They Were Strong and Good

Great book for kids and a great message regarding the individual contributions of ordinary people whose lives were not characterized by affluence or fame. I'd disregard the criticisms by those obsessed with political correctness, as the author at times illustrates his own ancestors in a manner that is as unflattering as the depictions of other characters in the book. The illustrations are, as one would expect from Lawson, excellent. The author clearly has a sense of humor, as should the reader. My kids loved it.

"They were Strong and Good" was purchased because of a nostalgic memory from my early years reading this Caldecott Award Winner and wanting to introduce the joy of learning about your family tree to my elementary students. It is cleverly written to demonstrate the ties among ancestors by introducing vignettes. The author did not overdo the details but added enough characterization to create an attachment. The repetitive title is used throughout and is the perfect connection for all of us to the generations that went before us. Most of us had relatives that were not famous and rich, "but they were strong and good" people. Knowing our ancestory provides us that link that helps us know ourselves. The illustrations add a vintage flavor to the book.

What a coincidence; I happened to come across this book just after embarking on researching my own family tree. I picked it up, thinking it might give my kids a better idea of what a family history was. They liked it, I liked it. Interesting and inspiring. The author’s ancestors may not have been perfect, but he doesn’t apologize for them or rewrite their lives. He simply tells who they were and what they did. History is what it is. Admire the good and learn from the bad. The illustrations are great too. If you want to get your kids interested in personal family history, this may do the trick.

When you are teaching family heritage, you automatically have a source in this Caldecott Award winner. Americans need to know what life was like for those who came before them.

Liked the perspective from which the book is told. Straight forward through the eyes of a child, about the history of how his family came to be & their experiences. It gives a great feel for how the USA was built. You can't find a book like this today.

I got this as a model to create something similar for my son. The book is on one level a bit frightening -- but I guess everyone wants to venerate their ancestors, whatever their heritage.

This is an odd artifact from another time. It is evil and racist with beautifully clear illustrations and a good dose of Southern pride. I would not shelve it in the children's section, but would include it with books on Southern history... maybe alongside the Civil War or Jim Crow South. It celebrates slave owners as "strong and good" ancestors to be proud of.... which is nothing to celebrate, and certainly not something for children to read as celebratory. (Similarly, a German library would not celebrate Nazi heritage. Americans should learn their history but not celebrate slave holders and racist ancestors). That said, I found it interesting. The illustrations are well done and speak volumes. It's odd to see such ugliness honored with such competent illustrations...

This Caldecott Medal winner was published in 1940 and of course is represented here with this 1966 edition. The reader must, and I emphasis "must" constantly remind themselves of several facts while reading this work with a child. First, it was written in 1940 and the cold hard facts are that people views of that time were different than those of today. Next, we have to not the author's forward and remember that he explicated states concerning the stories in this book:"Most of it I heard as a little boy, so there may be many mistakes; perhaps I have forgotten or mixed up some of the events and people. But that does not really matter, for this is not alone the story of my parents and grandparents, it is the story of the parents and grandparents of most of us who call ourselves Americans."Using simple math then, we can see that these stories are not being told just through the author's time and through the author's eyes (and perceptions, I might add), but also of those of his parents and grandparents which all date to the Pre-Civil War Era. We are viewing history through the eyes of three generations. Now that being said, and I will have more to say on this subject later in this review, we need to look at the story.Robert Lawson, who did the original illustrations for "Ferdinand the Bull and many other illustrations in both books, magazines and papers, gives us a history of his family as told to him by his family members; these are his recollections as he remembers and understands them. This is quite a mixture as the original grandparents came from four different countries and four different cultural backgrounds. A sea captain, A little Dutch girl who lived on a farm in New Jersey, A young girl growing up on the frontier of the Pacific Northwest, a farm boy growing up on a farm in the deep South, and a soldier (a very young soldier) who fought for the Confederacy, and an Englishman who lived in Alabama who was always fighting...a preacher, a bible thumping preacher.This mixture is what brought the author into the world.This work is for younger children, Ages 9 - 12, and is quite appropriate for that age group. The illustrations are black and white drawings, beautifully done and to be honest, they absolutely make the story. Some of these are happy, some starkly sad, some thoughtful, some tragic and others delightful. There are bits of humor stuck here and there in the illustrations along with some very profound visual statements. All in all though, it is indeed the history of most American families vividly portrayed, not only the good as the title of the book would indicate, but by today's standards, also the bad.Now, as to the objections of this book: I personally found absolutely nothing racist about this work, if of course I read it though the eyes of the man who wrote it and through the eyes and perceptions of those who told him these stories of his family. If we consider the author was using the acceptable terms of his time. Yes, the term "colored boy" to describe a young black man is certainly a racist term, but remember, we are talking over 50 years ago that this work was written. Yes folks, that was indeed a common term then, like it or not. As to the illustrations being racist...good grief, how on earth are you going to draw a picture of a black slave as they really appeared without seeming racist by today's ethics and standards? To do otherwise would be historically incorrect and intellectually dishonest. Showing a young male slave dressed in rags in 1860 pretty well hit the mark and it would be absolutely silly to dress him in an Armani suit. This objection is pure silliness. The same hold true with the dress and actions of the Native Americans portrayed here. KEEP IN MIND that the author is only repeating what he heard from his grandparents and I fear that many, many of the early settlers of the Northwest did indeed have a very low opinion of the Native Americans living there at that time. This is simply historical fact. We may not like it, but that dislike is not going to make history go away.We have come a long way, with further to go and one sure way of making no more progress is to deny and revise our history to the point of forgetting the facts.To not admit that the institution of slavery was one of the most horrid blights in our countries history is unthinkable and to not admit that the way the Native Americans were treated since Europeans first landed here was barbaric and deplorable is a crime unto itself. But that being said, to deny that this did not all happen and to not teach our children the cold hard facts of our history is also a crime and would be a true pity and big, big mistake. We all, every single one of us have forefathers and mothers who were very good people, but alas, were products of their times and did things and had attitude that were simply wrong. To deny this is to have your head in the sand. To deny this and not teach our children this is exactly like denying the holocaust and not teaching our children of such. Absurd!I have found no other book that is so capable of striking interest in family history for the young than this work. It should be in every school library. A teacher or parent can get hours and hours of discussion out of this on...it is a very valuable tool... a powerful tool.Don BlankenshipThe Ozarks

Writer-illustrator Robert Lawson's breezy remembrance of his parents and grandparents -- heavy on solid drawings, light on text -- is one man's genealogy with offbeat side notes. For instance, the woman who falls in love with the sea captain turns out to hate the sea. The time period goes back to the U.S. Civil War -- Lawson's father was a teen at the front lines of the Confederate army -- and, as other commentators have noted, Lawson acknowledges slavery without addressing it. The book is really a portrait gallery -- every second page has a full-page black-and-white line drawing of some aspect of his grandparents' or parents' lives. He tells what they were like when single, and how they met and married. The book won the coveted Caldecott Medal in 1941 for best children's illustrated book of the year.