The story of one man's journey to discover the truth about one of America's greatest folk tales; the legend of John Henry. A very well written and researched piece that will surely be of great use to many classrooms for years and years to come. ( )

This book is about a historian who wants to find out if John Henry was really a man or just a myth. This book was very interesting. I've come to really enjoy the non-fiction historical books. It talks about John Henry being a worker in the headquarters of the 3rd Army Corps in 1863. He was later arrested for stealing. It's questionable whether that really happened. During that time, white men weren't comfortable seeing black men walking around confidently, so they found ways to put them in prison. The ratio of black to white men in prison grew to a 10:1 ratio. The research goes on to talk about John Henry being one of the prisoners sent to work on creating a hole through the Allegheny Mountains for a railroad. Many black men died due to the dust. Through the author's research, it seems as though John Henry was one of those men. He ended up dying at the site where they were working and then taken back to the prison to be buried in the sand. The author was able to relate many actual events to songs that were sung about John Henry. Great book for young readers to learn about our history.

What an amazing book! This isn’t just the story of John Henry, this is a mystery story. If ever there was a book that would get kids excited about research this is it. Nelson does an amazing job presenting his methods in searching for the real John Henry. He make sure to say it is only conjecture that the records he found are about the real John Henry, but they are very convincing. As the author found more clues, encountered more dead ends, the reader was sucked into what most people would consider a very dry subject, research! I would recommend this to kids interested in history, research, and folk tales. I would also highly recommend this as a book for teachers to assign before teaching students about research. There are also great resources for readers interested in John Henry and a section called “How to Become a Historian” by coauthor Mark Arnson. I cannot say enough good things about this book. ( )

This book was great. The writing was infectious and kept you on your toes waiting to see what Nelson found next. He spread out his evidence to support his claims very well, and he is clear when he cannot concretely prove something. He never states his theory as absolute fact. Which I feel is incredibly important. It is no good for a historian to make absolute claims with evidence that only mostly supports it and a terrible thing to teach children.
The pictures he included were perfect examples of life during that time, and making the book sepia colored kept the reader in the past. ( )

I really liked the way that this book was written and the pictures that the author used,