Deep in the Revolution!

Which revolution, you ask? No, we are not protesting McDonalds or cruelty to animals or anything like that. We are totally engrossed these days in the American revolution in preparation for our trip. We have read the whole book of Johnny Tremain in the last two weeks on top of Joy Hakim's 3rd book in the History of the US among others. Danny has been reading them a biography about John Adams in the evening. We are talking hours of out loud reading! It has been so fun. I can't wait to show them the kids all the spots where these famous events took place.

I am so moved by the men who founded our country. They believed and fought for ideas that were totally new and different. They were human, and America certainly isn't perfect, but I am such a sentimental patriot that my eyes fill with tears every time I read words like, "Give me liberty, or give me death."

This stanza in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," gets me every time!

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Midlesex village and farm,
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen and hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

If you haven't revisited some of the words that these men wrote over 200 years ago, I would suggest reading here and here. Good stuff. Actually, Great stuff!!!