973.1

With excellent illustrations and simple maps, this book begins with the First Peoples travel to "America" over the land bridge and ends with Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, de Balboa, and Magellan. The book places Columbus in context with what happened before and happened after Columbus' voyages.

This is a great book to start talking about how the Americas were founded. It begins with the Ice Age and how the land bridge was formed. It talks about the discoveries of the lands by different explorers. It talks about how some diseases had killed most of the natives and how the land was first settled. I would use this book in a beginning geography lesson. It would be a great Segway into teaching the explorers. ( )

This book would be great used in conjunction with "Encounter" by Jane Yolen. ( )

I read this aloud to my children in one sitting. It's a lovely, succinct overview of the many voyages people have taken to North and South America throughout the ages. I like how the Maestros put the journeys in perspective by including prehistoric travels from Asia to North America. This was a great addition to my daughter's history lesson about the voyages of discovery of the 15th and 16th centuries. ( )