In this house, all I have to do is leave out a book with a bright, colorful, intriguing cover like Adventures of Saint Paul and someone will ask, "Hey, Mom, can I read this book?"
For the emerging reader, who has a few words under his or her belt, Adventures of Saint Paul relates the fascinating story of St. Paul on a simple level without the dumbed down language of the early reader.
Suspense, danger, and drama fill the lives of two young boys during the reign of Nero in The City of the Golden House. After Rome burns, Nero sets out to build the most sumptuous palace ever, his future Golden House. This causes further unrest in an already starving and homeless population. To divert attention away from his extravagances, Nero blames the Christians for the fire. In the midst of this danger are Gretorix, a British slave, and his master Diomed, the crippled son of a Roman senator.
Set during Imperial Rome, Paul, a young boy, flees for his life when barbarians raid the Roman camp his father commands in Northern England. Wounded, exhausted, and orphaned, he barely makes it on the last boat leaving a nearby harbor. With the help of Lucius Fabius Severus, a Roman exile, he begins a new life. Out of gratitude for Severus helping save his life, Paul wants to reinstate Severus’ good name. But he must travel the length of the Roman Empire to do so, escape the clutches of wily villains, and speak with the Emperor Hadrian.
The Laviniad is a truly unique work; the story is unique and the book itself is unique.
First the story: The author successfully writes in the style of the ancient epic in modern English, picking up the thread of the story of the Aeneid. The Laviniad takes up the tale of the Trojan settlement of Latium following the death of Aeneas. His son, Ascanius, assumes the leadership and almost immediatley must deal with the threat of Italians still hostile to the Trojan presence.
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.
When Hylas, a slave, discovers the death of his master, a Roman senator, he realizes that he is in dire straits. The harsh laws of ancient Rome dictate that all household slaves be killed should a murder be discovered in that home. Hylas enlists the help of Camillus Rufus, a tribune, to help clear the slaves of the judge's inevitable verdict of 'guilty!'
We've found "Augustus Caesar's World" by Genevieve Foster to be a wonderful resource. The book covers the period from 44 BC to 14 AD with events and ideas for that time, all over the world. I feel the stories really give my son a great sense of life during this period. The illustrations are outstanding line drawing of characters, maps and especially the time lines. Just wanted to share a great resource.
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.