Paul the History Buff

Paul has always been enamored with history, but since he has begun to read independently, his love of history has really grown.

A couple of months ago, I bought Paul his first G.A. Henty book. He found the subject of the book (I bought my copy used through Amazon), which was about ancient Egypt, to be interesting. However, the books are fairly difficult reads, so Paul was getting a little frustrated.

So I got him started on some vintage Landmark history books. I saw the many titles that were published in this series at the used book store that I visited during our summer vacation. Twenty bucks a pop just wasn't my idea of a good bargain, especially when Paul was devouring a book every couple of days.

When we got home from vacation, I perused my own book shelves and was delighted to find four of the vintage editions, including ones on Lincoln and William the Conqueror. Those books were soon digested.

I looked on Amazon to find other titles, but once I saw that the reprints of the books were mostly published in the past decade, I had reservations about ordering them or getting any of them from the library. My guess is (although I'm not certain) that these have been hit with a revisionist red pen.

I then browsed some homeschool forums that highly praised the vintage Landmark histories, confirming my desire to procure some of these for Paul, knowing that if I did so, they could be handed down to three little boys behind him.

Since then, I've been on the hunt at yard sales and thrift stores for more of the books. I happened upon a small town library book sale when we visited my aunt and uncle last weekend and asked one of the ladies in charge of the sale if she had any Landmarks. She said she had just given her complete set to her adult son. So close and yet so far.

I did find a set of ten Landmark histories on Etsy. They had been sitting in the seller's shop since May, so I wasn't sure they would still be available, but they were. Matt and I ordered them for Paul a few weeks ago and he's now reading the tenth one.So I'll have to keep looking for more books. The library is an option, but the last couple of years it just hasn't been worth it to me to spend that much time there. Our library is in a bad area of town, plus loading up all the littles and keeping an eagle eye on them while trying to approve what the olders want to check out is exhausting. I've found wading my way through the twaddle and questionable content of many of the books to be more effort than what I'm willing to put forth, but I'll probably have to begin making the effort for the sake of Paul.

In the meantime, Paul's reading has lead to some creative history reenactments. Just yesterday he commandeered his little brothers and big sisters to be members of the Corps of Discovery. Paul, of course, was Meriwether Lewis. Joel was made to be Patrick Gass and Grace, being the only red head, played Captain Clark. Paul received this Lewis & Clark compass from his Grandpa Bob & Grandma Dianne and the leather pouch from his Uncle Trevor & Aunt Jessica for his birthday (a few days early)