This teaching guide for the historical picture book Crossing Niagara provides a variety of thought-provoking discussion questions and a mix curriculum connections that link the high-wire exploits of tightrope artist Jean Francois Gravelet to reading, writing, research and reasoning skills.
Crossing Niagara Activity Guide
Excerpted from
Crossing Niagara: The Death-Defying Tightrope Adventures of the Great Blondin
When the Great Blondin announced that he was going to walk from America to Canada across the Niagara River on a rope that was more than 1,100 feet long and just 3 inches wide, hanging 160 feet above the raging river, people came from everywhere. Some came to watch him cross. Some came to watch him fall. Some thought he wouldn’t show up at all. But he did show up. And he did walk across the river. And then he did something else amazing. He crossed the river on that tightrope again and again, adding another death-defying flourish each time. Matt Tavares’s gorgeous, riveting account of the daredevil of Niagara Falls is sure to hold readers in its grip, just as Blondin's feats enthralled those spectators on the cliffs more than one hundred and fifty years ago.
