The Oregon Trail: An Interactive History Adventure

by Matt Doeden

You're living in the United States during the time of the Westward Expansion. Settlers are heading west on the Oregon Trail as they seek better lives. Will you: Go west with your family as part of a wagon train? Serve as a trail guide for a group of settlers? Try to cope with the changes in your way of life as a western American Indian? Everything in this book happened to real people. And YOU CHOOSE what you do next. The choices you make could lead you to opportunity, to wealth, to poverty, or even to death.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, American History, Adventure, 19th Century, Choose Your Own Adventure, Gamebooks

113 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2013

About the author

Matt Doeden was born in southern Minnesota and lived parts of his childhood in Golden Valley, Minnesota, and Madison, Minnesota. He studied journalism at Mankato State University, where he worked at the college newspaper for three years. In his senior year, he served as the paper's Sports Editor, which put him in charge of the entire sports section, the sports writers, and the photographers. He covered mostly college sports, but also the Minnesota Vikings, who held training camp at MSU.

His work allowed him to meet and interview people like Dennis Green, Cris Carter, Robert Smith, and more. Matt went on to work as a sports writer for the Mankato paper, and then he got a job as an editor with a small children's publisher called Capstone Press, and in 2003 he decided to start his own business as a freelance writer and editor.

Since then, Matt has written and edited hundreds of books. Lots of them are on high-interest topics like cars, sports, and airplanes. He also writes and edits on geography, science, and even math.

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read aloud for kids. My son loved choosing the ending (and dying a million times along the way!) 😂😂

[Stephanie ((Strazzybooks)) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is such a fun way to explore and reflect upon history. It really helps you to see that every decision counts and puts you in the situation to make challenging choices.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a fun and interactive book! Each choice you make within the book leads to different endings that are very realistic.

Beautiful cover too.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is obviously outdated with some terminology, but that is easily fixed ( & more educational) with a good conversation. I loved this book because it engaged my children. They wanted to learn more and read more and hear the different outcomes. They asked more questions about our history, and I was able to have full conversations with them! I look forward to trying some others with the family as well. I enjoyed the book myself and the experience with the kids.

[Nevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and quick read. Kind of sad I didn’t die of dysentery like in the game

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

A choose your adventure book with life or death decisions. Just like The Oregon Trail game but with new situations and choices to be made.

[Lori Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both my boys really enjoyed this! It is realistic, however, and some of the ends might not be appropriate for younger children. I wish we had heard of these books years ago! They are educational, but fun.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just enjoyed this interactive history adventure in the "You Choose" series for young readers, with my granddaughter, age 10. This series presents a fun and exciting way for young people to experience historic events. In this book, an orphaned family of three in a wagon along the Oregon Trail must make life-changing decisions at several junctures.

Should we take a detour to find grazing land for our hungry mules and horse or continue on with the wagon train? Having made the right decision, we next need to decide whether the 18 year old girl left alone with 10 year old sister, while brother goes off to hunt, must shoot at a group of Shoshone Indians or wait to see if they are friendly. And not shooting at them, should we trade the rifle for food? Next, as late arrivals to Fort Bridger, should we shelter there for the winter or try to make it through to Oregon City, our destination?

Having thoughtfully made good decisions, we looked back to see what would have happened if we'd chosen wrong. If so, the story would have ended sooner. We breathed a sigh of relief!

This series presents other American history adventures and "You choose" experiences, such as escaping from a desert island. Some of the history experiences include the California Gold Rush, Salem witch trials, the Underground Railroad. All of the books offer a variety of story paths, choices, and endings resulting from the decisions of young readers.

Armed with these interactive choices and consequences, we can hope that youngsters today will not repeat history, but learn from it instead.

[Joe Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember reading many a choose your own adventure story in the library when I was a kid. Maybe my memory is faulty but I thought it took me a good half hour to get through one read through and several more could follow. This adventure seemed to be over and done in a couple minutes. I did half a dozen runs and it didn't take even a half hour for the lot, though granted I started skimming what I had already read.

I'm far past the target age, but I thought the writing was solid if not great and the pictures were a nice touch. The writing seemed about middle school, but the experience was much shorter than say the old Hardy boy books so I'm not sure who it is for. Fortunately it came as part of my free month of KindleUnlimited and at that price it was a good enough value.

[Mattison Churchwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really fun book to read! This book really gets you involved and I think that this would be a great book for struggling readers or those that do not enjoy reading. It is easy to follow and puts you in the place of making decisions for the characters. I happened to fail with the decision I made for my character, and I can imagine a child wanting to re-read this book until they make the correct decisions and successfully make it through The Oregon Trail. I loved the concept of this book and would love to have this in my future classroom. This was a very interactive book that follows a real historical event and lets the students imagine how hard it would have been to make decisions and the ramifications of those decisions.

[Catherine Flynn]

What a great short read. The stories were hard and sad. It was truly a tough time back in the day when children were forced to live and strive on their own to become an adult. The journey that they have to go through to get a better life was a huge stake. We can learn something from these stories, how amazing technology is now that we take for granted, and all convenience we have. This kids' story, hopefully, will open the minds of the readers.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read all of the possibilities in this book.
You're presented with three major options: travel with a family, be a wagon train guide, or go in search of gold.
These are places and stories that actually happened to someone.
I got this for my 4th graders, and I think they will enjoy the choose your own adventure style of this book - I know I did when I first found them.

[D'Anna Upton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly an amazing book

Just got finished reading this book in an hour! I host a mystery summer book club and we chose to do historic -based books. We went down a couple of pathways that ended up losing the life of our characters but eventually we did survive the trail… Truly a good book to read for the kids at home during this COVID-19 quarantine time.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as choose your own adventure books go, this one is pretty fun. I gave it three stars because i can never decide if I've actually read them or not. I did go through the book on two different paths. I did make it to Oregon both times with out dying. Probably because of the massive amounts of time I spent playing the computer game as a kid. It was a fun blast from the past.

[Connie T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you crossed a Choose Your Own Adventure book with the 1980s Oregon Trail computer game, this book would be the result. There aren't as many details - either presented as factoids or gaming scenarios - but the book does offer historical context and a multitude of choices to work through (3 story paths, 38 choices, and 17 endings).

[Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book. When I first started reading it I didn't know hardly anything about the Oregon trail and, although this book didn't teach me a lot about it, it did inspire me to learn more about the Oregon trail!

[Ed Lake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable

Interesting and enjoyable. You make the decisions, go thru and try all of the possibilities. You will enjoy it, promise.

[Viktoria Mirigliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

My class absolutely loved exploring all the story choices in here!

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Category: A Choose Your Own Adventure Book

In my first read through, I survived. But no such luck on the other 2 story lines. This was fun for the nostalgia, but don't expect too much depth.

[Reuben · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was ok

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was definitely not as good as the awesome "Choose Your Own Trail" series I just read, but it was still a lot of fun.

[Hayley Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun quick read. I would have loved this as a kid!

[Kim Hampton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to teach kids about American history by putting them in the middle of the action.

[Reagan Carosino]

Read books 1-4 as a family, majority vote for decisions. Really fun. We died of dysentery.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

We did a unit study together of the Oregon Trail. This book gave us a well rounded view into the various paths that so many took and the outcomes they faced. My kids from 6-14 all loved it!

[Bgoofy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was fun reading a choose-your-own adventure book again. I was just as successful in this book as I was in the game. Lol!

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet again I find myself dying on the Oregon Trail. Maybe not of dysentery, but dead is dead.

IYKYK.

[Ashleigh Rose]

A lot of white bias and lack of perspective in this book. Back matter did not address this at all. And the blurb on this goodreads site is also misleading.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read!

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

My family really enjoyed reading through this book. We voted on our choices and celebrated both our trials and tribulations together.