The Boyhood Diary of Charles Lindbergh, 1913-1916: Early Adventure of the Famous Aviator

The books in the Diaries, Letters and Memories series introduce young readers to real young people from different time periods in American history. Although "The Boyhood Diary of Charles A. Lindbergh, 1913-1915" was written by someone who would grow up to become one of the most famous people of the 20th century, most of these books are just ordinary young men and young women writing about the interesting times in which they lived. In fact, besides some references to wanting to fly, you would never really recognize that this was young Lindbergh. Part of his life is rather unusual since his father was a U.S. Congressman from Minnesota. So when young Charles goes on a train trip, it is because he and his mother are traveling to Washington, D.C. However, the point is clearly to inform young readers about what train travel was like early in the last century. Similarly, when Charles travels around the state with his father, who is running for the Senate, the emphasis is not on the politics but rather on the trials and tribulations of driving an automobile through rural Minnesota in 1916 (it still snowed in May, even back then). Of course, for me the part that hits home is his description of running low on gas and coasting down the hill into Duluth (been there, done that). These books use the diary entries as they originally appeared, word for word as they were written, with misspellings and mistakes in grammar. Lindbergh writes about boating down the Mississippi from its source at Lake Itasca and tracking wildlife. Detailed sidebars explain about Passenger Trains, the U.S. Congress, and Early Automobiles, complementing the diary entries with additional information. Books in these series go back as far as the diary of Sally Wister, a Colonial Quaker Girl up to Lindbergh, but of these dozen volumes the only other famous people are Louisa May Alcott and Theodore Roosevelt. This is certainly an interesting little series. I have read several books that try to give young students an idea of what life was like in different time periods, and these books do a much better job of that than any of those I have seen so far.