The Sweetwater Run

By Andrew Glass
Doubleday, $15.95

ISBN 0385322208

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Review by Etta Wilson

During the year 1860, William Frederick ("Buffalo Bill") Cody rode a mail route for the Pony Express. He was 13 at the time. Like most of what he did throughout his life -- driving a wagon train, serving as a Union scout in the Civil War, operating a hotel and a freighting business, hunting buffalo, and finally organizing the "Wild West" shows that toured the U.S. and Europe -- he displayed great courage, a little deception, and a strong desire to work for money.

Andrew Glass has created Cody's pony express days in The Sweetwater Run, a picture book that is exciting, colorful, and full of historical content as told in young Cody's first-person account.

Cody's adventurous ride happened in November 1860 when he had to carry the mail pouch with the results of the presidential election locked inside. And what a ride Glass has pictured for young readers! The action-packed pages are full of rich, textured gold, brown, and blue; often the boy's eyes and those of his horse are the only white on a page. The strong, dramatic, but never tight, oil paintings give exactly the right feel to Will's hell-for-leather run.

The book's endpapers show a colorful illustrated U.S. map from the Mississippi river to the Pacific, while the older, more familiar Cody, the showman, is pictured on the back cover. This captivating story will spark young imaginations as it brings to life an exciting period in American history.

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