<p><b><i>New York Times</i> bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient Steve Sheinkin</b> <b>welcomes young readers to the thrilling, tragic, and downright wild historic adventure of America's westward expansion in <i>Which Way to the Wild West? Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About America's Westward Expansion</i>, featuring illustrations by Tim Robinson. </b><br><b><br>1805: </b>Explorer William Clark reaches the Pacific Ocean and pens the badly spelled line "Ocian in view O the joy " (Hey, he was an explorer, not a spelling bee champion )<br><b>1836: </b>Mexican general Santa Anna surrounds the Alamo, trapping 180 Texans inside and prompting Texan William Travis to declare, "I shall <i>never</i> surrender or retreat."<br><b>1861: </b>Two railroad companies, one starting in the West and one in the East, start a race to lay the most track and create a transcontinental railroad. <p/>With a storyteller's voice and attention to the details that make history real and interesting, Steve Sheinkin delivers the wild facts about America's greatest adventure. From the Louisiana Purchase (remember: if you're negotiating a treaty for your country, play it cool.) to the gold rush (there were only three ways to get to California--all of them bad) to the life of the cowboy, the Indian wars, and the everyday happenings that defined living on the frontier. <p/>"An engaging...medley of anecdotes about the Wild West in nine lively chapters starting with the Louisiana Purchas