PIKE OF PIKE'S PEAK

A prolific writer of Americana for young readers tells the story of Zebulon Pike with easy simplicity and a direct narrative style. A balancing of events (the author does not let her subject's childhood eclipse the rest) creates a proper continuum, and a sense of the past and of local color bring to life Pike's peace missions to the Indians of the Mississippi and the southwest; his discovery of the Peak; his inadvertent entry to Mexico and the subsequent near disaster caused by the plotting of Aaron Burr and Pike's commander, General Wilkinson.