Children's Books

I like taking my son to the library. He's very good there, only whispers. And he loves books. He can't quite read yet but he's picking it up some and he loves when I read to him. When I go to the library I always take him to his area so he can pick up a few books. I let him get a Thomas the Tank Engine book and then I try to find something else, books on states or history or just something fun that he wouldn't pick up normally.

This past week we stumbled into the biography section and found three Civil War titles that were actually quite good. Of course in a children's book its tough to get a ton of detail and give a well rounded biography but these books did as good as job as one would expect.


Abraham Lincoln by Amy L. Cohn.
This is an over sized book that has a large drawing of Lincoln on one page with the facing page having a paragraph about him at that age. It follows Lincoln from boyhood to the end.

A Picture Book of Robert E. Lee by David A. Adler.

This one has quite a bit of text and is almost too long a story for us to do at bedtime. The illustrations are pretty neat, the cover is what hooked me to borrow this book.

John Brown by Tom Streissguth

And of course I had to get a John Brown biography. This is pretty good for a five year old. Of course the issue of slavery seems odd to him but he understands most of the story.

For those who have followed the blog for awhile I've mentioned that my son always says "John Brown" to me and my wife when he goes to bed. Its after he's been put down for the night, he'll come out of his room a few minutes later and say, "John Brown. I love you." Lately he's changed it to "John Brown. I love you. Lincoln. I love you." Maybe now he'll add Robert E. Lee into the mix. I'm just glad that my love of history has in some small way transferred to him. Maybe it'll be a lifelong affliction or maybe he'll grow out of it, but for now I'm enjoying it.