In her humorous interpretation of the American folk song "The Old Chisholm Trail," Rosalyn Schanzer gives kids a snapshot of life on a cattle drive--including flies, dust, bad food, hail, stampedes, and outlaws. Spread by spread, kids can follow the adventures of a few cow hands and a lot of cattle as they make their way up the Old Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas. Our hero starts out "with a ten-dollar horse and a forty-dollar saddle", and braves all kinds of dangers, including bad food: "Our chow is beans and bacon, and our coffee's black as ink. The water's full of mud...It's barely fit to drink." And there's worse: "The rain is pouring down and the river's in a flood, And the cattle are a-sinkin' in the quicksand and the mud." There are some positive moments: "Red cows, brown cows, spotted steers and blacks, We cross the muddy river by running on their backs." But then they encounter outlaws: "There's Evil Eye Pete with a sack full of cash And Mad Mike McGraw with his long moustache!" They do get safely to Abilene, where our exhausted hero

 

There are 32 pages in this book. This book was published 2001 by National Geographic Books .

Rosalyn Schanzer is the award-winning author and illustrator of numerous books for children. She lives in Fairfax Station, Virginia.