By the Great Horn Spoon!

by Sid Fleischman

Paperback, 1988

Status

Available

Call number

823.91

Genres

Children's Books

All Topics

Fiction

Collections

American History, Children's Literature

Publication

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (1988), Edition: Reprint, 224 pages

Description

One of Newbery Medalist Sid Fleischman's most beloved books, this rip-snortin' saga of a young man and his butler bound for California during the great Gold Rush was just made to be read by a full cast. Our collection of coots, codgers, geezers, and outlaws will have you laughing out loud-when you're not holding your breath in suspense!.

User reviews

LibraryThing member MrsLee

My children and I enjoyed this tale. The story of a young man in the Gold Rush era. Romanticized, but lots of fun and plenty of facts too. More interesting to us because one of our ancestors came to California around the Great Horn Spoon as well.

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LibraryThing member BoundTogetherForGood

The movie version of this book is Disney's Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, very enjoyable, as is the book!

LibraryThing member MereYom

Fast moving adventure book for children, full of historical and geographical detail.

LibraryThing member jrbeach

I enjoyed the "full cast" audio book very much. I have no idea if it appeals to children, but I would think so. Fairly fast moving and funny. I was suprised it was written back in 1963 (except one of the characters takes up smoking - you wouldn't see that today!)

LibraryThing member bronwyn52

I loved it, it is very funny, and the movie was even funnier, but I loved all the things that happened, it was a very funny book

LibraryThing member sumik

I loved this book and the Disney movie that they made from it. I went on a whole Sid Fleischman novel binge at my local library when I was a child as a result of this book.

LibraryThing member HollyinNNV

I've been reading this book aloud to my 9 yo ds. It is a rollicking good read! Two adventurers head from Boston to California to make their fortune during the Gold Rush. Their adventures start as their boat travels around the tip of South America. The excitement continues as they finally make it to

California to search for gold. Tension abounds with evil characters like Cut-Eye Higgins and natural dangers in the form of grizzly bears. Each chapter is exciting, funny and clever! If you enjoy adventure, humor, historical fiction and tall tales, then this book is for you! The ultimate critic of boring books, my ds, loves it!

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LibraryThing member mirikayla

Good old Sid Fleischman. I almost never like books (or movies) about the frontier, the Old West, etc. This book is so much fun though--basically a Jeeves and Wooster story for American kids, only without Wooster.

LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

Probably would work well for 'tween male reluctant readers. Could also be read aloud, a bit at a time, by a social studies teacher. I live near 'Hangtown' (now Placerville) and other mining towns, and still I learned a lot. I see in the search results that there are teaching guides available - if I

were to include this in my curriculum I'd definitely pick up one of those, too, as there was a lot of detail in the history as for instance road agents, Long Toms, tempting people to come to an auction with free butter (to slice and eat there like popcorn on a bar), ratlines on a ship, etc. etc.

But primarily it's a truly rollicking adventure, with just enough heart to keep a reader engaged in the characters while s/he turns the pages wondering how they're going to get out of this scrape and wondering what adventure they'll experience next.

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LibraryThing member tkcs

I had fun reading this with a 4th grade class I subbed for. The kids really liked it and it was an entertaining way for them to learn some Gold Rush history.

LibraryThing member reader1009

children's historical fiction (gold rush adventure with some fist-fighting and pistol brandishing, boat travel). An unlikely story (butler travels with runaway boy to make fortune together to bring back to boy's financially-strained aunt) but a nice adventure with a full audio cast.

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