This is my all time favorite book! As soon as i started it, I couldn't put it down. The mixture of romance, comedy, and realism makes for a good read for cuddling up by the fireplace on a snowy eve.

For those Dickinson fans looking for a fascinating glimpse into her life, this book is a rare gift! Meticulously researched and beautifully written! Would recommend highly!

Pathways to Manhood offers a realistic and useful tool for understanding young Black males in their search for identity. How should a teacher respond to a "tough guy" so a potentially violent encounter does not escalate? How should a parent nurture a "together guy" to help him develop into a strong young male with high autonomy? How should a police officer deal with a young Black male who is into drugs and conning? Pathways to Manhood offers a wonderful model for identifying the "strategic styles" used by young people, especially Black males, and for fostering positive styles and diminishing the negative styles. This book is great for school systems, juvenile justice and corrections workers, and anyone else who is trying to understand and cope with young males who are, as the author says, struggling for identity in a confusing world.

Sullivan uses primary sources to make Paul Revere's life and times come to life in this fine addition to the new In Their Own Words series. Partly biography, partly a detailed history of the American Revolution, the book explains the famous patriot's role in a young colony's fight for freedom. Revere is well-known for his career as a silversmith and his midnight ride from Boston to Lexington to warn colonists of the impending arrival of British soldiers; Sullivan also brings to light Revere's part in the Boston Tea Party, designed and printed money, and was a shrewd businessman who owned and operated a gunpowder factory and a copper mill.
Primary sources include letters, poems and documents. Longfellow's famous poem that immortalized Paul Revere is included. The illustrations include a map of Revere's route on April 18, 1775, photographs of Revere's silver, a reproduction of his famous portrait commissioned by John Singleton Cooper, and many illustrations and portraits, including Revere's own drawings.
The book includes a chronology, an index, a bibliography, further reading, and additional resources such as the Paul Revere House in Boston MA. Photo credits are listed. Sullivan has a distinct talent for making scholarly research accessible to young students in an engaging and interesting way, and sets an excellent example for crediting sources. Highly recommended.

In Christopher Bing's treatment of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," he makes the argument that Revere ended up being immortalized in Wordsworth's famous poem because lots of words rhyme with "Revere" and not much with "Dawes." Thus Paul Revere is famous and William Dawes is a historical footnote. However, in this juvenile biography by Gail Sakurai, young readers will discover that there was much more to Revere's patriotic involvement in the American Revolution than his famous ride. As one of the Sons of Liberty he participated in the Boston Tea Party, and as a silversmith and engraver he did a rendition of the Boston Massacre and printed the currency for the Massachusetts government. Although he served in the Colonial Army, it was his reputation as "Bold Revere," that made him the most trusted and dependable messenger for the rebels in Boston and led to him being chosen for the midnight ride that immortalized him in American history textbooks. This book is illustrated with historic paintings and etchings, several by Revere, as well as photographs historic sites involved with the Midnight Ride and a teapot he designed and crafted. Sakurai's book does a nice job of letting us know what Revere's reputation was in his own time. Consequently, we learn a bit more about what it was like for the colonial revolutionaries in Boston who are not remembered as Founding Fathers (like John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, etc.).

It's 1846 and you find yourself in Concord, Massachusetts. Who's there? And what's it like to live there? Those questions and more are answered by Paul Brooks in this fine book. He uses a humanities approach to uncover the history of culture, politics, education, literacy, and women's lives in this one particular area of New England. And you won't run into just the usual familiar families -- the Emersons, Hawthornes, Thoreaus, and Alcotts -- but will learn of other folks of Concord as well: farmer George Minott, lawyer Samuel Hoar, doctor Josiah Bartlett, and constable Sam Staples, to name a few. One chapter is devoted entirely to the operation of Brook Farm, a utopian community founded by Dr. George Ripley that was beginning to struggle by the year in question. Photos of key people and period illustrations augment the very readable text. If you like pre-Civil War American history or are enamored with any of the authors mentioned above, pick this title up at the nearest used bookstore. You won't be disappointed.

This picture book is an excellent resource for children of any grade level. The book gives an excellent portrayal of Paul Revere through the years. It really focuses on him as a person and the contributions he made to his family and to his country. The pictures are an excellent resource for ELD students as well as all students. I found this book to be very accurate, yet simplistic.

I read this book after having just visited Plymouth, Massachussets, and studying about the Pilgrims. Even though the story is fiction it is woven into factual history and gives the reader an awesome look into the personalities and qualities of the people who lived this historical event. This book barely makes it back home before someone else asks to borrow it. I love history/fiction combinations and this is one of the best I have read.

It was interesting to read this Cornerstones of Freedom volume on "The Pilgrims" after having read the companion volume on "The Jamestown Colony." Both colonies lost half their settlers during their first winter in the New World and it becomes clear that the chief reason the Plymouth Colony continued to thrive into the next century was because of the assistance given the Pilgrims by Squanto and the Wampanaoag tribe. R. Conrad Stein explains how the Puritan Separatists from Scrooby, England came to travel on the Mayflower with a group of "Strangers" (farmers and tradesmen looking for a better life in the new land). When they arrived at Cape Cod there was a bitter debate over whether to land here or head south to be closer to Jamestown. After drawing up and signing the Mayflower Compact, the colonists found a suitable location for building a settlement. On December 30, 1620 the Pilgrims stepped onto the soil at Plymouth in the middle of a harsh New England winter where pneumonia decimated their numbers. Ironically, historians think a scarlet fever epidemic had ravaged the area a couple of years earlier, thereby explaining why the white settlers were able to establish Plymouth. Stein devotes the rest of this juvenile history to explaining how the Native Americans helped the Pilgrims to survive, the history of the first Thanksgiving, and the legend of Plymouth Rock. This book is illustrated with paintings and drawings of the Pilgrims as well as contemporary photographs of the re-created Plymouth Colony that tourists can visit in the area today. As is the rule with these Cornerstones of Freedom volumes, Stein provides details and insights about "The Pilgrims" beyond what you are going to get in your standard American History textbook. Whether you are a teacher or a student, you will find useful information for class lectures or assignment papers alike. This is an excellent series of books.

As the author, I wanted to take the opportunity to describe the contents of The Pioneer Valley Reader. The Pioneer Valley is the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts. Its rich history and distinct culture is told through 100 prose and poetry selections. Read such Pioneer Valley writers as Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Henry James, Leo Durocher, Timothy Leary, Pulitzer Prize winners Tracy Kidder and Madeleine Blais, John McPhee, Larry O'Brien, Joseph Brodsky, Calvin Coolidge, and Frederick Douglass. This book is a key to understanding the "Heartland" of New England.