Wagons West: Brigham Young and the First Pioneers by Richard E. Turley Jr. and Lael Littke

genre: middle grade non-fiction


Say the name Brigham Young and for most people, immediately "Mormon" and "Pioneer" come to mind. This book is a younger middle grade account of Brigham's experience as a leader of that first pioneer trek - I had expected more general "pioneer stories" but really, this is the story of the first specific journey.

It is heavily based on original sources and the text is seemingly non-biased, truly only accounting what happened and what people said about it without judgement. Sometimes he was frustrated and sometimes the pioneers were petty and that's ok. People are complicated and I appreciate that students who read this can get a real sense of how hard the journey must've been as well as the complicated and contentious history that led to the Mormons heading west in the first place. As the descendent of dozens of pioneer families, this kept my interest and provided some new insights.