Kit Carson: Boy Trapper

by Augusta Stevenson

1962: by Augusta Stevenson- The thrilling life of the early days.

Genres: History, Biography, Childrens

195 pages

First published January 1, 1945

Reviews

[Carol Waters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, now. Many years ago I wrote what I thought was a great short story about how this little book about Kit Carson that I had read in 6th grade had influenced my life. Every day at recess that year I went to the McPhee library to get one of the Childhoods of Great Americans books and every afternoon I got caught reading the book I had hidden in my desk and had gotten sent into the hallway to finish it. Some punishment that was!

So I saw the book on eBay, got it today, and read the 195 pages before the bath water cooled. Not a single part of that great scene that shaped my life was in that book. There was mostly a lot of 1945-era racist personifications of the red savages including a game played by the children about cheating the Indian trappers out of their furs.

The one thing I can say for this book is that as a culture we have made some progress. No school library would shelve this thing now. If the frontier families were as big of jerks as this writer indicated, well, their descendants have done better. Progress, not perfection.

Still, I kinda miss my version of the Kit Carson story. Maybe it was Daniel Boone..... back to eBay

[Clifford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in elementary school. That was around the time when the Walt Disney program broadcast a story about a young man who became a mountain man. I don't remember details, but I remember they opened my interest in the history of the exploration of the American West. Since then, I have read other books that portray a more culturally sensitive view of those days. But it was the starting point of my interest in the subject.

[Laura Quilter]

Kit Carson, boy trapper by Augusta Stevenson (1945)

[Richard Epstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank goodness the bookmobile provided me a sound grounding in serious American history.