Stories of America — Season 1, Episode 16: Davy Crockett
Kids • 15 min • 1 season, 32 episodes
Episode synopsis
This episode introduces children to the legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett, a figure whose real-life adventures helped inspire American folklore. Through simple narration and reenactments, the program follows Crockett’s early years in the wilderness, his skill as a hunter and storyteller, and his rise to public service as a Tennessee congressman. The episode highlights his courage, independence, and larger‑than‑life reputation, showing how Crockett became a symbol of the frontier spirit that shaped America’s growth.
About Stories of America
The interconnectedness of all things is a fundamental part of reading motivation projects. Although GPN's Reading Rainbow claims to have invented that idea, Stories of America with host Ann McGregor got there first. It was 1976, America's bicentennial year, and WVIZ-TV of Cleveland wanted something more out of a series aimed at delivering American history, They decided to combine history with reading. The result was Stories of America. Hosting was the familiar face of Ann McGregor, who had enlivened Picture Book Park and Tilson's Bookshop some two years earlier. Stories of America resembled more of a story reading than a history lesson, but it also introduced other elements that became standard Reading Rainbow procedure. There were occasional film sequences, dramatizations, and even an animation. All told, the 32-part Stories of America series ran some 14 years on WVIZ-TV. The station brought the shows back in 1998, and it would be the only WVIZ instructional telev