St. Benedict (480-543), particularly honored as the Father of Monasticism, is an essential character in understanding Christian Culture as it existed in the Middle Ages because it was heavily influenced by the Monasteries (and the rule of St. Benedict) which helped to preserve Catholicism and classical learning after the fall of the Roman empire. Fortunately, this particular book is very simple and aims at telling the STORY of St. Benedict.
This oversized story book, illustrated with the familiar style of Tomie de Paola, relates the stories of Saints Benedict and Scholastica - twin brother and sister who lived in Italy in the 5th Century. The story is very simple, with gentle humor, and suitable for young children. The illustrations are especially interesting because they resemble pre-Renaissance Christian art with little bits of the story taking place in the background of the main picture.
Set in Palestine in the days leading up to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., this is a beautiful and powerful story of a Greek family living in the city of Philadelphia. On one of his business journeys, their father, who is a merchant/businessman, rescues a man whom Roman soldiers had left in the desert to die. The merchant's three sons have diverse reactions to this stranger who becomes part of the household, but when the Father is killed by bandits on a later journey, it seems that this stranger without a memory may have a providential role in their future.
Artist, author and scientist David Macaulay presents a fascinating account of the founding, building and development of a fictional Ancient Roman city. Don't be thrown off by the "fictional" part. We don't know this many details of any particular Roman city, so the author has gathered facts and details from various cities and formed them into one complete story. They are carefully researched and accurately portrayed in detailed black and white drawings.
Jeanne Bendick's second title in Bethlehem Books' "Living History" series (after Archimedes and the Door of Science) brings to life the 2nd century (A.D.) Roman doctor whose work in learning to understand the human body became the standard authority on human physiology for over a thousand years. Although many of his theories were corrected through advancements in science since the middle ages, his story is interesting both for its own sake and for the light is sheds on Roman history and culture and the Hippocratic tradition of medicine.
This is a somewhat unusual, but highly rewarding story of a half-wild woodsman (who "lived by the woods. He had no trade, he couldn't farm a lick or keep a store or run a tavern. All he knew to do was follow the bear and deer through the woods and sleep in caves and hollow trees.") and his eleven year old son Caje. Caje and his father travel through the wilderness - living off the land and escaping from unfriendly Indians. Although Caje would love to settle down in a real house among civilized people, his father is happier in the woods and frets about being "beholden to others".
This Bethlehem Budget Book contains two books in one softcover volume: Old Sam, Thoroughbred Trotter (copyright 1955) and Old Sam and the Horse Thieves (copyright 1967).
This story is told in the style of a journal written by a ten year old girl who travels by wagon train with her parents and her twelve year old brother from St. Joseph, Missouri to Fort Laramie (Wyoming) in 1860. The author relates a very detailed account of how life was lived on a highly organized wagon train (and some comparisons with one that was slopped together and suffered great difficulties from it). We also see the growth of character in the family (particularly the mother) who must accustome themselves to hard labor and ignoring their previous station in society.
This is a children's story book about a fictional, but historically accurate, medieval feast (appropriate to about 1400 A.D.). The story starts from the very beginning, when the lord and lady of a manor receive notice that the King would be visiting for a few days. We see what immense preparations would start long before his arrival and the concern on the part of those hosting the feast because the king wouldn't be travelling alone - the queen, knights, squires and members of the court would make the feast a large and somewhat worrisome preparation.
An interesting, fully illustrated (with pen and ink drawings) story of the construction of a Medieval Cathedral. The cathedral in the book and the details of the story are fictional, but are based on details of what we know about the construction of real-life cathedrals. (Among other reasons, this technique makes sense because there probably aren't enough details known about the construction of any one Cathedral to make a book of this sort).