If you give a homeschooler a book...

Inspiring the American Dream graciously sent us a copy of the children's book Abraham's Journey to review.   The cover is glossy with an interesting illustration that made my children curious.  After opening the package our conversation went something like this, "Mom what's that book?  Why does it have Abraham Lincoln on a smart phone?  I know he's dead and certainly can't be speaking on a smart phone.  Is that an iPhone?  I bet he would have loved the iPhone because all kinds of info would have been at his fingertips!  I think I just want to take a peek at that book. Is that ok?"  Well, that was a one sided conversation for sure and that was the start of our day that turned into something resembling the book If You Give a Mouse A Cookie.

 Makenzie planned on only taking a peek but of course she finished the 32 page book quickly which caused us to do some research about several of the characters.  The first one she wanted to know about was Norman Rockwell.  Which spurred us on into painting some Norman Rockwell style pictures, searching the web for any information we could find about Mr. Rockwell and of course ordering a couple of library books. 
 Next she wanted to know more about Amelia Earhart so we found a lapbook and started putting it together, while in the middle of the lapbook I found a show about Ms. Earhart on Netflix so we started watching it, it was pretty good. 
 Kenzie wasn't sure who the Gates were so that was a great opportunity to talk about philanthropy and we tied that in to her Punky Monkey Missions projects.  By this time we were getting pretty tired but touched on Martin Luther King, Jr (we had just finished a unit study on him in January) and Mark Zuckerberg.  After finishing all of that, Kylan woke up from a nap (he was a sick boy) and said, "Hey mom can I read that book?"

As you can tell my children enjoyed this book and we really did learn a lot from it!  I don't want to give any spoilers so I'll just say that this book is all about the American Dream and takes you on a journey with some famous Americans that all had one thing in common...big DREAMS!  This book, written by Kathleen Basmadjian, PhD and Robert K. Basmadjian Jr., retails for $14.99, and is also available via Kindle for $9.99 .Click on the link to purchase Abraham's Journey.  This book is recommended for ages 7-12 year olds.


Pros:

~Colorful, wonderful illustrations

~Easy read

~Definition of terms in the back of the book

~Character Biographies

Cons: 

~ I didn't really like the fact that Mark Zuckerberg was considered a role model and the child actually ends up giving him his email address at the end of the book.  I don't think that's a smart idea and certainly would not allow my children to share that info with someone they had just met.

~I wish more info was given about Abraham Lincoln because he overcame a lot of hardships to live his American Dream.

~Both of my children wondered why the boy had a smart phone if the family was having financial issues and why he didn't just sell it to make some money.

Thanks for reading,