Imagine that you are Pedro de Salcedo just returned from your seven month voyage.

Here are a few to get you started: captain, dock, fleet, ship's boy, dinghy. Use your list of words to create a word search or crossword puzzle for your classmates. If you don't know what the word means, check it out in a dictionary. Try to determine what the word means from the context of the story. Be a word detective and make a list of the nautical words used to describe and name ship parts and crew.

This book is loaded with nautical terms.

It is unlikely that Columbus would have confided in someone with such a low status on the ship. Was there really a ship's boy named Pedro who acted as Columbus' confidant? In fact, Columbus was a very egotistical and ill-tempered person. Was Columbus an egotistical, unpleasant person? Ask students to formulate a question for each observation they make and then do research to determine whether the observation is fact or fiction and why. Place the sticky notes under the observation category. As students read, ask them to jot down interesting observations from the story onto sticky notes.

Before students begin reading the book, make a big chart on a bulletin board with the following categories: observations, questions, fact, fiction. The author's note at the end of the book acts as a disclaimer for absolute accuracy, as her purpose was to create fiction, but the book can serve as an excellent vehicle for exploring facts from the time period. Set in the period of 1492-1493 during the actual voyage of Columbus to the New World, it weaves a fictional story around historical fact and research. This book is a good example of the genre Historical Fiction.We also have a printable version of this literature guide, for your convenience. It is appropriate for students in grades 2-6. This book is appealing for reluctant readers because the characters, historical details, and plot are written in simple language. He describes the native people as peaceful and unfairly terrorized by the Spanish. Pedro sees Columbus as egotistical and hot-tempered.

Pedro's story is told in journal entries about the trip across the Atlantic and the exploration of the Indies. Pedro's Journal, by Pam Conrad, tells the tale of Pedro de Salcedo, a ship's boy aboard the Santa Maria, who accompanies Christopher Columbus on the journey to find the new world.

My daniel by pam conrad