Pocahontas (In Their Own Words (Paper))

Rating:
Summary: Great biography for early readers
Review: I think this is a great resource for teachers who need a good biography on a native american indian who had an impact on our lives. It is an easy reading book with great detail. I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Pocahontas and the Powhatan tribe.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting history.
Review: Scholastic's new series, IN THEIR OWN WORDS, is designed to tell you all about famous people's lives and what they accomplished. Most of you have heard of the legend of Pocahontas which claims she was only 12 years old when she saved Captain Smith's life. But did she really save Captain Smith or did he just make that up after she was dead?

Pocahontas, which wasn't her real name, was kidnapped by the English and turned into an Englishwoman. The book contains lots of pictures of her, two of them made during her lifetime, plus pictures of the kinds of dwellings she would have lived in as an Indian princess. You'll learn about the lives of her descendants, too. For example, her son inherited land from his grandfather Powhatan --- land in the thousands of acres --- and turned it into a tobacco plantation. Hundreds and hundreds of descendants of Pocahontas are living today. Even though she only lived to be 21 years old, she played an important part in our nation's history and today there's a statue of her that stands in Jamestown, Virginia.

The IN THEIR OWN WORDS series also gives you tips about how to research historic information. It explains the difference between primary sources and secondary sources when you're studying history. For example, you will see some pictures that people, even young schoolgirls, have painted of Pocahontas over the years. You can decide whether you think they were accurate likenesses, or whether people tried to make her look more beautiful than she really was.

Read this book and find out a lot more facts and interesting history about one of the most famous people in America. Pocahontas may even have been the person most responsible for there being the United States of America.

--- Reviewed by Tamara Penny