Tag Archives: Rob Shearer

1607: A New Look at Jamestown

From the same team at National Geographic who brought us Mayflower 1620 and 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving, comes an important book about the FIRST permanent English colony in North America, Jamestown. The story of Plymouth is told and retold in the children’s books and history texts. Jamestown always seems to come in as an afterthought, or footnote.

There are many reasons for that, some of them logical, some simply prejudice. Plymouth is in New England. New England has dominated the school movement in America, ergo. . . The north won the war and gets to write the textbooks.

There are other, more logical reasons. The location of the Plymouth colony still survives, and has been rebuilt as an interpretive, living history museum. The location of Jamestown was thought to be lost, swallowed by the meandering James River. But in 1994, the original site of the Jamestown settlement was discovered on a small rise on the banks of the river. It had not crumbled into the water, after all. Over the past 14 years, over a million artifacts have been recovered, along with the foundations of the fort. This book includes photographs of the site and the recovery and restoration work, along with some arresting photographs of re-enactors taking the part of the early colonists.

The other reason for the relative neglect suffered by the history of Jamestown is that its story is even darker and more depressing than the struggles of Plymouth. At Plymouth, half the settlers died in the first winter. At Jamestown, three-fourths of all those who arrived between 1607 and 1625 were dead before 1626. At Jamestown, the conflict between settlers and Indians began early and never abated. There were murderous attacks by both sides.

But there is a positive side to Jamestown as well. Like Plymouth it is a story of perseverance and courage and independence. Although the settlers began with all of the class distinctions of English society, they quickly learned that in the struggle for survival, all men must labor side by side. A certain egalitarian spirit quickly developed.

The chapters in this book have the following titles:

  • Strangers in a Strange Land
  • A Native American Empire
  • The Dying Times
  • Green Gold
  • Winners Take All
  • A New Look at Jamestown

To adequately understand the history of the founding of the English colonies in America, it is important to understand Jamestown, as well as Plymouth.

National Geographic has done an admirable job of presenting a balanced account of that colony named for King James I of England – the first permanent English settlement in North America.

1607: A New Look at Jamestown is a hardback, 48 pages. The price is $17.95, direct from Greenleaf Press.

– Rob Shearer,
Publisher, Greenleaf Press


Using Public Schools to normalize homosexuality

I received this in an email today. It’s a transcript of part of today’s broadcast from the Homeschool Legal Defense’s daily radio program.

Homeschool Heartbeat, Volume 84, Program 6
8/11/2008, Click here to Listen Online.

Do parents have a right to know when their children’s classrooms turn into headquarters for the homosexual agenda? Dr. David Parker thought so, but his five-year-old’s school said otherwise. Hear his alarming story on Home School Heartbeat with Mike Farris.

Mike Farris:
I’m joined today by Dr. David Parker, who’s here to tell us about one of the most flagrant parental rights’ infringement stories of our time. Can you tell our listeners just a little bit about how your case began?

Dr. Parker:
Our first son, Jacob Parker, was entering kindergarten, and within a few months, in Lexington, Massachusetts, they gave my son a diversity book bag—he was five years old at the time—and my son brought it home and it contained the book Who’s In a Family, by Robert Skutch, and this introduces young children to the homosexual relationship.

We did the first thing really any parents would do: we went into the school and asked a lot of questions. Basically, we found out that their intention is to normalize homosexuality and gay marriage in the minds of very young children, and my wife and I asked for parental notification.

In other words, before a teacher, an authority figure, discusses this with our young child, we’d like the option to know first, know what they’re going to say, and opt our child out.

Astoundingly, they said no. In fact, even in a conversation with the former school committee chairman, he said to me, “We’re not going to give parental notification; we’re going to put it all throughout the curriculum. We can’t trust parents with these issues.”

Did you catch that, parents?

“Their intention is to normalize homosexuality and gay marriage in the minds of very young children.”

We’re not going to give parental notification; we’re going to put it all throughout the curriculum. We can’t trust parents with these issues.”

Here’s a description of the book from its entry at Amazon:

Beginning with a traditional nuclear family and ending with blank spaces in which the child reader is instructed to “draw a picture of your family,” this slight book catalogues multicultural contemporary family units, including those with single parents, lesbian and gay parents, mixed-race couples, grandparents and divorced parents.

The barbarians are no longer at the gates. They have taken over and are running things.

Rob Shearer (aka RedHatRob)

A Street Through Time and A City Through Time

I am, in general, a big fan of the DK books. Their Eyewitness series, with 160+ titles now, is an excellent resource for young readers (approximately 8-16) on a wide variety of topics. I’m busily adding all of the Eyewitness books into their own category in the Greenleaf online store. But beyond the Eyewitness books, with their museum quality photography, DK has also done some excellent development in traditional illustrated children’s books.

Parents, teachers, and students who will be tracing the history and connectivity of peoples and places from ancient through medieval and modern times will find the following two books very intriguing. They will definitely help your students to understand how the past still influences and is visible in the present.

The first title is A Street Through Time, by Dr. Anne Millard and Steve Noon. It is billed as a 12,000-year walk through history. The book focuses on a location somewhere in the island of Britain, along a river and presents a detailed over-sized two-page spread which depicts what the place looked like at fourteen key periods of history. The first picture is labeled 10,000 BC. We can pass lightly over this one, since it’s largely guess-work. The second scene is 2,000 BC and shows farmers who have constructed a simple village. By 600 BC, this village has passed into the iron age and grown in population. On a nearby hilltop is an iron-age fort similar to those found throughout southern Britain. In AD 100 our village has become an outpost of the Roman Empire. There is a Roman bath, a Roman temple, and a Roman market. In AD 600, things have slipped backwards. The Romans are gone, their buildings are in ruins. But the place by the river is still inhabited. In 900 AD things have gotten both better and worse. There is a stone church and new thatched residences, but there is also the threat of Viking raids. Our scene shows such a raid in progress. In 1208 AD, we have reached the high middle ages. The village has grown a bit. There is a castle on the hill now. In 1400 AD the village has turned into a town. There is a new stone church, new town walls, and a new stone bridge. The townsmen are prospering. In 1500 AD, the plague strikes. It’s not a pretty scene. The next scene is labeled 1600’s finds our town caught in the conflict between King and Parliament – civil war in fact. Some of the houses are burning, the castle on the hill is under siege, and there are soldiers marching in the fields outside the town walls. The 1700s are much more prosperous, even elegant. The residences along the river have been rebuilt. The castle is in ruins, but there is a Georgian estate constructed beside it. The 1800s show the effect of the industrial revolution. The effect on the town is mixed. Some prosper, but many of the workers are poor (grim times). The last two scenes show our familiar street in the late 1800s and today. The church is still there – a landmark to help us orient ourselves. The castle is in ruins, but has become a tourist attraction.

Among the other fun things to do with this book is to play a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” game. The illustrator has hidden a time traveler, named Henry Hyde in each scene. He keeps the same costume through the ages, and you can recognize him by the goggles on his head, his scarf, and long duster.

There are also text cues in the sentences printed in the margins that direct the reader to find particular features. A teacher or parent could use these very effectively with a child. An older student will enjoy the challenges on their own.

The book is oversize, 14″ x 10″, making each 2-page spread a full 28″ wide.

A Street Through Time is a hardback, 32 pages, with full-color illustrations throughout. It is available for $17.99 direct from Greenleaf.

The second DK book is constructed on the same pattern as A Street Through Time, but takes a broader view. A City Through Time is billed as “The Story of a City – from Ancient Colony to vast Metropolis.” The setting for this book is somewhere in Europe, at the mouth of a river on the Mediterranean coast – though the precise location is never specified. Rather than give an identical view for each snapshot in time, the depiction of the city in these spreads is a bit more varied. This allows for a more detailed examination of particular features and buildings. The story begins with a Greek colony in 550 BC (with a separate spread on the Greek temple), then continues to Roman civitas (again with a separate spread showing the public baths in great detail). There is a view of the medieval city (with detail on the castle) and then the more modern industrial port (and railroad station) and the steel and glass modern city (with a cutaway view of a skyscraper turned on it’s side).

This one is also oversize, 14″ by 10″ making each 2-page spread a full 28″ wide.

A City Through Time is a hardback, 32 pages, with full-color illustrations throughout. It is available for $17.99 direct from Greenleaf.

– Rob Shearer
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

Book – an Eyewitness Book about books

For those of us who are book-lovers (and if you’re not, one wonders why you’re reading this blog!), this is a delight. It is billed as “the story of writing – from ancient picture scripts to medieval manuscripts and modern printed books.”

As with all the Eyewitness Books, this one is a visual feast. There are 25 two-page spreads, each illustrated with photographs of museum-quality artifacts. There is a bit of overview text, and then lengthy captions underneath each photograph describing the item in detail. The spreads are titled:

What is writing?

On Press

First signs

Early printed books

Writing with signs

Typefaces

Egyptian writing

Binding

ABC…

Illustrated books

Before paper

Learning words

Paper

Handwriting

A medieval Psalter

Children’s books

Manuscript books

Words at work

Books from Asia

The typewriter

Islamic books

The book market

Getting ready to print

Keeping your words

Typesetting

Examples of medieval handwritten manuscript books

There is a fascinating chart on page 16 showing the alphabet family which compares the letter forms from Phoenician, Modern Hebrew, Early Greek, Classical Greek, Etruscan, Classical Roman, and Modern Roman.

As you can see from the spread titles above, the focus is on book-making BEFORE the 20th century. There is no coverage of modern book-making machinery or computer typesetting. For those topics, though, there are other books.

With its 8 page center section devoted to Gutenberg, moveable type, and his press, this book makes an excellent resource for anyone studying the invention of the printing press. It will give you extensive background on how “books” were created in the ancient world, which helps you to understand the significance of what Gutenberg accomplished.

I’ve scanned three of the sample spreads and placed them to the left here.

This is a reproduction of the Gutenberg press

Gutenberg Bible on the right, Caxton’s Canterbury Tales on the left, and an Aldine edition from Venice in the center.

Book, like all the other Eyewitness Books is a hardback, 64 pages, with a price of $15.99. It can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press by clicking here.

– Rob Shearer
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

A wedding in the family

photo by Perry Harmon

Our daughter got married Friday night. It was a beautiful wedding (and reception) thanks to the help of family and friends (and the amazing Cyndy). We really like (and are impressed with) our new son-in-law. He came to visit us last February (not the first time we’d met) and went to breakfast with me, showed me the engagement ring he had bought, and asked me if he could propose to our daughter on Valentine’s Day. I was impressed. Since he was with us for the weekend, all of our daughter’s younger sisters got to see the ring before she did! Everybody sat around the telephone on Valentine’s Day waiting for the phone to ring with the CALL from our daughter.

I performed the ceremony (I’ve been ordained since 2000), and used the Anglican Prayer Book Service, with only a few minor edits. The liturgy is beautiful. It does an excellent job of presenting the biblical foundation for marriage and sets the proper solemn tone. I was struck by the fact that there are really three sets of promises that the couple make to each other. The first is called the “Consent” and comes at the beginning of the service. The bride and groom are each asked, “Will you, N., have this woman/man to be your wife/husband…” The second is the “Marriage Vows” in the traditional formula of “I, N., take you, N. to be my lawful wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” The third set of promises come with the “Exchange of Rings,” and includes the phrase “with all that I am and all that I have, I honor you.” Each set of promises adds to and enriches all that has come before. As intended, the service caused me to reflect on my own vows to Cyndy, spoken 31 years ago this month, and renewed and strengthened at the wedding of our daughter this past Friday night.

photo by Perry Harmon

I learned two other things this past week. One: Marrying a daughter is different from marrying a son. (can you say, “emotional roller coaster?” me, not her!) and Two: I am Steve Martin.

– Rob Shearer
Director, Schaeffer Study Center
Publisher, Greenleaf Press

The Dark Knight

I’ve seen the Batman movie – twice.

First, let me echo the cautionary words I have read elsewhere – this is NOT a movie for children. It’s PG-13 for a reason and I would not for a moment consider taking a child less than 13 to see it.

Several reviewers (notably, Sam Thielman in World Magazine) have noted the startling, disturbing, and powerful performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Thielman observes that he’s not playing the Joker, “He’s playing Satan. Ledger flicks his tongue like a snake, tempts people to kill one another, and is gleefully sloppy with bullets, bombs, and knives. Everyone else plays gangland archetypes; Ledger’s Joker has escaped to the movies from Milton, or C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra.”

If the Joker is Satan, then Batman is … ? No, he’s not Jesus. And yet, there are some striking details in the way Batman is portrayed which one does not expect to find in a comic book super-hero.

Batman is the hero, but the script does not ask us to admire him because he’s stronger, wiser, faster, or has better gadgets. Instead, the writers, (Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and David Goyer) portray Batman as the vigilante who longs for the day when he is no longer needed. Batman is not Jesus, but he is the anti-Joker. This concept is explicitly played with in several scenes.

The Joker has no political agenda, no long-term goals. That, indeed, is one of the things that makes him so terrifying, and so dangerous. The Joker in fact, has no identity. No fingerprint matches, no DNA matches, no ID, no labels in his clothes. His only demand is that Batman should unmask himself. Alfred rebukes Bruce Wayne, who thinks the Joker is just another criminal, with the observation that “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

It is this acknowledgement – that there is real evil in the world – that is part of what makes The Dark Knight a different kind of movie.

The other part is that Batman triumphs, not because he’s stronger, but because he’s willing to deny himself. He’s willing to be the outcast. He’s willing to be rejected by the citizens of Gotham, if that’s what it takes to protect Gotham. He’s willing to be blamed for things he didn’t do, if it will preserve hope.

The Joker strives desperately to prove that everyone, in the end, is as evil as he is. That he’s not mad, he’s just “ahead of the curve.” He tempts, toys, and manipulates everyone – and proves, over and over again, that they can be corrupted – but he fails to corrupt Batman. It is Batman’s rejection of the temptation of the Joker that makes him the victor. And there are some surprising heroes in other places, as well.

Most of the movie is loud and violent, and there are sections of dialogue that are maddeningly difficult to hear (especially the final voice-over). But they are worth listening to. Alfred (Michael Cain) and Lucius (Morgan Freeman) are the wise men in Bruce Wayne’s life. They give him good advice. But in the end, Batman must find the strength of character alone to resist the Joker.

The movie satisfies, because Batman decides to be the Hero that Gotham needs – even though he must pay a terrible personal cost.

Lots of people are going to see this movie. It represents a tremendous opportunity to talk about issues of great significance. Leadership, integrity, service, self-denial, the reality of evil and the importance of self-sacrifice are all themes that are touched on. There have not been many movies that raised those issues, and so I commend the film-makers.

But don’t take the kids.

As Good as Anybody

This is a remarkable, and hopeful children’s book about the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s. The book tells the story of two lives, in simple, clear text and powerful illustrations. The first biography is of a young black boy growing up in Atlanta. He is constantly confronted with painful reminders of the injustice and prejudice directed towards the members of his race. The second biography is of a young Jewish boy growing up in Poland. He too is constantly confronted with painful reminders of the injustice and prejudice directed towards the members of his race.

In the 1960s, the young boy from Atlanta had grown up to be a Baptist preacher like his father. He led a movement to end the injustices of racial segregation and prejudice. That story, too, is told in the book. When Martin organized a protest march in Alabama, his followers were confronted by police with dogs and clubs. Martin issued a national call for all God’s children to come to Alabama and join the march.

The Jewish boy from Poland, who had emigrated to America and become an influential rabbi, was among those who answered the call. On March 21, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King, Jr. prayed together. And then they marched together.

In January of 1968, Martin Luther King spoke at Abraham Heschel’s 61st birthday party. In April of 1968, Abraham Heschel spoke at Martin Luther King’s funeral.

This is a simple, yet powerful book with a message that parents should be encouraged to teach their children. Published in May of 2008, forty years after the death of Martin Luther King.

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. In early April of 1968, I turned thirteen years old. In late April, Martin Luther King was assassinated. It was, to say the least, a terrible year. In Atlanta, my family had been proud of Dr. King, and we mourned his death. We were proud that Atlanta had a reputation as “the city too busy to hate.” The ideals of the Declaration and Constitution have taken a long time to be fully realized. Teaching our children about the ideals and the struggle is an important part of their education.

The book is a hardback, 40 pages, full color throughout. The text is written on a 3rd-4th grade reading level, but the book will work very well read out loud to younger children as well. As Good as Anybody is available directly from Greenleaf Press for $16.99.

“In the not-too-impossible-to-imagine future, a gay Jewish man has been elected President of the United States. . .”

“In the not-too-impossible-to-imagine future, a gay Jewish man has been elected President of the United States. . .”

So begins the book blurb for a forthcoming YoungAdult novel (Wide Awake) which will be published by Random House/Alfred A. Knopf this fall.

And the plot twist of course, is an evil scheme by a conservative governor to alter the presidential voting results in one state to prevent our hero’s election. And our youthful protagonists’ adventure is to support their candidate by “taking part in the rallies and protests.” Our heroes are Jimmy and Duncan and the book promises “an exploration of their relationship, their politics, and their country.”

By David Levithan, the author who previously brought us Boy Meets Boy.

Welcome to the next phase of the desensitization and recruitment program.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization

“Political correctness, at its heart, is the effort to dissolve the foundation on which American and European culture has been built. It has been a demolition project: undermine Western civilization in whatever way possible, and build a brave new world from the rubble.”

“Multiculturalism has nothing to do with genuine love for natives of the Australian outback or the monks of Tibet. It is an effort to crowd out our own cultural traditions. Radical secularization – in the name of “separation of church and state” – aims to burn our religious roots. Public education, purveying convenient untruths about our past – the Middle Ages were miserable, the ancients were simpletons, the church is oppressive – has sought to rob us of our heritage. Misrepresentations of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the last two hundred years serve to create an illusion of unvarying progress made possible by abandoning the old ways. And that is the central myth that justifies the continued discarding of our religious, intellectual, and moral traditions.”

“Once our culture is untethered from Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem – once we’ve forgotten about or dismissed Moses, Plato, and Jesus – then the PC platoons in academia, government, and the media hope to steer the ship of culture to new shores.”

“Because political correctness is a project of destruction, the message has not always been consistent. Either Shakespeare was a subversive, closeted homosexual, or he was an ignorant chauvinist. Either Jesus was a non-judgmental hippie, or he was a preacher of hate. But this much has been consistent: anything that reeks of the West is therefore politically incorrect and must be denigrated or condemned.”

“For those of us who love the West, it’s a daunting battle. The other side has the mainstream media, the Ivy League, the political classes, and a lot more money. Thankfully, on our side, we’ve got thousands of years of history and some pretty big guns – with names like Aristotle, Augustine, Burke, and Eliot.”

“The bad ideas touted today as revolutionary and enlightened are hardly new; the West’s great minds have battled relativism, atheism, materialism, and State-worship for millennia. The great ideas can hold their own against anything today’s most renowned Women’s Studies professor can devise.”

  • Anthony Esolen, Professor of English at Providence College
    from the Preface to The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization

I really can’t sum it up any better than Prof. Esolen. If you know a college student taking Western Civ, you should buy them this book. If you plan to teach your own children Western Civ, you should buy yourself this book. Paperback, 340 pages, available directly from Greenleaf Press for $19.95.

Cheryl Harness & National Geographic: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, & Roosevelt

These seven biographies have one thing in common. Nope, they’re not all Presidents (see Benjamin Franklin). They were all written and illustrated by the incomparable Cheryl Harness. There is a different unity of purpose achieved when the illustrator is also the author of the text in a book. Harness is a master of both crafts. She tells a very good story – clear and straightforward, with an instinct that helps her to select the anecdotes and incidents that are intrinsically interesting and character-revealing about her main subject.

In George Washington, Harness shows Washington as a frontier surveyor, Virginia planter, commander of the militia, and quiet delegate to the colonial legislature. She shows the moment at which the Continental Congress selected him to command the Continental army, with the famous founding fathers looking on as a he addresses them, reading from his notes. She shows him crossing the Delaware, seated, cold and grim-faced as he is rowed across to New Jersey, gambling his small army in a surprise attack. Then she shows him in September of 1783, at the end of seven years of war, saying goodbye to his officers at Queen’s Head Tavern in New York after the last British warship had sailed away with the last of the British troops. Four years later, he reluctantly leaves Mt. Vernon and heads for Philadelphia to preside over the Constitutional Convention. It took another ten years, until the spring of 1797 before he could return to live at Mt. Vernon year-round. The last picture Harness gives us is of Washington, aged 68, in December of 1799 out riding through the fields of Mt. Vernon, making his rounds. The chill resulted in a cold which worsened and led to his death on December 14, 1799. This is an excellent biography. Text is written at a 5th-7th grade level and those are the ages who will enjoy the detailed pictures and notes the most, though older readers could learn much from the text as well.

You can tell that Harness feels a certain affection for John Adams by reading her introduction:

“In the nation’s capital, the sun glitters on stone monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. John Adams was every bit as brave as the former and as brilliant as the latter but there is – at this writing – no such monument for him. Perhaps this is fitting, because stone is cold, and he was anything but. The United States is a proper, living monument to intense, cranky, warm, heart-on-his-sleeve John Adams – America’s champion.”

Her drawings are, as usual, wonderful. There is a full-page portrait of Adams (is he smiling or smirking?). There are pictures of his families house in Braintree and of Adams as a boy skipping school and hiking to a hill overlooking Boston harbor. The developments in Massachusetts that brought Adams to the forefront are retold in a simple summary. In a delightful format (made possible my Adams’ lifelong, affectionate correspondence with his wife, Abigail) each page has at the bottom a line from a letter – usually one from Abigail on one page and one from John on the other. There are several wonderful pictures depicting Adams diplomatic mission to France during the Revolutionary war (where he served alongside Franklin – and was accompanied by his young son, John Quincy). The political triumph of Adams’ life was his service for eight years as George Washington’s trusted vice president (Thomas Jefferson was secretary of state). When Washington’s term ended, Adams was elected as the second President of the United States (with Jefferson as HIS vice president). The political tragedy which followed was his estrangement from Jefferson leading to their fiercely fought election contest of 1800, in which Adams was defeated for a second term and Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States. Harness concludes with several pages depicting the Adams living in retirement back in Massachusetts, in a house they named Peacefield. Twelve years after their bitter election contest, Adams wrote a letter to Jefferson and began a fourteen year correspondence in which the two old friends and then rivals became friends again. Adams lived long enough to see his son John Quincy elected President in November of 1824, though he was unable to attend the inauguration in March of 1825. On July 4th, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – Adams died quietly at his home in Massachusetts.

Thomas Jefferson, in Harness’s tale is a tall, gangly, red-haired, brilliant Virginia planter, with piercing eyes transfix your attention in the portrait Harness has produced. She dwells a bit on the contradictions of the author of the Declaration having owned slaves – and repeats the historical gossip that Jefferson was the father of his slave Sally Hemings six children. It’s possible that he was – but I don’t think the matter is (or probably can be) settled conclusively. Harness does an excellent job depicting Jefferson’s child- and boyhood in colonial Virginia and the excitement he felt as a student in Williamsburg. The death of Jefferson’s wife in 1782, towards the end of the revolutionary war (and of three of his young children as well) had a profound effect on him – captured and poignantly portrayed by Harness. Jefferson departed in 1784 for Paris with one of his two surviving daughters (eight year old Polly) and a 14-year-old slave, Sally Hemings. After the ratification of the Constitution, Jefferson stayed on in Paris until 1789. Just as the French Revolution was breaking out, he returned home to serve as George Washington’s Secretary of State. He resigned at the end of Washington’s first term. In the election of 1796, he finished second to john Adams, and thus became Vice President. He and Adams differed sharply on many things, mostly and more and more about France. Adams (and his supporters in New England) were angry with the French and appalled by the excesses of the Revolution there. The expected war with France. Jefferson and his supporters felt that the United States should continue it’s alliance with France, in spite of the Revolution (even with its excesses) He expected war with England. The presidential election of 1800 saw Adams vilified as an “insane monarchist,” and Jefferson denounced as “an atheist and a revolutionary.” Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington DC. For eighteen years he had been a widower, and his housekeeping at the executive mansion was “eccentric.” His scientific bent and natural curiosity led him to champion the purchase of the Louisiana Territory and the dispatch of a “Corps of Discovery” under Lewis and Clark to explore the vast wilderness. After the conclusion of his second term in 1809, Jefferson returned to Monticello where he continued to collect books and scientific instruments. The last few years of his life he spent much time on the establishment of the University of Virginia – and in the renewed correspondence with his old friend and rival, John Adams. He and Adams both died on July 4th 1826.

Ben Franklin is a rich subject for Harness’ palatte, from his days as a printer and continental postmaster to the Continental Congress, the Court of Louis XV in France, and the Constitutional Convention. Franklin’s warm, wry visage is evident everywhere. The text and the images communicate strongly his role as the kindly grandfather of his country.

Abe Lincoln’s life has so many colorful anecdotes that it merits two books from Cheryl Harness. The first (Young Abe Lincoln: The Frontier Days, 1809-1837) covers his childhood and life until 1837 – in the wilderness of Kentucky and Illinois, on a flatboat on the Ohio and the Mississippi, keeping store, electioneering and finally moving to Springfield to begin his law practice in 1837.

The second volume on Lincoln (Abe Lincoln goes to Washington 1837-1865) begins with his life in Springfield, one term as a US Congressman, and his eventual election in 1860 as President of the United States. It is a remarkable story with a number of vivid and striking scenes: Lincoln dancing with Mary Todd at a formal ball in 1839, Lincoln debating Douglas in 1858, Lincoln traveling by train to Washington in March of 1861 (under threat of attack by secessionists); Lincoln and his wife at the bedside of their son Willie, who died in February 1862 at the age of 12; Lincoln as he looked the day of the Gettysburg address; and finally Lincoln’s funeral train on its journey back to Illinois.

Finally, Harness has chosen a delightful subject (dee-LIGHT-ful!) in Young Teddy Roosevelt. She does an excellent job of depicting and describing his remarkable childhood and the personal handicaps (especially his struggle with asthma) that he had to overcome – as well as the personal tragedies that he faced – especially the death of his wife and mother just a few days after the birth of his first child. Teddy’s remarkable political career (New York State assemblyman, New York City Police Commissioner, United States Civil Service Commission, under-secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York) is covered as well as his exploits out west on his cattle ranch and his service with the rough riders in the Spanish American war. The book ends with his inauguration as president in the fall 1901 following the death of President McKinley. One hopes that Harness will follow this volume up with one on Teddy’s equally remarkable career as president from 1901-1909.

Any or all of the nine Harness biographies can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press:

George Washington, by Cheryl Harness – $7.95
The Revolutionary John Adams, by Cheryl Harness – $7.95
Thomas Jefferson, by Cheryl Harness – $7.95
The Remarkable Benjamin Franklin, by Cheryl Harness – $17.95 (HB)
Young Abe Lincoln, by Cheryl Harness – $7.95
Abe Lincoln Goes to Washington, by Cheryl Harness – $7.95
Young Teddy Roosevelt, by Cheryl Harness – $18.00 (HB)

Reviewed by Rob Shearer
– Publisher, Greenleaf Press
– Director, Schaeffer Study Center