ALA Booklist

Focusing on the celebration that marked the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, Harness uses words, maps, and pictures to explain the history and commerce of the canal. The book discusses the need for the canal, the politics of its planning and building, the workings of the locks and canals, the pleasure and pride people took in the accomplishment of this engineering feat, and the reasons for its demise. Full of action and details of human drama, many of the colorful double-page spreads show scenes of jubilation, as town and country folk line the canal for the festive parade of boats headed from Lake Erie down the canal and the Hudson River to the Atlantic Ocean. The illustrations offer a series of intriguing views of nineteenth-century New York State, seen by daylight and by moonlight. An upbeat introduction. (Reviewed May 15, 1995)

Horn Book

Harness combines vibrant illustrations with a wealth of historical detail in this account of the building of the canal. Interspersed with maps and diagrams, the text describes the ten-day celebration in 1825 when the canal was completed, as crowds cheered and politicians made speeches. A lively and inviting look at a slice of American history.

Kirkus Reviews

The book of choice for middle-grade readers embarking on the topic, this fills the gap between Peter Spier's illustrated song- text (The Erie Canal, Doubleday, 1970) and the factual detail of R. Conrad Stein's The Story of the Erie Canal (Childrens, 1985). The pages work hard. One spread encompasses a map of the canal chronicling its construction; four portraits; captioned vignettes of Niagara Falls, stairstep locks, a huge stump-pulling machine, and an aqueduct; a four-part drawing of the locks; a cross-section of the canal with towpath and bridge; and two paragraphs of the main text. Harness (Young John Quincy, 1994, etc.) is so skilled that no page appears cluttered or confusing, and with much of the information presented visually, the conception and construction of the canal are covered in eight pages. The remainder of the book is devoted to the triumphant ten-day parade of boats from Buffalo to New York City that marked the canal's completion in 1825. Intensely colored watercolor, gouache, and pencil illustrations show the canal day and night, in town and country, from vantage points high and low; more maps, diagrams, and vignettes are worked into the corners of these densely packed pages, in the author's most notable, accessible work thus far. (bibliography, music) (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)"

School Library Journal

Gr 2-6--Harness has done a wonderful job of making the history and construction of the Erie Canal come alive. Facts and descriptions are related in lively, accessible language, e.g.,``...then came the stake-setters, the soil-borers, the underbrush-grubbers, the tree-chopper-downers...'' The narrative is matched with illustrations that cover each page. On one double-page spread, there are miniatures of the engineers who worked on the canal; a picture of how the locks work; a map of progress; a drawing of a swamp in which workers died of malaria; a stump-removal machine; the tow path; the low bridges; and a cross-section diagram showing the depth and width of the canal. All of the colorful illustrations are peppered with active people. Children will pore over these fascinating details.--Kate Hegarty Bouman, Susquehanna Valley Junior High School, Conklin, NY