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Home School Book Review
, January 28, 2015
(view all comments by Home School Book Review)
In book #3 of the series, teacher extraordinaire Rush Revere, his wisecracking horse Liberty, and their friends Cameron (Cam), Tommy, and Freedom are off on another time-traveling adventure off to meet some brave soldiers in the year 1775. They get to visit with such heroes as Dr. Joseph Warren, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and, of course, George Washington. With them, the reader will get to see the two lanterns hung in the Old North Church, ride with Paul Revere to warn “The British are coming!”, and grapple with danger at the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill.
Along the way, what will Cam learn about his absent father, with whom he’s angry because his soldier dad has been sent to fight in Afghanistan for a year? As with the other two books in this series, there are some people who absolutely hate this book, with comments like, “This book was simple minded….The book is bad��"really, really bad with stilted dialogue, ridiculous characters, and banal cliches….This simple-minded, terribly unimaginative, badly written book….This piece of trash….A piece of garbage….To expose children to his bluster at such a young age just can’t be good for their developing minds.” Interestingly enough, none of the critical reviewers actually cited any historical inaccuracies, biased claims, or other erroneous statements. They just kept saying that it was badly written, simple minded trash or garbage.
I would conclude that they’re probably just a bunch of sour leftists who can’t laugh at anything, despise everything that smacks of genuine patriotism, and likely think that “Harry Potter” and “His Dark Materials” are the best books available in children’s literature today. Simply by way of full disclosure, Liberty does say that he’s “Gotta Pee Soon,” the euphemistic “geez” is used once, and a soldier at the Battle of Concord is quoted as shouting, “Fire, for God’s sake.” Of course, there’s a lot of Rush Limbaugh shtick in the story. However, that’s just designed to use humor in making it catchy so that it will capture kids’ attention and appeal to their imaginations with the idea that as they read they’ll absorb the real history that’s being described.
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