I don’t order many materials from Sonlight, a homeschooling curriculum supplier, but I generally follow their reading lists for history, read alouds, and reading for the kids. We enjoy most of their recommended books, and most I can find at our library.

The library though, didn’t carry Sonlight’s recommended biography of Robert Fulton, Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman, so I just grabbed a couple others from the shelf to try.

I wasn’t impressed with this one. It was too many facts and dates – not enough context or story-telling. Carman and Sudoku were bored from the get-go and it didn’t get any better. Thankfully it was a short book – just about 20 (laborious) pages.

Bill Farnsworth’s illustrations are lovely, but they don’t compensate for the dry text.

How to write a brief, compelling biography for a young audience in such a short book would be a challenge indeed. I hope to try another Fulton bio soon. – milkmaid