Jed Smith, Trailblazer of the West....

When I wanted to read aloud Jed Smith, Trailblazer of the West by Frank Latham, Ruben pitched a fit.  It was a bad day.  After some quick talking, I coerced him into trying one chapter.  Ironically, Chapter One held the rough and tough, good versus evil that my 9-year old outdoor adventurous boy loves.  He was hooked!  So much so, that I had to re-read the first couple chapters for The Farmer at Ruben's request....and when I finished all sixteen chapters of the book, he asked me to read it again :)

Jed Smith was a mountain man, explorer, hunter, and skilled trapper.  He explored "the white spaces" on the map in the west shortly after Lewis & Clark's expedition.  One thing that set Jed Smith apart from most mountain men of his time, was his faith.  He was clean shaven, didn't drink, didn't curse or use rough language, and he read his Bible nearly every day.  His explorations "opened up major portions of the wilderness territory to settlers traveling west of the Rocky Mountains".

Latham's book is not only historic, but high adventure.  At least twice, Smith's party was massacred by Native American Indians.  He was partially scalped by a grizzly bear and survived crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert.  Jed Smith was a great frontiersman in his time and proves to be an excellent role model to this day.