Hendrik Willem van Loon

Here is a link to a short bio on van Loon.  I know...I know it's a Wikipedia article...but I always find them a great way to start into research on a subject and since I really don't need to get into a lot of detail about him it seems like the perfect summary. 

 

I started reading The Story of Mankind.  It seems like he goes very fast through all the subjects (which I assume you would have to do if you were writing a story of all of mankind).  He does give good definitions about the things he doesn’t think the kids who are reading this would know.  The most interesting part so far was the description of hieroglyphics, how they work and how people figured out they work. 

Not that I think it is a terrible book, I’ve defiantly read worse, or at least tried to, but it is not a commanding start like I thought it would be.  If a teacher made me read this in school and told me it was a Newbery winning book, I probably would be turned off of Newbery’s for life.  Seriously, as a kid I would have never wanted to read this, unless it was used as a text book (anything’s better than a text book).  It’s not that van Loon was a bad writer or anything, it is just hard to fathom putting in more than 3000 years worth of history into one book, and making it for children.  There is just not enough space to get into any sort of depth of anything.   

The Christ chapter (as I am calling it) was most interesting.  He seems to want to make a big statement with it, but also be objective at the same time.  So the chapter is two letters. One from an uncle to his nephew and one from the nephew back to his uncle.  I don't know if these letters are real or not.  Even if they are not, it is a very good way for him to keep his opinions to himself and not have to express them.  The letters are not bad, but all they seem to do is establish the fact that Jesus (or Joshua) was alive and people hated him.   

Van Loon’s original story ends on 480, and so do I.  I’m not going to read what his son wrote.  That would just be too much for me.  It’s already too much for me to handle.  It’s overwhelming.  My goal is to get to page 400 by the end of the week.  I read about 50 pages today, so I don’t think it will be a problem to get 50 more pages before the end of the week.  

When you get to hear Van Loon’s voice coming through the story more,  it gets more interesting.  Like when he talks about why you need to know something, or why he likes learning about something, etc.  When he talks about this stuff, it gets interesting, but when he goes back to straight facts, my mind starts to wander (and wonder; why did this win the Newbery?). Again, I digress.  

When I finish the rest of the book...I will finish the post.