By the Great Horn Spoon!

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Summary: The California Gold Rush
Review: By the Great Horn Spoon was by far the most enjoyable social science book I have read. The book truly captures the the spirit of what life (Gold Rush life) was like in those days. The author tells this story with great enthusiasm and descriptive deatil; the reader automatically feels as if they are there traveling along with the main characters. I beleive that the use of this book in any classroom with help students gain a better understanding of what "gold rushers" went through to keep their dreams alive.

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Summary: Adventures of Jack and Praiseworthy in 1849
Review: Have you ever read a book that will keep you reading for hours? Well if you have, I bet you read this book. This is such and exciting book, you will want to read it over and over.
By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleishman is a book about the adventures of Praiseworthy, the butler, and Jack who are searching for gold to save their Aunt Arabela's fortune. In the beginning Jack and Praiseworthy are stowaways on Captain Swain's ship, the Lady Wilma. They set sail for California and end up in a race with the Sea Raven. They meet up with lots of interesting characters. One of which is Cut-Eye Higgins who is a theif. Once they arrive in San Francisco their adventures continue.
If you like adventure books you will love this one. I highly recommend it to anyone.

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Summary: One of the best adventure books around for 4th grade boys!
Review: I teach Special Ed. in a mainstream class setting for fourth grade. Which is when California students study the CA gold Rush. This book is a great book for all 4th graders to read! There are not too many books out in the market to peak a boy's interest. Most main characters are girls. This book has it all, adventures on the high seas and at every stop along the way! It will captivate even the non-reader.

Rating:
Summary: Great Adventure!
Review: I think that By the Great Horn Spoon! has a great adventure. It is about a boy and his family's butler who sail from Boston, Massachusetts to California during the gold rush. The boy's name is Jack, and the butler's name is Praiseworthy. They make quite a few friends but also get themselves into a lot of trouble. This book was funny, interesting, and bit disappointing at some points. Sid Fleischman is a wonderful author, and By the Great Horn Spoon! is one of the best books I have ever read. I would recommend it to anyone who likes books about adventure.

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Summary: Hang Onto Your Gold With Both Hands!
Review: It's 1849. Gold has been discovered in California. Twelve-year-old Jack, at home in Boston, needs money to save the family home. His solution? Stowaway on a ship bound for the goldfields. Find some gold. Return home. Easy? Not on your life! Lucky for Jack, his butler (with the endearing name of Praiseworthy) stows away also. Together these two gold seekers get in and out of numerous adventures and meet colorful characters with names like Pitch-pine Billy and Mountain Ox as they wander around the gold fields trying to "strike it rich".

I read this wonderful, tongue-in-cheek historical novel aloud to the students in my class when we studied the California Gold Rush. They always wanted "one more chapter" and joined in with Jack's adventures wholeheartedly. We all were surprised at the twist at the end of the book! Highly recommended

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Summary: It could have happened!
Review: What was life like in the 1850's? What motivated people to move far west and how did they get there? What was it like to be a gold miner? These are the subjects of my daughter's fourth-grade social studies book about California history. They also provide the background and story for "By the Great Horn Spoon." As my 4th and 2nd grade daughters read this book with me, we followed Jack and Praiseworthy south to the Straights of Magellan, back north to San Francisco. We kept our world map handy as we read. As we gained a feeling for California gold fever life, we were delighted with the ingenuity and imagination of our two miners. Whether one is trying to tie in history or not, it is a fun read!

Rating:
Summary: A joy to read out loud.
Review: When I was nine, I read this book. At age 40, I read the same copy to my children, ages ten and eight. As much as I enjoyed reading it the first time, reading it out loud was a much richer experience.

The writing flows naturally, and encourages a great variation in expression. The adventure truly comes out in the reader's voice. I am an actor, but I felt that this story would bring out the actor in anybody.

The story was so exciting and surprising that long reading sessions never dragged. At several points, my children threw themselves down on the floor and yelled, "Oh my gosh!"

This experience brought it all together for me, if I may speak personally: books, performing, involvement with my children, a classic story that I relished as a child myself. Those evenings added up to the happiest time of my life.

The plot concerns a boy who runs away during the California gold rush--with his butler!--to try to get his family out of debt. The adventures along the way are episodic, and each episode is an amazing and believable story in itself. Every step in the journey is given full attention: the voyage from Boston to San Francisco, the trip to the gold fields, the experiences among the miners. There are plenty of colorful characters, and plenty of opportunities for the two main characters to grow. There are also several threads that run through the whole story, maintaining suspense. Their resolution is unpredictable and satisfying.

There was very little in the book that could make a parent squirm, and very little that sounded out of date. But there were three moments that made me pause: 1) There is a fist fight, though it is handled in a light-hearted way. 2) There is a reference to corporal punishment when an adult threatens to "take a hairbrush" to a child. 3) There is an expression used once that might be innocent for all I know, but sure doesn't sound that way: "That's mighty white of you."

Minor reservations, I hope you'll agree. So plunge in and have an experience you and your listeners will never forget.