What Was the Donner Party?

Ages 8 to 12, Grades 3 to 7

Learn about the treacherous journey across the Sierra Nevada mountain range that isolated and trapped a group of pioneers heading to California for an entire winter in this latest addition to the New York Times Bestselling What Was? series.

In the winter of 1846-47, a group of eighty-seven pioneers heading from the Midwest to California found themselves snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountain range with no way forward and no food or supplies. While forty-eight of the group members survived, the others perished due to extreme weather, starvation, and illness. To survive, the remaining people resorted to extreme measures...including cannibalism. Learn about the many miscalculations, bad decisions, and exteme weather that led to the demise of nearly half of the Donner Party in this book for young readers about one of California's first major disasters.

Series Overview: A natural expansion of the exceptional Who Was? series, What Was? focuses on compelling historical events, great battles, protests, and discoveries.

About the Author

Ben Hubbard is an accomplished nonfiction author for children and adults with over 130 titles to his name. He has written about many subjects, including space, the samurai, and sharks, to poison, pets, and the plantagenets. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages and can be found in libraries around the world.

Author Residence: Montreal, QC, CA

Tim Foley's clients have included national and international magazines, book publishers and advertising agencies, such as The Wall Street Journal, Cricket Magazine, Barrons, New York Newsday, LA Weekly, Penguin Books, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Illustrator Residence:Grand Rapids, Michigan