Sam Houston: Standing Firm (Children’s Book)

Ages 5-7: This story is a simple account of the many accomplishments of Sam Houston (1793-1863).

From a rural childhood in Tennessee, he went on to become both congressman and senator from that state. President Andrew Jackson later sent him on a mission to encourage Texans to renounce allegiance to Mexico and join the United States. Probably not known to the general reader, adult or child were his advocacy for the Cherokees and his refusal as governor of Texas to join the Confederacy during the Civil War. The illustrations are primitive, with a somewhat childlike lack of perspective. One thread the story might have pursued more emphatically for its school-age readers was the fact that Sam Houston quit elementary school but never stopped his education.