Wise Guy is one of the more unusual children’s books I’ve ever run across. The illustrations and narrative are written for young people aged 8-12, but there is a deceptive depth to this book that will delight older students as well as helping the occasional adult who is reading it out loud (or to themselves). Along with the engaging illustrations - which make life in ancient Athens look quite pleasant there is a second boxed narrative in smaller type which complements the larger font story. These smaller boxed notes give a little deeper and fuller account of the ideas presented in the pictures. One of the unusual features of the book is that is based entirely on the ancient sources from classical Greece. We get a nuanced introduction to Socrates personality as well as the key ideas and outline of his thought on knowledge and ethics, as well as his attitude towards the Greek gods and mythology. His skepticism about the gods is, of course, what led to his trial and execution, presented (without being morbid or maudlin) on the last two pages of the book. The final two-page spread is a delightful caricatured rendition of Raphael’s School of Athens, with Socrates and a host of modern thinkers whom he influenced arrayed on the steps around him. Most younger readers won’t recognize them at first, but adults and older students will enjoy seeing the connections that are made. Wise Guy is a hardback, 32 pages, 9″ x 11″ color on glossy stock. $16.00 directly from Greenleaf Press.The Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman is a well-written, carefully balanced assessment of one of the most controversial writers from the Middle Ages. Marco Polo’s tales were so outlandish that they were dismissed by many at the time (and by many still today) as wildly exaggerated or even fabricated. For example, he said he had seen rocks that burned - a fantastic tale that Europeans dismissed. Of course, what he had seen was coal - which was plentiful in China, but virtually unknown in Europe in the Middle Ages. Still many of his claims remain unsubstantiated. Marco (and his cousin and his uncle) spent twenty-four years in China, learning the language, making a living as merchants, and winning the favor and confidence of The Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan ( a descendant of Ghenghis Khan). Freedman does an excellent job of describing their journey, and the remarkable adventures they had while in China. And Freedman includes a page-long discussion of the influence that Marco Polo had on a later explorer, Christopher Columbus. Here is what Freedman has to say: “Marco’s book seems to have fired the imagination of Christopher Columbus. He used his well-thumbed Latin translation as a guidebook, scribbling notes in the margins and underlining passages about gold, jewels, and spices, when he sailed west across the Atlantic, expecting to rediscover the land described by Marco Polo. When Columbus reached Cuba, he believed that he was at the edge of the Great Khan’s realm and would soon find the Mongol kingdom of Cathay.” Freedman’s forte is young adult biography. He has twice had books finish as finalists for the Newbery Medal (The Wright Brothers and Eleanor Roosevelt) and in 1988 won the Newbery Medal itself for Lincoln: A Photobiography. He and his publisher do not neglect the visual in this book either. The full-page chapter-heading paintings by Russian painter Bagram Ibatoulline are stunning. Ibatoulline is able to adapt his style in masterful fashion as he moves from medieval illumination to Chinese silk painting. Also included in the text are dozens of archival illustrations which appeared in the numerous hand-written copies of Marco Polo’s book that circulated in the century before printing. The Adventures of Marco Polo is a hardback, 64 pages, 10″ by 10″. The text junior high to high school and adult. $17.99 direct from Greenleaf Press.

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

I keep sorting and re-sorting the new books on (and around) my desk and this stack of Pilgrim and Nautical themes is the result.

Mayflower 1620 is a remarkable photographic recreation of the voyage of the Pilgrims from Plymouth, England to Plimoth Plantation, New England. In 2001, a group of well-trained volunteers (in meticulous period costumes) from Plimoth Plantation sailed the Mayflower II from Plymouth to Boston. National Geographic sent along a team of photographers specifically to create the photographs for this book. The result is a rich photographic reproduction of what the 1620 voyage must have been like. From the loading of supplies and cargo to the sighting of land 2 months later, we get an acute sense of what shipboard life was like (very cramped and uncomfortable). There is even a mention of my unfortunate ancestor, John Howland, who was swept overboard, and then miraculously saved! Text is middle school & up. Mayflower 1620 is a paperback, 47 pages of photographs $6.95 from Greenleaf.

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving is a photographic recreation of the First Thanksgiving by the same National Geographic team of photographers who did Mayflower 1620, using again, the resources of the living history museum and re-enactors of Plimoth Village, augmented by 90 Wampanoag Indian descendants. The text leans a bit towards the revisionist side in its attempt to correct the mythologies of the First Thanksgiving, but is generally factually correct. And the pictures are stunning. The First Thanksgiving, on closer examination, turns out to have been not a single meal, but three days of harvest celebration at which the Indians outnumbered the Pilgrims by 2:1. There are two pages of some pretty tempting recipes included - ironically, the Wampanoag dish is based on dried corn pounded to flour - better known to us Southerners as “grits!”

1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving is a paperback, 47 pages, full color, $7.95 from Greenleaf Press.

Pilgrims of Plymouth is a picture book for young readers, first through third grades with a simple text and beautiful photographs of typical daily scenes from the life of the settlers in the first few years of the 1620s. There’s a simple explanation of why they left England (so they “could pray in their own way”) and also the attraction that “here, some of them would own farms for the first time.” There’s a special focus on children and a delightful concluding photograph of three children (including this cute guy from the cover), with the text, “The Pilgrims were real people, just like us!” This is definitely a K-3 book, paperback, 16 pages, $5.95 from Greenleaf Press.

Sailing Home is a delightful story about a clipper ship and its captain and his family. It is based on the real ship, John Ena which made 44 voyages between 1896 and 1910 commanded by Captain Mads Albert Madsen who was accompanied by his wife and four children (two of whom were born aboard ship). The ship was impressively large (312 feet long and 48 feet wide), with spacious accommodations for the Captain’s family. And of course, they were homeschooled! (ship-schooled?) Lots of unusual adventures and shipboard games. “Our favorite game was sliding across the main saloon floor in cardboard boxes, crashing into one another as the ship rolled from side to side.” There is also the sobering tale of being caught in a frightening storm - but overall a very interesting read and a celebration of family life around the turn of the century. Its easy to misinterpret the title. It does not refer to sailing towards home, but rather living in a home that sails. Test is upper elementary and up, paperback, 40 pages, color throughout, $6.95 from Greenleaf Press.

The Great Ships is a celebration of famous, historic ships over the past thousand years. “Old sailors know that every ship on the sea has its own personality… In the swift longships of the Vikings and the massive aircraft carriers of today, in humble little caravels and mighty men-of-war, sailors have gone to sea with the urge to roam, to explore, to conquer. It is this spirit of adventure and exploration that has made the great ships great.” The artist has given us vivid illustrations of twenty ships, including: the Gokstad Viking Ship; the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria; Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind; the Mayflower; Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge; the Bounty; Admiral Nelson’s HMS Victory; “Old Ironsides”; the Amistad; the Monitor; the Titanic; the German battleship Bismarck; and the nuclear aircraft carrier, Enterprise. The Great Ships is paperback, 40 pages, all in color, and $7.95 from Greenleaf Press.

My final book to review is this unusual retelling of the ill-fated Titanic published by Firefly Books. The “unusual” part is the inclusion of items bound into the book, including:

• Tickets
• Postcards
• Newspaper clippings
• Telegrams
• Official technical data
• Envelopes and letters
• Certificate of seaworthiness

and other items as well. The narrative is told from the perspective of a journalist on board the ship. He gives us a thorough tour and introduction to the accommodations for first class, second class, and steerage passengers. The inclusion of so many reproduction artifacts makes this book come alive in a way that others don’t. It’s more than a little spooky to be looking at the illustrations and photographs while holding a ticket, or reading a telegram just sent up from the wireless room. Text is junior high and up, hardback, 26 pages, but with lots of artifacts. Titanic is $19.95 from Greenleaf Press.

It’s been a busy week in Tennessee for homeschoolers. Read the other posts on RedHatRob.wordpress.com to catch up with the antics of the Tennessee legislature.

And if you visit the Greenleaf Press website, please browse around a bit. We have over 1200 items available online now - History, LIterature, Art, & Music resources for children and homeschooling families.

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

No, it’s not a story of a brave young dutch boy… it’s the story of Hans Augusto Reyersbach, a German Jew. He was born in Hamburg in 1898. He loved visiting the zoo with his brother and two sisters. And he loved to draw pictures and paint. And he was good at it. He turned 18 in 1916 and so he joined the German army and fought in Russia. After the war, times were tough in Hamburg. Hans packed up his sketchbooks and paintbrushes and moved to Rio de Janeiro where he managed to make a comfortable living as a commercial artist. While there, he married another German emigre from Hamburg, Margarete.In 1936, Hans and Margret returned to Europe, and settled in Paris. Margret was a commercial photographer, and her skills complemented Hans’. But their commercial work together wasn’t completely satisfying. They wanted to tell stories. And so, they began writing and drawing illustrations for a children’s book. By 1939, They had several finished stories and several publishers showed interest. In September of that year, World War Two began when the Germans invaded Poland. France and England declared war on Germany, but other than the fighting in Poland, not much happened.

In the spring of 1940, Hans and Margret made a trip to the beaches of Normandy and continued to work on their children’s books. In May, suddenly, things changed. The German army invaded Belgium and the Netherlands and headed for France. Hans and Margret hurried back to Paris and quickly decided they must leave France. They would head first for Brazil (via Portugal), and then perhaps on to the United States. But Paris was in an uproar. By the time Hans had secured the necessary visas, the trains were no longer running from Paris. Hans and Margret didn’t have a car, and besides, the roads were clogged as more than two million Parisians attempted to flee the advancing German armies. Hans managed to find two bicycles, and he and Margret started south. Three days later, they reached Orleans and managed to get on a train headed south. That same day, German troops entered Paris and raised the Nazi flag from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Hans and Margret managed to cross the border into Spain on a train headed for Portugal. Because the military dictator of Spain, Franco had been friendly with Germany, they were uneasy until they crossed the border into Portugal three days later. After two weeks frantic travel, they finally made it to Lisbon, Portugal. A month later, they were on a ship for Rio de Janeiro. Two more months of waiting and they managed to get passage on a ship to the United States. October 14, 1940 - four months after they left Paris - they sailed past the Statue of Liberty into New York harbor.

All along the way, Hans had taken great care to make sure that the children’s books they had been working on were kept safe. A year after arriving in New York, Houghton Mifflin published their book. Hans and Margret had titled it The Adventures of Fi-Fi. It was about a monkey and an explorer in a yellow hat who brings him from the jungle to the city. Of course the book needed a new title. Just as Hans and Margret Reyersbach had needed a new name. Reyersbach took too much space on a painting and was too hard for their clients in Rio to remember. And so Hans Reyersbach had taken to signing his artwork as “H.A. Rey.” And their book - well, the editors at Houghton Mifflin had a better name for it, too - Curious George.

And (shamelessly ripping off Paul Harvey), now you know the rest of the story!

The details of the Rey’s amazing escape across wartime France is told in a delightful book published in December, 2005 by Houghton Mifflin, titled: The Journey That Saved Curious George - The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey. Here’s how the publisher describes it:

The Journey That Saved Curious George introduces elementary and middle school students to a major event of the twentieth century: World War II. Students will learn about the time period from the many primary sources throughout the book, including photographs, passports, and diary pages.

Louise Borden’s text captures the tension in Paris in 1940 and the urgency to escape, the uprooting of lives, and the difficulty of leaving a place you love. At the same time, this story is about the creative process — the inspiration, joy, and constant work that went into creating the curious, lovable monkey.

Houghton-Mifflin also has an online lesson plan to help teachers use the book.

The book is a 72 pages hardback in full color. The price is $17.00 and it can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press.

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

I spent last night re-reading the 1933 Newbery Medal Winner, Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze. I don’t think I can improve on the judgment of Katherine Paterson: “Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze won the Newbery Medal in 1933, not only because it was historically and culturally accurate, but because it was and is a really good read.”

The story is set in and around Chunking, China in the 1920s. There is a reference to the death of Sun Yat Sen (which occurred in 1925) midway through Fu’s three-year apprenticeship. Our protagonist is Fu, and the story begins as he and his mother are moving from the countryside to the city of Chungking. Fu is an only child, and his father has recently died. He is fourteen. His mother, seeing only poor prospects for them in the country, has arranged for him to be apprenticed to the coppersmith Tang. Tang proves to be both a skilled craftsmen and a shrewd businessman. He is also wise in his dealings with the apprentices and journeymen who work for him.

The story arc of the book is Fu’s growth from an impulsive youth of fourteen to a confident and skilled journeyman of eighteen. The three anchors in his life are Tang, his mother, and the scholar Wang who lives in the room above and kindly agrees to teach Fu. Together they practice the difficult skills of reading and writing the characters of Chinese by studying the teachings of Confucius. Fu grows through a series of small but significant incidents that test his handling of money and time, his control of his temper and tongue, and his self-discipline in mastering the skills of a coppersmith. Some tasks he revels in, some he finds tedious. Tang watches and misses nothing and helps Fu to face his own tasks with discipline.

Also playing a significant part in the story is an un-named “foreign lady” - who works in the foreigner’s hospital in Chungking. Fu bravely helps in fighting a fire at the hospital when others are fearful and superstitious. His friendship with the “foreign lady” helps him in two subsequent incidents - once when his best friend among the other apprentices becomes ill - and can only be saved by the foreigners medicine; and once when Fu is seeking refuge for himself and an older couple from a sudden flash flood of the unpredictable Yangtze River.

It IS a really good read. It is a classic tale of growing up. Fu, his mother, the coppersmith, and the scholar are all richly drawn. We learn the details of their lives and we understand why and how they are able to help Fu. The ending is upbeat and quite satisfying.

This particular Newbery winner was unavailable for some years. Last year, a hardback edition was re-released. And just last month, a new paperback edition was published by Square Fish, an imprint of MacMillan. The continued publishing history of Young Fu, in print again 75 years after its first release is testimony to the quality of all the Newbery Medal winners. The paperback edition has a number of nice additions. In addition to the new foreword by Katherine Paterson (who is also a Newbery winning author born in China) there is the original introduction by Pearl S. Buck. At the end of the book are 18 pages of cultural notes by Professor Daniel J. Meissner of Marquette University. And not to be missed is Elizabeth Foreman Lewis’ Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech from 1933 - worth reading in its own right.

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze is a 306 page paperback, $7.95. It can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press (along with all of the other Newbery Medal winners through the years).

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

I always approach books about the age of exploration with a great deal of caution. Political correctness, the scourge of our age, often infects these books to such a degree as to make them useless. Yes, I know that the Europeans were not always kind and benevolent, but neither were they devils (at least only a few were). I know that the native Americans had a more developed culture than the Europeans gave them credit for, but they were not the noble savages of Rousseau’s fantasy.

So, I was impressed as I was reading The World Made New, published late last year by The National Geographic Society. The World Made New manages to steer a fairly steady middle course and accurately report the virtues and faults of all the players in the dramatic encounter between the new world and the old world in the 1500s. Here’s a representative paragraph from the last page of the text:

“The Spaniards with their sailing ships, horse, muskets, and germs were no less foreign to the peoples of the Americas than space aliens would be to us. All the more remarkable, then, that the Aztec noblewoman Malinche quickly learned Spanish and could translate for Cortés. All the more astonishing that Africans ripped out of their homelands and dropped into the Americas invented ways to live and propser. All the more inspiring that men of conscience, such as the Spanish priest Bartoleme De Las Casas, devoted themselves to defending the Americans from other Spaniards.”

A central theme of the text is that the voyages of the 1500s affected the entire globe. The impact was not one-sided, nor confined to the new world. The final third of the book is entitled “A World Joined,” and it is the most valuable (and thought-provoking) part of the book. The authors explore the ways in which contact between cultures changed everyone. Diseases were exchanged (with disastrous consequences all over the world); Plants and animals were exported and transplanted; Populations emigrated, exploded, and collapsed; Diets changed; New World gold and silver flooded the old world economy - with dramatic economic effects. Again, a sentence from the text will illustrate its originality, thoughtfulness, and balance:

“In 1491 no one in North or South America had ever seen a horse, cow, or gun; not a single person living in Europe, Asia, or Africa had ever eaten a tomato, a potato, or an ear of corn.”

Anyone studying or teaching the 1500s, the Age of Exploration (which occurs simultaneously with the Protestant Reformation) would be well served by reading this book. The text is targeted for the upper elementary grades (probably 5th-8th), but high school students and adults will find the information arresting and thought-provoking.

The World Made New is a 64 page hardback, 10.4″ x 9.75″ with color illustrations and maps throughout. The price is $17.95 and it can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press.

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

The Hero Schliemann
The Dreamer Who Dug for Troy
by Laura Amy SchlitzI found this delightful biography after Schlitz won this year’s Newbery Medal for her Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Laura Amy Schlitz is a delightful writer, with a real knack for making historical figures real by sketching them with the details of their lives that help us understand who they really were.

In Heinrich Schliemann, she has a fascinating subject. Schliemann was born in 1822 in Germany and has been variously described as a brilliant archaeologist, a liar, a fraud, a treasure-hunter, and an astute, self-taught classical scholar. There’s evidence that he was all of those things.

Schlitz does an excellent job of presenting the contradictions and faults in his life, while at the same time celebrating his remarkable achievements. Schliemann is the man who found Troy. While archaeologists and classical historians were skeptical over whether such a place actually existed, Schliemann took his dog-eared copy of Homer, went to Turkey, and started digging. He found Troy. In the process, he probably clumsily obliterated a great deal of what he was looking for, but almost everyone now admits that he found Troy. He was quick to label the jewels and gold he found as Priam’s Treasure. It probably wasn’t. And Schliemann undoubtedly committed a crime when he smuggled it out of Turkey, but what he found remains remarkable. For many years, Priam’s Treasure was on display at the Pergamon museum in Berlin. It disappeared at the end of World War II, and in 1993 it went on display at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

One such find in a lifetime would make an archaeologist famous. But Schliemann moved from Turkey to Greece and began searching for the tomb of Agamemnon - and found it, of course. The site of Mycenae was well-known, but a reference in a classical Greek text to the tombs being within the city walls had been ignored because the space was thought to be too small. Schliemann got permission to dig in the city - and found the tombs. Here’s how Schlitz describes it:

“As Heinrich had hoped, the graves were royal tombs, and they were magnificently rich. Fifteen royal corpses were heaped with gold. The men wore gold death masks and breastplates decorated with sunbursts and rosettes. The women were adorned with gold jewelry. All around the bodies were bronze swords and dagggers inlaid with gold and silver, drinking cups made of precious stones, boxes of gold and sliver and ivory. Once again, Heinrich was half-mad with enthusiasm. “I have found an unparalleled treasure,” he wrote. “All the museums in the world put together do not possess one fifth of it. Unfortunately nothing but the glory is mine.” The tombs of Mycenae were even more spectacular than Priam’s treasure.” The artifacts were exquisite, but that was not all - many of the artifacts matched exactly the descriptions found in Homer’s Iliad. Wine cups, swords, jewels, bracelets, helmets - everything was in keeping with Homer’s Bronze Age world.”

Can you see why I really enjoyed this biography? It works on two levels - as an account of how the historical reality of Homer’s world was confirmed by nineteenth century archeology, AND as an account of a fascinating, bold, entrepreneurial amateur - part huckster, part con-man, but highly intelligent, larger than life and favored by fortune.

The book is a 6.5″ x 9.25″ hardback, 72 pages with black & white illustrations throughout. Reading level is upper elementary / junior high - but high school and adult will find the information quite interesting and the narrative style very engaging.

The Hero Schliemann can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press for $17.99

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

David Kennett is an Australian artist with a strikingly original illustration style. His historical drawings are an arresting mix of light and dark, impressionistic depictions of individuals and groups, and fascinating historical detail. His first book, on The Roman Army (subtitled The Legendary Soldiers Who Created an Empire) was published in 2004. Just this month, his second book, Pharaoh: Life and Afterlife of a God has been released. Each is 48 pages, hardback, full color, 8.5″ x 11″ format.The Roman Army goes well beyond the standard depiction of the legionary. The inside flyleaves include detailed drawings of 28 “Enemies of Rome” mounted, and on foot. The text and interior illustrations make an compelling case that the Roman soldier (and his equipment, training, supplies, camps, and support corps) were responsible for the rise of Rome as the most powerful nation on earth.

There are detailed illustrations of officers, enlisted men, and auxiliaries. There is a full page devoted to the standard equipment of a legionary. Roman engineering abilities - especially their skill at building bridges, roads and camps is carefully portrayed. The heavy weapons, battle tactics, and siege engines of the Roman army all get full treatment.

The final 2-page spread shows a Roman triumph making it’s way through the forum. The Roman Army is a 48 page hardback, and sells for $17.95.

The text is written for upper-elementary readers through junior high, but even your older students will find the information quite interesting and useful as part of a study of Rome.

Kennett’s second book, Pharaoh, is equally stunning. The dark tones of his drawings depicting the interior decoration of Egyptian tombs contrast sharply with the brighter colors (yellows, blues, & greens) of the scenes set in Egyptian cities and temples.

Pharaoh, as Kennett depicts him, is an imposing and intimidating figure - whether seated on the golden throne, decorated with hieroglyphs and lion’s heads, or standing on a leopard-skin rug holding his staff and glowering. The text focuses on the New Kingdom pharaohs, Seti I and Ramesses II. Their elaborate tombs were prepared (and hidden) in man-made caves carved into the rock floor of the Valley of the Kings.

Ramesses is shown in his roles as priest at the great temple to Amun at Karnak, as the overseer and organizer of Egyptian agriculture in the flood-zone of the Nile valley, as the merchant-prince who controls the import and export of Egyptian goods, and as the commander in chief of the Egyptian army - leading his division of chariots across the desert.

One of the most stunning illustrations is a two-page spread showing the great temple to Ramesses carved into the cliffside above the Nile at Abu Simbel. But Kennett shows us, not the faded sandstone colossi that are still to be seen, but the bright, red-and-white painted figures of pharaoh with a colorful procession of chariots arriving to pay him tribute.

Kennett’s drawings do an excellent job of helping us to imagine what ancient Egypt was really like. The imagines are arresting, and it makes it easy for us to understand why the Greeks and the Romans were so impressed. It also helps us to understand the impact of the Exodus as Moses led his people out of the wealth and comfort of Egypt into the desert and wilderness of Sinai.

The Roman Army is $17.95. Pharaoh is $18.95. Each can be ordered directly from Greenleaf Press.

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

Cyndy and I are huge proponents of studying history and literature together, and studying them chronologically. This books is perhaps the best example I have ever run across illustrating how much an understanding of an author’s context increases your understanding of the literature that he wrote. Shakespeare is arguably the most brilliant writer in the entire pantheon of English literature. He draws on universal themes and weaves a spell with language that both entertains, provokes, instructs, and challenges. His complex understanding of human nature, human emotions, and human passions is un-paralleled. The setting and world-view of his plays is decidedly Christian, but not simplistically so. For Shakespeare, guilt and sin are real objective realities. But so are repentance, redemption, love and joy.If I could recommend only one book to students to help them understand Shakespeare, it would be this volume by James Shapiro.1599 was the “annus mirabilis” for Shakespeare and for England. In that year, Elizabeth celebrated her 66th birthday and the 41st year of her reign. Only eleven years before, the little island realm of England had been threatened with extinction and absorption by the powerful global empire of Spain and its fearsome 150-ship Armada. The Armada was to ferry an invasion force across the English Channel - hardened soldiers, veterans of the wars in the Netherlands and sure to bring with them a legion of monks and inquisitors with their instruments of torture. English protestants had prepared themselves for martyrdom. And then God had miraculously delivered England and “good Queen Bess.” The lumbering Spanish ships had been pursued up the channel by the small quick English terriers commanded by the Queen’s little pirate, Drake and his fellow-admirals Howard and Hawkins. The Armada failed to rendezvous with the invasion army and was then swept north by storms. Two thirds of the Spanish ships were lost and England celebrated a miraculous deliverance.

In a marvelous coincidence, 1588 is also the year that a young (24 years old) actor / poet / playwright began his career in London. Over the next 25 years, until his death in 1613, he wrote 36 (or perhaps 38) plays. Usually only one or two a year, but the year 1599 was special. 1599 is the year that Shakespeare made the transition from employee to entrepreneur. He was 35 now and joined with a company of actors as a part-owner of a newly constructed theater called The Globe. Doing everything in his power to insure the success of the new venture, in 1599 he doubled his usual output and wrote FOUR plays. And what plays they were: Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet!

The first of the plays was Shakespeare’s greatest historical drama, Henry V. The mood and character of Henry V are shaped by the political events of the day. The Queen’s favorite courtier, the dashing military commander, Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex had been dispatched by her to put down a rebellion in Ireland. The rebellion had overtones of a religious war (the Irish rebels were Roman Catholics) and threatened to bring the Spanish out again for a another attempt to invade and conquer England. Shapiro shows, convincingly and in a riveting and entertaining style how the political events of the year made their way in to Shakespeare’s play. Essex’s subsequent rebellion and fall into disfavor with the Queen provides the backdrop to Julius Caesar. Essex attracted a number of malcontents who eventually involved him in a plot to stage a palace coup and displace Elizabeth. The plot failed and Essex was executed.

Shakespeare’s third play reflects more gentle, playful preoccupations. In As You Like It, there are numerous echoes, not of the politics of London and the Court, but the pastoral simplicity of Stratford and the nearby Forest of Arden. In the summer of 1599, Shakespeare made a trip home and spent time with his family, his neighbors, and the town of his youth. Shapiro shows us how Shakespeare worked all of the varied facets of his life into this delightful tale of love and mistaken identity.

Toward the end of the year, as Shakespeare continued his burst of creativity, he composed Hamlet. The plot is not original, but the depth of the characters that Shakespeare creates is a work of unique genius. Even the style of his writing and the vocabulary he uses is unique. Shapiro’s summary of the genius of Hamlet, the way in which it comments on contemporary issues for Shakespeare’s world while remaining timeless is a tour de force!

I cannot recommend this book too highly. I am, more than ever, convinced that it is impossible to understand Shakespeare without studying the details and the events of the twenty-five years that compass his life as a playwright. Thirty-six plays in twenty-five years. There never was another like him, nor shall ever be. To understand the plays, and the man, you must understand the times. There is no better introduction to both than this book by James Shapiro.

Originally published in 2006, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare - 1599 is available in paperback, 432 pages for $14.95 directly from Greenleaf Press by.

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

When we were reviewing the text of Famous Men of the Middle Ages in 1992, just prior to re-publishing it, I was aware that, although it was great book for children, its list of Famous Men omitted some important people. That’s not too surprising for a text originally written and published over 100 years ago.There had been a flurry of interest in teaching history to children around 1900. The Superintendent of Schools from New York City (John H. Haaren) and the Superintendent of Schools from Newark, New Jersey (A.B. Poland) collaborated on four biographical readers for children. They were both classically educated and did a very good job of selecting the subjects for their readers.

But they left out some important figures from church history. When we published Famous Men of the Middle Ages in 1992, I decided to add three chapters to add important material that would help students understand some of the important developments in the history of the church.

The first chapter I added was on Benedict (480-547) and Gregory (540-604). Benedict, of course is the founder of the Benedictine order and the author of the Rule of St. Benedict. The Benedictine order is the most important of the monastic orders and their communities were crucial for the course of medieval history and the preservation and development of medieval culture. Gregory was a Roman aristocrat who became a Benedictine monk and was later elected Bishop of Rome, or Pope. His re-organization of the church led to his later reputation as Pope Gregory the Great. Among other things, he commissioned missionaries to carry the gospel to the Angles and Saxons in Britain, and he gave us the form of church music known as “Gregorian chant.”

The second chapter I added was on Pope Gregory VII (1020-1085) and Emperor Henry IV (1050-1106). Pope Gregory VII (also known as Hildebrandt) had been a Benedictine monk and part of the monastic reform movement led by the Benedictine monastery at Cluny. When he was elected Pope, he challenged the practice of the Emperor to control the church in his territory and to appoint bishops. The struggle to clarify the relationshiop between church and state is an old one. In order to understand later developments, you need to know the story of these two antagonists and the controversy known as the “Investiture Controversy.”

The third chapter I added was on Francis (1182-1226) and Dominic (1170-1221), the founders of the Franciscan and Dominican monastic orders. In many ways, the movements led by these two prompted a widespread revival and partial reform of the church. The popularity of the two orders, and the rising prosperity of Europe coincided to create a building boom that led to new monasteries and churches by both orders throughout Italy and the reviving cities of the north.

I believed that the additions of these three chapters made the Famous Men of the Middle Ages a better book. Obviously others did, too. Since the original text of Famous Men of the Middle Ages is in the public domain, other companies are free to reprint it. At least one company that has done so added the same three chapters as we did in 1992 with exactly the same chapter titles and substantially the same content.

For some time, I have felt that some further updating to the Middle Ages book would be a good idea. As I wrote the Famous Men of the Renaissance and Reformation, I continued reading widely in medieval and reformation church history. Although the text of Famous Men of the Middle Ages mentioned both Augustine of Hippo and Patrick of Ireland, I became increasingly convinced that they need their own chapters.

So, I am very pleased to announce that in the NEW edition of Famous Men of the Middle Ages, now available from Greenleaf Press, we are including two new chapters: Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Patrick of Ireland (390-461). I circulated drafts of both chapters among my children and made some revisions they suggested. I’m proud of the results. I think they will give readers a much better picture of the early middle ages, and the course of church history.

I have also taken the opportunity to update a few chapters (notably standardizing the name of the Vandal King Gaiseric to conform to modern usage - in the original text, he is called Genseric, an older form of the name). I have also re-written the chapter at the end of the book on Warwick the Kingmaker which covered the War of the Roses in England. The original text attempted to simplify the historical account by omitting a number of important details. I have expanded the account and tried to show the relationships of the players a bit more clearly.

There are several editions of Famous Men of the Middle Ages now on the market. Only the edition by Greenleaf has the five added chapters authored by Rob Shearer on important figures from church history.

The book is available as a paperback ($16.95) and as an eBook ($12.00) from Greenleaf Press. Or you can buy both the paperpack AND eBook together for $22.95.

There is also a Greenleaf Guide to Famous Men of the Middle Ages, though it will be a little while before we can update it to include guides to the chapters on Augustine and Patrick. For everyone who purchases the Greenleaf Guide now, we will provide a .pdf of the new pages when they are ready later this year.

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