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1776 and Forge: Serendipitous Reading

Sep21

1776 by David McCullough.

Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson. Sequel to Chains by the same author. Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Amy at Hope Is the Word.

I really didn’t plan it this way, but what a fortuitous sequence of reading events.

1. I am teaching U.S. History at our homeschool co-op. We’ve been reading about Jamestown, the Pilgrims and colonial life in general. We’ll be studying the American Revolution in about a week, or maybe two.

2. I finally read David McCullough’s 1776 about the beginning of the Revolution and all of the characters and events of the year 1776. I really fell for Nathaniel Greene, General Washington’s young Quaker-born protege, and Henry Knox, the stout young former bookseller turned artillery expert. McCullough writes vivid, informative history, and he makes the people of history especially full of life and approachable. I wanted to meet General Green and Colonel Knox. I cheered for them when things went well and felt sorry for them when they made mistakes which ended in tragedy. I did copy a few passages into my notebook as I read:

Washington to the army defending New York, August 23 1776: “Remember officers and soldiers that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of liberty—that slavery will be your portion and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.”

New York, August 1776, on the lack of uniforms in the Continental Army: “In the absence of uniforms, every man was to put a sprig of green in his hat as identification.” I thought this brief sentence was so evocative of the David and Goliath nature of the fight, backwoods, country Americans, in their worn, homespun work clothes going up against the best-trained, best-equipped army in the world in their scarlet uniforms. And only a spring of greenery to identify friend from foe.

British General Grant after a British victory in the same battle of New York: “If a good bleeding can bring those Bible-faced Yankees to their senses, the fever of independency should soon abate.” It didn’t bring them to their senses, and the fever did not abate.

McCullough on General George Washington: “He was not a brilliant strategist or tactician, not a gifted orator, not an intellectual. At several crucial moments, he had shown marked indecisiveness. He had made serious mistakes in judgment. But experience had been his great teacher, and in this his greatest test, he learned steadily from experience. Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake, and he never gave up.”

3. Immediately after I finished 1776, I started Laurie Halse Anderson’s Forge, a sequel to the award-winning Chains. These books are set during the American Revolution, a fact I knew since I read Chains last year, but I had forgotten that Chains ends in 1776 with the British in control of New York and our two protagonists, Isabel and Curzon, escaping from slavery and from a British prison into the wilderness of upstate(?) New York. Forge covers the time period of the winter and subsequent spring at Valley Forge 1777-78 where General Washington and his ragtag army spent a miserable time trying to survive and recover from their defeats and victories at the hands of the British army.

There are a few flashbacks that tell the reader what happened to Isabel and Curzon between their escape from New York and October, 1777 when the book actually picks up the story. Suffice it to say the two friends have not remained together, and Curzon is now on his own with no idea where Isabel is. This book evokes and enumerates all of the hardships experienced by the common soldiers at Valley Forge from the viewpoint of the lowest of the low, an escaped slave and enlisted man in the Continental Army. Curzon experiences prejudice, misunderstanding, persecution, deprivation, and near starvation, sometimes because of his skin color and also as a result of the deficiency of supplies and organization in the army as a whole.

My friend General Nathaniel Greene reappears in fictional form in this book. and the men are glad to see him! It seems, according to Halse Anderson’s telling of the story, that General Greene saved the day at Valley Forge and finally got the men there some food and clothing and arms. Greene’s wife, Caty doesn’t come off too well in the book, but I didn’t have a crush on her anyway.

So, friends, I would suggest that if you’re interested in the American Revolution and historical fiction set in that time period that you read the following books in the following order, by plan rather than by happenstance:

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. This classic Newbery award-winning novel set in pre-revolutionary Boston gives a fantastic picture of the causes of the warand its effect on the people of Boston.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1, The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson. Semicolon review here.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 2, Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson.

1776 by David McCullough.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. Semicolon review here.

Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Only one word of warning: Anderson’s story still isn’t complete. I read an ARC of Forge, and it won’t be out according to Amazon until mid-October. If you want the entire story you’ll have to wait and read all three volumes together when the third book comes out, whenever that is. By the way, I see that Laurie Halse Anderson will be at the Texas Book Festival in Austin in October. That would be fun to attend, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it this year.

Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone

Sep7

This is a great book about a small boy who will face sickness, starvation, indians, and many other adventures. On his way to help found the colony of Jamestown, young Samuel Collier is apprenticed to Captain John Smith after a fight with another boy in the orphanage. Though at first Samuel sees it as a bad thing, this apprenticeship will turn out to be the very thing that keeps him alive. When Indians are attacking, when the colonists are being abandoned, through starvation and pain, Captain John Smith will help him. Samuel will learn what it is like to be dependent on others, something he never learned in England. He will make friends, lose friends, and even live with his enemies. During his life in the new world he will come face to face will death and sickness, as well as happiness and feasting.

I loved this book because it had so much adventure and excitement, easily balanced by sadness and even death. It’s a great read for anyone with a great imagination and an urge for learning as well. Many of the occurrences in this book actually happened, save some of the details. I read this book by my choice, and I am very glad I did. This is the kind of book you will want to read again and again. Between the action, the great story, and the thrills of the colonists lives, you will be stuck on this book.

KarateKid

Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace

Sep6

I am not sure what made me pick up this book from the library. I can’t find a review in the Saturday Reviews, and I don’t have the book on my TBR list. I am not a baseball fan. I had never heard of author Joseph Wallace, although he’s published several nonfiction books mostly on baseball history. Diamond Ruby is his first novel.

However, even though I’m not a baseball fan, I do like reading well-written books about baseball, especially fiction (see Fascination #23). So, I either read about this book somewhere and thought it sounded interesting, or I saw it on the New Fiction shelf at the library and thought it was worth a try. Either way I’m glad I found and got to read about Diamond Ruby.

In 1923 seventeen year old Ruby Thomas lives in Brooklyn. She has become responsible for the care and upbringing of her two nieces, ten year old Amanda and six year old Allie, since their mother is dead and their father is AWOL. Fortunately for Ruby and the girls, Ruby does have one freakish ability that she can parlay into cash: Ruby can throw a baseball faster and better than most men. In fact she’s just about as fast and accurate as the great Walter Johnson, maybe better.

As the story continues, Ruby’s life and livelihood become enmeshed in the politics of NYC, the enforcement of Prohibition, and the world of professional baseball. She becomes friends with baseball star Babe Ruth and heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. She draws the enmity and disdain of the Ku Klux Klan and of baseball’s all-powerful commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis. She finds out that baseball, like many sports, has a dark side, and she finds herself a target for opportunists, gamblers, and gangsters who see her only as “a piece of meat” ripe for exploitation.

Such a good book. Diamond Ruby is a strong, courageous young lady with a talent that to her is physical aberration. Ruby has unusually long arms. In fact, the kids around where she lives growing up call her “Monkey GIrl.” Ruby figures her freakishly long arms are in great part responsible for pitching abilities, and she doesn’t know whether to hide her deformity as much as possible or to be thankful that it enables her to feed herself and her nieces. So part of the book is about self-acceptance and gratitude, themes that resonate with anyone but especially with young adults.

This book would be a perfect crossover book for adults and young adults, and it could appeal to lots of different subgroups of readers: those who read sports stories, or historical fiction, or feminist lit, or crime and suspense. It incorporates history and historical events such as the 1918 influenza epidemic, the opening of Coney Island, the death of President Warren Harding, Prohibition, the Yankees’ win in the 1923 World Series, and a heavyweight boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Luis Firpo. But Wallace never loses sight of the story to over-emphasize either sports or history. Diamond Ruby is a rollicking good story about an engaging character who wins the reader’s sympathies until we’re rooting for her both on and off the baseball diamond.

Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein

Sep2

I just finished reading this YA historical romance about a fictional lady in the court of Queen Elizabeth I who ends up being banished to Sir Walter Raleigh’s doomed colony on Roanoke Island, and today we read about the Roanoke Colony in our history book (Hakim’s History of the U.S, which I am finding to be quite readable and informative, by the way). I was planning a post in my mind about Cate of the Lost Colony and intending to incorporate some suggested fiction and nonfiction titles concerning the mystery of what happened to the Roanoke settlers.

And, lo and behold, Margo at The Fourth Musketeer has already written my post and done it better than I could have written it anyway. Don’t you just love/hate it when that happens? I agree with just about everything she says. It was a great book. It’s got better romance and better adventure than Twilight. (No vampires were imagined in the writing of this book, an advantage as far as I’m concerned. I think we reached the vampire saturation point in YA literature approximately October 31, 2008.)

The Native American characters and cultural aspects of the story are handled with respect, and the character Manteo, Roanoke’s native leader, is a fully realized character and an attractive man. Sir Walter Ralegh is also a character in the book, and I must say he comes across just about the way I imagine he would have in real life. I have a much better feel for the history of the time period (late 1500’s) after having read this book.

And Margo suggests lots of books I have heard of and others I have not. Did you know that the third book in Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Missing series, Sabotaged, has a major character who is a missing child from the Roanoke Colony? I’ve only read the first book in that series, and I need to get on the stick and read the rest.

I first read about the lost colony of Roanoke when I checked out Virginia Dare, Mystery Girl by Augusta Stevenson (Childhood of Famous Americans) from the library when I was about ten years old. I loved that book although (maybe “because”) it was fiction pretending to be biography. Virginia Dare was the first European baby to be born on North American soil (as far as we know), and no one knows for sure what happened to her and to the rest of the Roanoke colonists. And I think that’s fascinating.

I read an ARC of Cate of the Lost Colony. The actual book is due out on October 12, 2010.

Happy Birthday: Celebrating Elizabeth Borton de Trevino

Sep2

Elizabeth Borton de Trevino, whose historical fiction book I, Juan de Pareja, won the Newbery Medal in 1966, was born on this date in 1904 in Bakersfield, California. She died at the age of 97 on December 2, 2001.

Ms. Borton de Trevino was not Hispanic, but she married a Mexican man and moved with him to his home, Monterrey, Mexico, then to Mexico City, and finally to Cuernavaca. The couple had two sons, and one of the sons, Luis, inspired his mother to write I, Juan de Pareja by telling her the story of the slave of a seventeenth century Spanish artist.

I, Juan de Pareja tells the fictionalized story of Spanish painter Diego Velasquez and his slave and protege, Juanico. Juan posed for one of Velasquez’s most famous paintings, and Velasquez taught Juan to paint even though it was against the law for a slave to learn a profession in seventeenth century Spain. The story itself moves rather slowly and covers a great many years in the life of Velasquez and Juan de Pareja. As the relationship between the two men grows, Velasquez comes to see Juan de Pareja as a friend and an equal instead of a lowly and inferior slave.

Review clips:
Shelley at Book Clutter: “While this was an interesting and somewhat educational children’s novel, I certainly didn’t find it to be a page-turner. I had a hard time imagining a child finding it at all engaging, and thought it was peculiar that the main character is an adult for a very large portion of the book.”

One Librarian’s Book Reviews: “I thought this story was beautiful and terrible. It showed the kinds of extremes slaves felt (at least in Spain) experiencing sometimes the good and sometimes the horrible.”

Sandy at The Newbery Project: “Although I like historical fiction, I’m afraid I was often bored by Juan de Pareja’s narrative, and I frequently wondered just how probable the story was.”

Linda at The Newbery Project: “The writing in this book flowed flawlessly so it was pleasant to read, and it took me only a few days to get through it. That’s fast, as I’m normally a slow reader who gets through one chapter per night if I’m lucky. But I, Juan de Pareja fascinated me and at times I couldn’t put it down despite being tired.”

There you have it–a fine example of mixed reviews. This book might very well be a hard sell for the TV generation, but for that very reason, I considered it a valuable part of our curriculum last year when we were studying Renaissance history. However, I read the book aloud to my children because I knew that they would complain about the slow pace if I required them to read it to themselves. Juanico is a sympathetic character, and the story of how he became a painter and a friend and encourager to the great Velasquez is worth the time and effort, especially for those interested in art and the history of art. Of course, when reading the book it is recommended that you look online to find and view some of the paintings mentioned in the story.

Elizabeth Borton de Trevino wrote three volumes of autobiographical memoir: My Heart Lies South: The Story of my Mexican Marriage, Where the Heart Is, and The Hearthstone of My Heart. I’d like to add at least the first of these to my TBR list. It seems an especially appropriate selection for September, Hispanic Heritage Month.

Elizabeth Borton de Trevino on her family’s reading of Kristin Lavransdattir by Sigrid Undset (good book, by the way):

I got hold of the book first. I sat in a corner with that novel and could not do anything but wash and dress mechnically, eat what was put in my hand, sleep reluctantly, and read, for two weeks. Next, my sister seized the book and she was tended, as I had been, and relieved of every household task and duty until, sighing, she turned the last page. Then my mother said, “All right, girls, take over. It’s my turn.” And she never moved or spoke to a soul until she had finished it. My father did not care. He was rereading, for the tenth enchanted time, the African journals of Frederick Courteney Selous, the great English hunter, and while we were in medieval Norway, he had been far away in darkest Africa, with all the wild forest around him. That is the kind of family we were.

Thanks to Peter Sieruta at Collecting Children’s Books for the quotation.

Sunday Salon: More Fascinating Stuff

Aug15

1. I told you I’m a C.S. Lewis fanatic. And I could always use some writing tips. Thanks to Jessica at Homemaking Through the Church Year for the link to 8 Writing Tips from C.S. Lewis. Lewis wrote this advice on writing in answer to a letter from an American schoolgirl, so it ought to be about on my level.

2. Homeschooling and finishing the race from Cindy at Ordo Amoris:

“It would be easier to not read the Little House series aloud for the 4th time. It would be easier to let those young boys sit at the computer or watch DVDs all day long. But homeschooling and child training are not hobbies for me. They are my calling. If I was purposeful and eager 25 years ago, I want to be ever so much more so today. It is going to take a lot more prayer and way more caffeine. I have lost a whole boatload of naiveté.”

3. “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman. I love that quotation. What makes you come alive?

4. The Night Gift by Patricia McKillip, recommended by Peter at Collecting Children’s Books despite its outdated illustrations, deals with some of my fascinations: mental illness, secret rooms and hideaways, young adults acting like adults. I know I’ve read something by Ms. McKillip, but I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, I’m adding The Night Gift to my TBR list.

5. Language and how it works and different cultures seeing things in different ways are also subjects that interest me. So, I found this article from the Wall Street Journal about the influence of language on thought patterns to be, well, fascinating.

“Do the languages we speak shape the way we think? Do they merely express thoughts, or do the structures in languages (without our knowledge or consent) shape the very thoughts we wish to express?”

I read once that the ancient Hebrews thought about words as living entities. If your words “fell to the ground,” they were not only untrue but also dead. How does this idea affect the language used in the Bible to describe Jesus as “the Living Word of God”? Amazing stuff.

6. Susan Wise Bauer on what to look for and what not to look for as you send your homeschooled or conservatively educated student to college:

“I’m often asked how home educated students stack up against others in my classes. My overwhelming impression is that they’re more fragile. They’ve got little resilience; I can’t push at their presuppositions even a little bit. Maybe they’re afraid those presuppositions will shatter.”

I would very much like for my young adults to be resilient, thinking, teachable students by the time they get to college. But I’m not always sure how to get there from here. I think two of my already graduated students fit that description, and the other two don’t. And I further believe that the two who think deeply and respond to challenges well got that way mostly as a result of their own attitudes and desire to learn. You can lead a horse to water . . .

7. Lists, lists, lists. Love lists.Miss Rumphius reviews a book, 100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days, and gives some other links for ideas for celebrating the 100th day of school. She says that day generally falls around mid-February, so I’m looking forward to taking a day off about that time and having a 100 days party.

8. Another list: important dates to memorize.

9. I’m really interested in this (free) class:

I’m not much of an artist, but I would like to make a journal/photo album for my husband’s family for Christmas using old family photos and excerpts from my father-in-law’s old journals. Wish me luck.

10. More Lewis and Tolkien and England and Oxford: fish and chips, bobbies, The Kilns, tea, Tolkien’s gravesite, Addison’s Walk, Piccadilly CIrcus, Les Miz, even a little Shakespeare. Bill of The Thinklings got to go to London and Oxford to visit his son Andrew who is studying there with a group from Baylor. When will it be my turn?

11. Morbidly fascinating: Augustus St. Clair, Pro-life Hero. Can you guess what newspaper published an article with the following opening statement? (Medical malpractice was a euphemism for abortion.)

“The enormous amount of medical malpractice that exists and flourishes, almost unchecked, in the city of New York, is a theme for most serious consideration. Thousands of human beings are thus murdered before they have seen the light of this world, and thousands upon thousands more of adults are irremediably robbed in constitution, health, and happiness.”

12. Science and religion. Scientists creating religion. Science masquerading as truth. All of these are definitely fascinating. See this NY Times oped for more information on kooky scientists and their confusion concerning what man really is and what separates us from machines.

. . . a great deal of the confusion and rancor in the world today concerns tension at the boundary between religion and modernity — whether it’s the distrust among Islamic or Christian fundamentalists of the scientific worldview, or even the discomfort that often greets progress in fields like climate change science or stem-cell research.

If technologists are creating their own ultramodern religion, and it is one in which people are told to wait politely as their very souls are made obsolete, we might expect further and worsening tensions. But if technology were presented without metaphysical baggage, is it possible that modernity would not make people as uncomfortable?

Returning to Fascination #3, if we begin to speak of robots and algorithms as human entities, will they become human in our thinking, or will we become less than human and unable to realize the potential for which God made us?

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card

Aug6

Wow! This historical fiction/science fiction novel by a master of both genres was so absorbing that I stayed up late to finish reading it and to find out what would happen to Christopher Columbus in a re-imagined world, changed by time travelers from the future.

The book reminded me of Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. THe premise is similar: scientists from the future have found a way to look back, maybe even travel back, into the past by means of a “time machine.” Willis’s books are funnier, especially To Say Nothing of the Dog. However, Card’s Pastwatch delves more deeply into the inherent problems and temptations such an invention would bring to the attention of the scientists using it. Can we change the past to eliminate suffering and punish wrong-doers? Are our cultural mores and expectations really better than those of past cultures? If so, how do we know that? What about cultural imperialism? Is it a valid concern? TO be very specific, if you had the means to rescue a young man who is being sold into slavery, would you have the responsibility to do so? What if one change in the events of the past sets into motion a series of events that totally changes the future that you yourself are a part of, the so-called “butterfly effect”? All of these questions are a part of Pastwatch, but the book doesn’t give terribly satisfying answers to most of the questions. THe ending is somewhat overly optimistic, in my opinion.

Still, as I said, it’s a great story that includes both history (Christopher Columbus, native Central American cultures, and slavery) and futuristic/dystopian/utopian elements. I enjoyed it very much. If you’ve already read Pastwatch and liked it, I would recommend Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. And if you’ve already read Ms. Willis’s time travel books and enjoyed them, I’d recommend Pastwatch.

Oh, I was also reminded of LOST with scientists and mathematicians trying to explain concepts of time and time travel with time as a stream and distinguishable from what a scientist in the book calls “causality.”

“Two contradictory sets of events cannot occupy the same moment. You are only confused because you cannot separate causality from time. And that’s perfectly natural, because time is rational. Causality is irrational. . . . What you must understand is that causality is not real. It does not exist in time. Moment A does not really cause Moment B in reality. . . . None of these moments actually touches any other moment. That is what reality is—an infinite array of discrete moments unconnected with any other other moment because each moment in time has no linear dimension.”

And if you understand that, could you please give me an aspirin for my headache?

The 4th of July

Jul4

Happy Fourth of July to all who visit Semicolon! My pastor put this video together using Ben Shive’s ballad, 4th of July and some footage of Japanese fireworks:

Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell Deut. 30. Beloved there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worshipp other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it;

Therefore lett us choose life,

that wee, and our Seede,

may live; by obeyeing his

voyce, and cleaveing to him,

for hee is our life, and

our prosperity. John Winthrop, 1630

May God bless America for as long as He wills her to endure, and may America be a blessing to the world, a shining city on a hill, as the Pilgrims prayed she would be so long ago.

52 Ways to Celebrate Independence Day

Jul1

1. O Beautiful for spacious skies . . .
Sing a patriotic song.

2. The Battle Hymn of the Republic

3. Some picture books for July 4th:
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Paul Revere’s Ride.Illustrated by Ted Rand. Dutton, 1990.
Dalgliesh, Alice.The 4th of July Story. Alladin, 1995. (reprint edition)
Spier, Peter. The Star-Spangled Banner. Dragonfly Books, 1992.
Bates, Katharine Lee. America the Beautiful. Illustrated by Neil Waldman. Atheneum, 1993.
Devlin, Wende. Cranberry Summer.
St. George, Judith. The Journey of the One and Only Declaration of Independence.
Osornio, Catherine. The Declaration of Independence from A to Z.
More picture books for Independence Day.

4. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804. Advice from Nathaniel Hawthorne on Blogging.

5. Stephen Foster was born on July 4, 1826. The PBS series American Experience has an episode on the life of Stephen Foster, author of songs such as Beautiful Dreamer and Oh! Susanna.

6. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, July 4, 1826, fifty years after adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
Adams’ last words were: “Thomas Jefferson still survives.”
Jefferson’s last words: “Is it the fourth?”
I highly recommend both David McCullough’s biography of John Adams and the PBS minseries based on McCullough’s book.

7. Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872. He is supposed to have said, “If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it,” and “I have never been hurt by anything I didn’t say.”
Also, “we do not need more intellectual power, we need more spiritual power. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.”
Amen to that.
More on Calvin Coolidge and the Fourth of July from A Gracious Home.

8. You could make your own fireworks for the Fourth of July. Engineer Husband really used to do this when he was a young adolescent, and I can’t believe his parents let him. He tried to make nitroglycerine once, but he got scared and made his father take it outside and dispose of it! Maybe you should just read about how fireworks are made and then imagine making your own.

9. On July 4, 1970 Casey Kasem hosted “American Top 40” on radio for the first time. I cannot tell a lie; in high school I spent every Sunday afternoon listening to Casey Kasem count down the Top 40 hits of the week. Why not make up your own TOp 40 All-American Hits List and play it on the fourth for your family?

10. Via Ivy’s Coloring Page Search Engine, I found this page of free coloring sheets for the 4th of July. We liked the fireworks page.

11. Fly your American flag.

12. Read a poem to your children about Leetla Giorgio Washeenton. Or read this biography of George Washington.

13. Read about another president you admire.

14. Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen. Subtitled “The Story of the Constitutional Convention May to September 1787,” this book is the one that gave me the story of the US constitution. It’s suitable for older readers, at least middle school age, but it’s historical writing at its best. I loved reading about Luther Martin of Maryland, whom Henry Adams described as “the notorious reprobate genius.” Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts who was”always satisfied to shoot an arrow without caring about the wound he caused.” (Both Gerry and Martin refused to sign the final version of the Constitution.) Of course, there were Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution, George Washington, who presided over the convention in which all present knew that they were creating a presidency for him to fill, and Ben Franklin, the old man and elder statesman who had to be carried to the convention in a sedan chair. Ms. Bowen’s book brings all these characters and more to life and gives the details of the deliberations of the constitutional convention in readable and interesting format.

15. Watch a movie.
Getttysburg is a tragedy within the tragedy that was the Civil War, but it’s also patriotic and inspiring.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has Jimmy Stewart demonstrating what’s wrong and what’s right about American government and politics.
I like 1776, the musical version of the making of the Declaration Of Independence.
Other patriotic movies. And a few more.

16. Have yourself some BarBQ.

17. Play a game.

18. Organize a bike parade.

19. Host a (cup)cake decorating contest.

20. Download a free Independence Day wallpaper for your computer.

21. Photograph some fireworks. Check out some fireworks photographs.

22. Listen to The Midnight Ride from Focus on the Family’s series, Adventures in Odyssey, to be broadcast on Monday July 5th.

23. Read aloud the Declaration of Independence.

24. Download some free marches by John Philip Sousa, performed by the U.S. Marine Band. I played two of these, not very well, on my flute when I was in Homer Anderson’s Bobcat Band: King Cotton and The Invincible Eagle.

25. Enjoy A Capitol Fourth, broadcast live on PBS from Washington, D.C.

26. Send an e-card to someone you love.

27. Pledge allegiance with Red Skelton.

28. Bake and decorate a flag cake.

29. When Life sends you an Independence Day, make lemonade.

30. July is National Hot Dog Month and National Baked Bean Month.

31. Fourth of July Crafts and Treats: cupcakes, windsocks, stars, hats, and more.

32. A patriotic pedicure?

33. More Fourth of July crafts.

34. Patriotic parfait.

35. Start an all-American read aloud, such as:
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott.
Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit.
Tolliver’s Secret by Esther Woods Brady.

36. Independence Day printables from Crayola. And more coloring pages from Moms Who Think.

37. SIng the U.S. national anthem, Oh, Say Can You See?, all the way through. Memorize at least the first verse.

38. More Fourth of July recipes.

39. We always attend the Fourth of July parade in Friendswood, Texas, except this year when we’ll be traveling. Anyway, find a parade and take the kids or grandkids or neighbor kids. A Fourth of July parade is a celebration of American patriotism in a capsule.

40. Free patriotic U.S.A. calendars.

41. Fourth of July art projects for preschoolers and the young at heart.

42. Read a version of Patrick Henry’s great Give Me Liberty speech.

43. Check out A Book of Americans by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet. It’s a great book of poems about various famous Americans, and I think lots of kids would enjoy hearing it read aloud, maybe a poem a day in July.

44. Make a pinwheel or other printable craft. Or print some games.

45. Spend some time praying for our nation’s leaders: President Barack Obama, your senators, your representatives, the governor of your state, your state representatives, and others.

46. Wear red, white, and blue. Or put red and blue streaks in your hair. When I was in junior high, flag pins and ponchos were in style. I had a flag pin and a red, white, and blue poncho, both of which I wore together. I was stylin’!

47. On July 4, 1845, Henry David Thoreau went to live near Walden Pond. Thoreau and Sherry on Clothing.

48. Any of the following nonfiction book for children would make a good Fourth of July history lesson:
The Story of the Boston Tea Party by R. Conrad Stein
The Story of Lexington and Concord by R. Conrad Stein
The Signers: The 56 Stories Behind the Declaration of Independence by Dennis Brindell Fradin
The Story of the Declaration of Independence by Norman Richards
The American Revolution (Landmark Books) by Bruce Jr Bliven
The War for Independence: The Story of the American Revolution by Albert Marrin
The Story of Valley Forge by R. Conrad Stein
Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold by Jean Fritz
The Story of the Battle of Yorktown by Anderson
Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen.
The Story of the Constitution by Marilyn Prolman
In Defense of Liberty: The Story of America’s Bill of Rights by Russell Freedman
An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy
George Washington and the Founding of a Nation by Albert Marrin
The Story of Old Glory by Mayer

49. Host a block party or potluck dinner.

50. Take a picnic to the park.

51. Read 1776 by David McCullough. I’ve been intending to read this historical tome for several years. Maybe this year is the year.

52. Go to church. SInce Independence Day falls on a Sunday this year, it’s a good day to go to church and thank the God who made and preserves this nation and all nations and to ask His continued mercy and grace upon all of us. God bless America.

Countdown by Deborah Wiles

Jun5

Book #1 for Mother Reader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge
Reading TIme: 2.5 hours
Pages: 378

So Countdown is a “documentary novel” taking place in the fall of 1962 near Andrews Air Force Base. Franny Chapman is in fifth grade, and she has a lot going on in her life. Her best friend Margie is suddenly not a friend anymore. Franny’s sister Jo Ellen is hiding something and spending way too much time at college when she should be at home helping Franny. Chris Cavas has just moved back into the house next door, and he’s somehow grown up to resemble Del Shannon instead of Beaver Cleaver. Uncle Otts is trying to build a bomb shelter in the backyard, and everyone is worried about the Russians. What if the air raid siren goes off for real, and the Communists drop the Bomb and end the world as Franny knows it? Will “duck and cover” really be enough to save Franny and her friends and family?

I was born in 1957. In the fall of 1962, I was five years old. Our schools didn’t have kindergarten, so I wasn’t in school yet. I wondered as I was reading if that was why I didn’t remember anything about civil defense shelters or air raid drills or Bert the Turtle or “duck and cover.” So I asked Engineer Husband who’s a few years older than me and would have been about Franny’s age in 1962. He remembers civl defense shelters with the yellow triangle, but he didn’t really know their purpose. And, like me, the only drills he remembers were fire drills and tornado drills (in which you did find an inside wall away from glass and duck and cover your head). I suppose the the powers-that-be in West Texas where we grew up were a lot more worried about fires and tornadoes than atomic bombs. (Engineer Husband does remember being scared silly because his older brother told him that if Kennedy were elected in 1960, he and all his friends would be forced to go to Catholic school.)

Still, even though I don’t remember any bomb scares, I did find a lot of the cultural references in the book familiar. Ms. WIles writes about 45rpm records; I remember those. And I recognized all the songs: Runaway, Moon RIver, Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, and Monster Mash. (I wondered where the Beatles were, but apparently they didn’t “invade” until 1964.) It was fun for me to read about all of the brands and fads and events of my childhood, even if the book does take place a little before my time.

Interspersed between chapters of the fictional story about Franny and her search for peace in a chaotic world are photographs, news reports, excerpts from speeches, documentary-style reports on famous people like Truman and Kennedy and Pete Seeger. Coming from the conservative side of the aisle, I thought the reports were a little biased toward the left, especially making Kennedy into a King Arthur of Camelot. For instance, the Kennedy bio says that Kennedy “had to deal with a problem he inherited from Eisenhower: the Bay of Pigs invasion.” Yes, training for the Bay of Pigs began under Eisenhower, but Kennedy knew all about it and allowed, if not ordered, the invasion to happen under his watch. The biographical piece on Kennedy generally presents an idyllic picture of him and his presidency, saying that he “made hard decisions” and “dreamed of peace” and served for “three glittering years.” It’s not blatantly biased, though, and as an introduction to President Kennedy and the early 1960’s, it will do.

I liked the characters and the story as much I did the newsy informative sections that were sprinkled throughout the book. The fiction and nonfiction portions of the book complemented each other well. I’m planning a twentieth century study for my homeschool students and for me sometime in the next few years in which we study through the twentieth century year by year. I think Countdown would be a great introduction to the year 1962 and to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War. After reading the book, we could take a look, and a listen, at the primary sources that Ms. Wiles used to inform her fiction. And then it should still be possible to interview some people who lived during 1962 and remember those times. I’m getting excited, and nostalgic, thinking about it.

Countdown website.
Deborah Wiles’ website.
Scroll down to the previous post for a link to the a book trailer and an excerpt form chapter 1 of Countdown.