Shiloh

We are currently studying West Virginia.

Official Slogan: Mountaineers are always free.

Unofficial Slogan: It's beautiful here, but it has ALWAYS been doggone hard to make a living.

At least, that's what I've gathered from all my reading, fiction and non-fiction, as I've been teaching the kids.

One of my favorite ways to teach geography is to pick a beautifully written book about it, one that captures the feel of the place, so that the atmosphere and history of the setting is firmly planted in their minds and then they can attach all the other more mundane facts to that deeply engraved sense of place. Well, that's what I'm hoping anyway.

So, we just finished reading Shiloh together. It's about an 11 year old boy who has to figure out how to keep the abused dog who adopts him. Kids and dogs, that'll get you every time.


Sure enough, as we reached the climax of the story, Mermaid Princess and Flash start yelling, "No! No!" at me when it seems a sure thing that Shiloh is going to have to go back to his lawful (and abusive) owner.

And in one of the most precious moments of my homeschooling journey so far, Flash picks up the blanket he's been snuggling under and throws it over the book, shouting, "No! If he has to give that dog back, I don't want you read any more at all!"

They were mightily relieved when our 11 year-old hero caught Judd Travers breaking the law.

Now that's a story that's going to stick! Especially since even JackJack walks around saying, "Dat's a bad guy. He's a bad guy like Judd Twaffers."