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As I read “The Barefoot Book of Heroic Children”. I was struck by a few things: First, I was impressed by the fact that the stories of heroic children were from all over the world. The book features tales about children from Holland, Germany, West Africa, France, Tibet, North America, Israel (“Biblical”), Scotland, Japan, and Pakistan. The children featured are all different races and come from different backgrounds. I appreciate that this book doesn’t just focus on white or mainstream characters. This book seems like a fantastic way to incorporate multicultural teaching practices into the classroom. Additionally the narrative structure of writing (as though the heroic children are talking directly to you) hooks readers by making them feel as though they are part of the story. I also loved the books’ beautiful watercolor illustrations; I felt that they added to the story’s imaginative feel. ( )

Rebecca Hazell's book Heroic Children does a phenomenal job introducing famous historical figures to young children. Her introduction explains why she wrote the book and how it's laid out, with a focus on creating "a better sense of what each child's world was like and what challenges it presented" (5). What I appreciated most was that she covers a broad range of figures (both male and female) across the world rather than focusing on the typical European characters. However, I wouldn't necessarily describe all of the children in the book as heroic; some of them, like Fanny Mendelssohn or Alexander Graham Bell, just led interesting lives. Also, considering the age range this book is intended for, the stories seem a bit verbose for my taste. While I appreciate the note on the back flap about the construction of the book ("Reinforced binding for library use and lively kids!"), I feel like there were too many words and too few pictures to hold a group of young children captive for the entire book. On top of that, some of the word choices I came across seem to imply that this book is intended for older audiences. In the first story alone ("Life in the Secret Annex: Anne Frank), there were at least four or five words or concepts that I think younger children would have problems comprehending. Lastly, I had an issue with the order in which t the heroic children were presented because there wasn't one. One minute you're reading about the young king of France in the 13th century and then you find yourself reading about a Buddhist monk in Tibet during the 11th and 12th century. While I liked the variety of characters, I wish that maybe the figures had been presented either chronologically or by region so we could find some relationship between them other than that they're considered heroes by the author. ( )