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Summary
Summary
Long before Harry Houdini thrilled the world with his impossible deeds, America had produced an escape artist whose biography reads like an adventure novel.
Many readers will know John Smith as the man rescued from death by Pocahontas, but Smith's story included a series of fantastic episodes: escape from imprisonment, ambush by Indians, attacks by ruthless sea pirates, and more escapades than seem possible in one life.
Now, just in time for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, author Rosalyn Schanzer recounts the full details of John Smith's eventful life in her engaging storytelling style, complemented with a series of entertaining illustrations.
Smith's role as the president of the pioneering colony of Jamestown is well known to schoolchildren. Schanzer's compelling narrative adds the perspective of Smith's English background to his better known adventures in America. Readers are given a complete portrait of the intrepid explorer and adventurer, of the fighter whose battling spirit always prevailed, and of the writer whose work was to shape the idea of the American Dream.
Smith's story is punctuated by several impossibly daring escapes. His final escape left us with the rich legacy of his life story: through his writings, he escaped the fate of dying unknown. He returned to England as a poor man with a rich trove of memories, spending his final years writing the popular books that defined colonial America in tales of excitement and courage.
Author Notes
Rosalyn Schanzer is the award-winning author and illustrator of numerous books for children. She lives in Fairfax Station, Virginia.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-5-Schanzer introduces a man whose life experiences went far beyond Colonial America. At age 16, he volunteered to go to the Netherlands and fight Catholic Spain. He traveled around Europe making stops in France, Scotland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, and Greece. He sailed on a pirate ship, was stranded on a desert island, and was almost drowned a few times. These adventures were all before his trips to America. Schanzer has done extensive research for both her text and her engaging cartoon illustrations. Children will be delighted by the tidbits she has included, such as some Native American men wearing live snakes in their pierced ears. The detailed drawings of Smith's many routes provide an excellent opportunity for practicing map-reading skills, although the small size of some of the art makes the book better suited for individual reading than for group sharing. A great choice for all collections.-Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The lore of Captain John Smith extends far beyond the familiar Pocahontas story, as Schanzer (How We Crossed the West) attests in this vivid, extensively documented biography of the 17th-century explorer. Her inventive chronological format alternately expands and condenses Smith's feats and far-flung journeys, as she describes his numerous death-defying escapes (e.g., from shipwrecks, Turkish slave masters and Native American warriors). Interspersed between chapters (with titles such as "Escape Number One: Our Hero Is Tossed into the Briny Deep and Becomes a Pirate"), spreads appear that feature a map of Smith's travels on the left with numbers that correspond to captioned panel illustrations on the right. Schanzer offsets the formal borders with the cartoonlike artwork within; a smiling, ruddy-cheeked Smith often winks or waves at readers, even as a baby. Yet the cheery illustrative style belies the often harsh nature of Smith's experiences, such as the time he was brutally beaten as a slave near the Black Sea or when Native Americans burn one of his fellow explorers at the stake (depicted in a small spot illustration). The author indeed accomplishes her aim of showing that "this swashbuckling Englishman was a heroic warrior,... a daring world explorer, a president, a mapmaker, a peacekeeper" and finally an author. Schanzer indicates in endnotes that she bases her account on Smith's own writings. Students of history will most appreciate the new light shed on this plucky voyager, but adventure fans will also be swept up in his escapades. Ages 9-14. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) The adventurer John Smith, known to most kids as that guy Pocahontas saved, here receives a beguiling tribute as ""America's first genuine superstar."" Schanzer also describes him as ""probably the greatest escape artist on the planet"" in his day, and organizes her account by his various escapes (one through eleven), revealing a restless, quick-thinking spirit bent on a life of deeds from early on. By the age of twenty, he had fought for Dutch independence from Spain, been shipwrecked, and hitchhiked across Europe to join the Austrian army to fight the Turks. The economical text gives just enough background about the times to contextualize the experiences of the peripatetic Smith, who escaped marooning, slavery, and certain death with such regularity as to make it seem routine. Comic-strip panels summarize some of his exploits, while traditional spreads relate others in more detail. Perhaps the greatest service rendered by the illustrations is their myth-busting portrayal of Pocahontas as a genuine little girl, head mostly shaved except for one long braid, face painted red. A bibliography and an index are appended, and an author's note discusses the circumstances leading to John Smith's relative modern obscurity, the historical debate surrounding his rescue by Pocahontas, and the challenge of parsing fact from fiction in Smith's own writings. A larger-than-life figure well worth rediscovering. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Explorer John Smith is best remembered for his romance with Pocahontas (which never happened); his adventures have been forgotten. But Schanzer presents Smith as an escape artist, and there's no doubt this premise (and the terrific, energetic book design) makes this an appealing way to introduce kids to history. More problematic is the accuracy of the derring-do. A fine author's note explains that although Smith was discredited during the Civil War, modern scholars have confirmed the basic accuracy of his writings; however, he may have embroidered his tales. Schanzer has closely based her book on Smith's own writings, and this is where the confusion comes in; a straight reading implies that Smith's adventures really happened, though they seem (in quantity and/or quality) exaggerated. That rather large caveat aside, this is still a thrilling portrait of the man and his times. Maps, illustrated sidebars, and vividly colored full-page art intensify the text, and the unusual depiction of Pocahontas--with a partly shaved head--is vetted in Schanzer's illustrator's note. --Ilene Cooper Copyright 2007 Booklist
