the latest resolution

I have just decided that when I'm older I'm going to get a big, black, fluffy Newfoundland and name him Fortinbras.
~Ruth, now 12

Bread and Roses, too by

Rosa is afraid for her family. Her mother and sister have joined the strike! She does not want them to die in the street, shot or trampled by the angry crowd. But they will not listen. Jake Beale is a boy of the street, reduced to stealing and lying by his drunkard father. He has had help from Rosa several times from Rosa already, and when he hears she will be sent to New York City, he is eager for the possibility. But after they are both on the train, he discovers they are not going to New York, but Vermont! Yet veront may not be so bad after all....

Good! The story was pretty vague about the place and time, but I'm pretty sure it was in Massachusets during the Industrial Revolution. It was a little hard to follow at first, from the jacket it was about a girl, but the first chapter or so was about Jake. But I'm glad I kept at it.

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

The Hiding Place: Corrie ten Boom is in her fifties when the Nazis attack Holand, and she and her family are soon part of the underground. They build a secret hiding place in Corrie's room for the six Jews that live with them to hide during raids. Yet they were betrayed, and the ten Boom family went to a concentration camp. This is the story of a family, who, through extreme pain and sorrow, came from it with a great faith in Christ and many other virtues that have influenced thousands others through her books, speeches, and homes for Holocaust victims.

How can anyone get through this without changing? How I wish I could be more like Betsie, and through Betsie, Corrie! This story is meant to be sad, but it's like the sadness of a Christian funeral. There is mourning, but they have gone somewhere better, heaven. Rejoice!

Volumes 3-4 Story of the World books by Susan Wise Bauer

Volume 3
Early Modern Times
The book opens with the Holy Roman Empire. Then you read about the spread of slavery, the great fire of London, the first American colonies, and Napolean.

I enjoyed reading about the Aztecs and Incas of South America. Their culture was so different from ours, yet they were pretty close to us, maybe closer than England, or France, who we copied.
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Volume 4
The Modern Age
the Grand Exposition in London, during the reign of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Then the Potato Famine of Ireland, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the rise of USSR and communism.

I wish Mrs. Bauer would spend more time on the Revolutionary War or Canada or South American revolutions than the Peace of Versailles, or the railroad, or Middle East partitioning.

Story of the World
History for the Classical Child
Volume 1:Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer
Ancient Times: The earliest nomads in the Fertile Crescent to the rise of Rome to the last Roman emperor. There's Greek, Norse, Chinese, and African mythology. The stories of empires all over the world-Roman, China, Egypt, and Islam.

These books are cool! I enjoyed reading about the Egyptians and the Islamic Empire. I've always liked Egyptian things, and I didn't know hardly anything about the Islamic faith or its origin. But why would you make a six-year-old emperor of Rome? Sheesh.
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Volume 2: The Middle Ages
The Eastern Roman Empire has a new name now. What is it? Who discovered North America before Columbus? Covering the world up until the Elizabethan period, you learn even more amazing things.

Isn't it crazy what the royal family's relatives will do to get power? Like the English king who shut up the two princes in the Tower of London. I would be scared if I were heir and there were envious uncles. But I'm a girl. -Sigh- (of relief)

Happy Birthday Drew! He and his friends went to the Little River Zoo today. It was pretty neat. Who's ever petted a kangaroo or lynx?