Marquette & Jolliet

Marquette & Jolliet was published in 2006 by Crabtree Publishing Company as part of their 'Explorers of the New World' series. Designed to serve as an accessible educational resource for primary and middle school students, the book provides a structured historical account of the 1673 expedition led by French explorer Louis Jolliet and Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette. The text focuses on their exploration of the Mississippi River, framed within the broader context of seventeenth-century French colonization efforts in North America.

The book utilizes a pedagogical approach characteristic of Crabtree’s non-fiction line, which emphasizes clear, straightforward prose supported by archival-style illustrations, maps, and primary source excerpts. Alexander Zelenyj wrote the work to distill complex colonial history into a concise format suitable for classroom study. Upon its release, the volume was received as a standard supplemental text for North American history curricula, valued for its focus on the collaborative nature of the mission and its impact on the mapping of the mid-continental interior.