of family, maybe some romance, better opportunities for all. But when winter comes early to the Sierra Nevada and their group gets a late start, the Graves family, traveling alongside the Donner and Reed parties, must endure one of the...
19) Answer creek
Author
Publisher
She Writes Press
Pub. Date
2020.
Language
English
Description
"A gripping tale of adventure and survival based on the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party on their 2,200-mile trek on the Oregon-California Trail from 1846 to '47. Nineteen-year-old Ada Weeks confronts danger and calamity along the hazard-filled journey to California. After a fateful decision that delays the overlanders more than a month, she--along with eighty-one other members of the Donner Party--finds herself stranded at Truckee Lake on...