The Greenleaf Guide to Famous Men of Greece

This work is part of the "Famous Men" series brilliantly done by Greenleaf Press. Each book has a focus of a particular time period with short biographies, and stories of those times. Some are legendary, but many of the legends do have basis in fact. We are not full-fledged historians, either by academic training or career pursuit, but have found these books to be a thrill to define the culture and thought of the time period. The primary challenge has been to keep the books in hand, as the kids love them and "borrow" them. It is fun since the stories are short and can be acted out, or built with Legos, or enjoyed in any learning style. They are also easy to use, with questions for each lesson which you can discuss. For younger children(3rd-6th grades)it is a new experince, older children(7th-12th grades) like the adult style of learning via discussion. In our experience, it can be helpful to get the small group of books that comes each "Famous Men" book, which will give you more information (and neat things to do)in that time period.Each book is a treat both visually and in the text.

We used _Famous Men of Greece_ and the accompanying _Greenleaf Guide to Famous Men of Greece_ to teach ancient Greek history to our elementary age children. They loved it! The style is very story-like and makes a great read-aloud. It cover Greek mythology, legendary historical characters, and all of the traditional famous men I wanted our children to know about. Although we are extremely conservative Christians, I found nothing objectionable in the book. I think one of the other reviewers must be talking about another book! This title gave our children a real love for history. They begged for another lesson! One day my husband came home to find them playing the Battle of Thermopylae with their Lego men :-) I can not recommend the Greenleaf series highly enough for "real history" and memorable studies.

We are a homeschooling family and we have thoroughly enjoyed the "Famous Men" series for our world history studies. I highly recommend it! The "Famous Men" books are core texts and the study guides have helpful questions, vocabulary words, project ideas and recommendations of other great books to expand the study. The "Famous Men" books were written in 1904. Greenleaf Press has republished them and written study guides to go with them. Contrary to the insinuation in a previous review, the "Famous Men" books are not in use in the New York public school system unless an individual teacher chooses to provide her students with a classical education. Frankly, we chuckled at the pornography charge of the previous review. It is a bit of a stretch.

There is a whole world of history waiting for elementary-aged students in the "Famous Men" series. Rob Shearer, the editor who put this 1904 book back into print, wonders at the common practice of focusing on American History for years while cramming World History into one year. He believes American History cannot be understood without a knowledge of World History.The author's original preface in 1904 states: "In order to attract and hold attention, each conspicuous feature of history...should have an individual for its center. The child identifies himself with the person placed before him. It is not Romulus...or Alexander that the child has in mind when he reads, but himself, acting under the prescribed conditions."There are 31 chapters, many of them short enough to read in one sitting. Your child will thrill with pride at Leonidas and his 1,000 brave men who stood against 2 million Persians at Thermopylae. Your child will be enobled to read about how Pericles "went among the people, calming and cheering them, and attending faithfully to the affairs of the government" during a horrible plague that took his son, sister, friends, and eventually himself. Your child will admire Demosthenes' determination to overcome his problems to become a great orator.Famous Men of Greece is a valuable part of a child's education in World History. Have him narrate each story or record the person in his book of centuries to place these stories more firmly in his mind.