Sterling Point Books
Does anybody remember Landmark Books? These wonderful (and immensely popular) history books were originally published in the 1950s by Random House, and written by prize-winning authors, among them such luminaries as Sterling North, MacKinlay Kantor, Alistair MacLean, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Stewart Holbrook, William Shirer, and C.S. Forester. (Pearl Buck contributed a volume on Sun Yat-sen.) The Landmarks were staples of my childhood; the local public library had a substantial stash and I lapped them up, from the story of Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde to the dramatic tale of the sinking of the Bismarck during World War II. There were dozens of these, all superbly researched, creatively written, breathtaking, and addictive. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of historians and history buffs today owe a debt to Landmark Books.
Regrettably, most of these terrific books eventually went out of print – when our kids were younger, we combed used-books stores for them, while I fumed over the shortsightedness of the publishing world. Recently, however, I was tickled pink to hear that Steven Hill and the Sterling Publishing Company have brought many of the original Landmark titles back, in new editions with added endpaper maps. Once more available are Ralph Moody’s Geronimo: Wolf of the Warpath, C.S. Forester’s The Barbary Pirates, William Shirer’s The Sinking of the Bismarck: The Deadly Hunt, Neta Lohnes Frazier’s Path to the Pacific: The Story of Sacagawea, and many more. As well as acquiring the rights to older titles, Hill is also steadily adding new contemporary authors to his list (collectively known as the Sterling Point Books), all in the Landmark spirit: history books with a strong story line, a wealth of human interest, and careful attention to fact. Your kids will love them. A highly recommended resource.
The Sterling Point Books are chapter books, approximately 150 to 200 pages long, appropriate for readers ages 9-12 (or so). The titles are available from Barnes & Noble bookstores (www.bn.com) and other online book suppliers, or from Flying Point Press; to order or for the complete list, visit www.flyingpointpress.com or call (617) 854-3260.
Amazing Ben Franklin Inventions
January 17 is Ben Franklin’s birthday – the great event took place in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1706 – which makes the first month of the year a perfect time to devote to a study of Franklin’s life, times, and inventions. A terrific resource for this is Carmella Van Vleet’s 120-page Amazing Ben Franklin Inventions You Can Build Yourself (Nomad Press, 2007), a collection of over 25 Franklin-inspired hands-on projects and activities, interspersed with reader-friendly biographical information, quotations, interesting fact boxes, helpful vocabulary lists, and illustrations. The book is arranged in fourteen short chronological chapters, covering Franklin’s life from birth to epitaph. Titles include “Swim Paddles, “Pennsylvania Fireplace, “Bifocals, the Long Arm, and the Library Company of Philadelphia,” “Printing Press, “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” “The Gulf Stream Map,” “Electricity and the Lighting Rod,” “Postal Service,” and “The Declaration of Independence.” Projects and activity suggestions accompany each chapter: kids, for example, make their own letterpress, kite, thermometer, piggy-bank (“A penny saved is a penny earned”), parchment paper, feather pen, model Liberty Bell, and spectacle case - and there’s much more. For each project, the author includes a supplies list, step-by-step instructions, and an estimated time to completion (the range is five to 45 minutes).
The book is recommended for ages 9-12. $14.95 from bookstores and online book suppliers.
For more on Ben Franklin, see:
Fleming, Thomas. Ben Franklin: Inventing America. (Sterling, 2007). By acclaimed historian Thomas Fleming, this 179-page biography in the Sterling Point series (see above) is a great choice for ages 9 and up.