History is much more interesting when read from something besides a text book, so having an opportunity to review the Adventures of Rush Revere #1 New York Times Bestselling Book Series by Rush and Kathryn Adams Limbaugh was a welcome break for my kids.
We received all 5 books of the Adventures of Rush Revere Book Series. They are hardback books with dust jackets, printed on high quality paper designed to look like an aged text. The inside of these books are beautiful. There are full color illustrations, photographs, and even maps adorning a few pages of each chapter. The books had 10 chapters, and roughly 200-240 pages each.
The books that we received included:
- Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims
- Rush Revere and the First Patriots
- Rush Revere and the American Revolution
- Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner
and - Rush Revere and the Presidency
Each book took a different slice of America’s past history and took the lead character, Rush Revere back in time. As a teacher, he wanted to make sure that his students understood history and found it to be as interesting as possible. Mr. Revere wanted to make sure that students didn’t just gloss over the events from reading a textbook. In fact, he provided them with something even more exciting.
For many students in Mr. Revere’s class, they would know him as the teacher wearing goofy time period clothing to school and showing cool films as a glimpse into the past.
For other students, they got to experience that history first hand with their teacher and his talking horse, Liberty. Oh, I didn’t mention that he has a talking horse who has a tendency to hold his breath to blend in and practically go invisible? Read the books and you’ll meet him!
Reading the series has given us a nice break from traditional schooling. My kids automatically preferred it over textbooks or looking at encyclopedias. They were drawn into the story line of Rush Revere at the middle school he teaches at and his students. They liked that there was time travel involved, even though the whole fictional aspect of the story was pretty far-fetched and silly!
For me, I had a harder time getting into the series. When it came to the history in the books, the narrative did tend to get a bit bookish. On one hand, we got to know many of the (real) characters that shaped America into the country that it is today. This series humanized them and gave some insight into how they felt and why they made the decisions they did. It gave information about events and beliefs during that time period so we could understand motivations and convictions by these brave Americans.
On the other hand, the characters would sometimes seem to go on a rant, spending a good amount of time explaining historical events and facts a bit unnaturally through chunks of dialogue in the story. This was done to get back story and to teach the kids things they did need to know, but sometimes it seemed a little bit dry. While I found it a bit stiff in this way, my kids didn’t seem to notice.
My favorite of the series is definitely Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner. I loved in one of the first chapters how it described the National Archives. When they were describing some of the different important documents and other pieces found there, it was so descriptive and real.
The book also described how Americans declared their independence back in 1776 from Great Britain, but the war continued on for several more years. Each state wanted to do everything differently and it caused a bit of a mess. You learn later int he book about James Madison and the Constitution and how guidelines were put into place to help unite our nation.
This one was more fast-paced than some of the other books and kept my attention! I haven’t read this one to the kids yet, but I think they’ll really enjoy it, too.
Overall, my family enjoys the Rush Revere series. We’ve finished with the first three together, but don’t tell them I’ve read ahead! This makes a nice read-aloud book for families with kids of all different ages. An upper elementary school or middle school child would likely enjoy taking the time to read this on his own, too.
This would be a good choice if you want your child to do some real learning this summer without bringing out formal school work. I promise that they’ll walk away learning a LOT about our American history, from the Pilgrims to some outstanding Founding Fathers and Presidents. If you’re covering American History this summer or during the school year, this series could be the fun educational extra that you’re looking for to help your child have those lightbulb moments.