Young Mr. Lincoln
September 11th, 2005 at 12:29 pm (Unschooling Life)
The book sale was much more leisurely than I had anticipated. For the first hour, there were no more than 50 people there (though after that, I couldn’t even begin to count), and because the sale was so large and spread-out, there was no problem getting to interesting books - and there were tons of interesting books. Kenzie ended up with several graphic novels, a few Pokemon books, a book about New Orleans, some cool history books and assorted other goodies. Terry found some fantasy/sci-fi novels and a couple graphic design/art books. I discovered an interesting little book of New York Times headlines and stories spanning over a century (published by Merit cigarettes, strangely enough - "The breakthrough low tar cigarette with ‘Enriched Flavor’" - eek) as well as the American version of A.S. Neill’s Summerhill book.
A family grocery store (two parents and their three children) had set up a stand in front of the sale giving away free pink lemonade and saltwater taffy. Kenzie made friends with one of the boys, and they wandered around a bit playing with Kenzie’s Pokemon cards.
Kenzie’s become interested in Abraham Lincoln after reading through the Abraham Lincoln Joke Book by Beatrice Schenck de Regniers. This morning, we watched a movie from 1939 called Young Mr. Lincoln starring Henry Fonda as Lincoln (an amazing resemblance) and directed by John Ford. This fictionalized account of Lincoln’s early life was
beautifully done - slow, sad and sweet while still being, at times,
quite funny. Also, it made me want to go in search of my father’s old
mouth harp (also called a Jew’s harp). I never quite mastered that as a child, but I’d like to try again.