Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Kids and History

Tonight I finished reading a short kids' biography about JFK to my little boy. He has been fascinated by our 35th president. I must give his older sister credit on this one because, at one point this weekend, as we were driving around town, she pulled the JFK bio out of the pocket in the backseat of our car and started telling him about Kennedy's PT 109 heroics.

It involved war, guns, and bravery. So my youngest was hooked.

Tonight, as we finished up the biography, I was really put to the test as I had to explain everything from Catholicism to Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. That was interesting.

My youngest is able to read without a problem, but he's not yet at the point of WANTING to read for himself. I can't believe I've missed the obvious for so long. There are tons of great biographies out there about war heroes and great men and those stories are probably just what he needs to decide it's worth it to do this reading thing on his own. I think I'm going to go on a hunt for such bios. My husband suggested Audie Murphy. Hmmmm....surely there's a kid bio somewhere out there about him, right? Who else...oh - I should get one about the Alamo! He absolutely loved visiting the Alamo this year and looking for bullet holes.....

I love the way that girls and boys force you to look at the world and parenting in totally different ways. It will be interesting to see which historical character captures my son's interest. For years, my daughter's favorite person was Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross, and a seriously brave person in her own right).

Well....I suppose my major in History will come in handy after all!

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