|
| |
Publisher: Warbranch Press
Year:2005
Author: Kate Salley Palmer
Illustrator: James H. Palmer, Jr.
Reading Level: Grades 3-8
ISBN: 0966711459
|
|
Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox
Posters and CD-ROM Guide for Teachers available!
Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox boasts sixty pages of South Carolina Revolutionary War history. It explores the life of Francis Marion and the tremendous impact he had on the course of that war—both statewide and nationally. Marion's successful campaign of ambushes, hit-and-run attacks, and supply line disruptions made life difficult for British and Loyalist forces in South Carolina, and to some extent it prevented them from making a "clean sweep" through the rest of the colonies. Yet even to this day, Marion remains an elusive figure.
Well-respected among his neighbors in St. John's Parrish (in present-day Berkeley County), he was known for both his distinguished military record and his disinclination to brag about it. When there were no major wars being fought, Marion was more than happy to change his musket for a plowshare. Beyond that and the few details about his family, however, there is not a tremendous amount that is known about the "Swamp Fox."
In putting together Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox, therefore, Kate (who did the writing) and son James (who created the beautiful illustrations on his computer) had to tease what information they could out of various sources. James had recently (in 2004-2005) developed a documentary called Chasing the Swamp Fox for South Carolina ETV, and he had accumulated a lot of information from interviews and other research. In the course of filming the documentary, he had visited a number of sites that the Swamp Fox would also have seen throughout the South Carolina lowcountry. So James had a great deal of material on which to base his rich illustrations. Kate, meanwhile, read all the books that she could find about Francis Marion and the Revolutionary War, and she has drawn on this research to tell the story of Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox.
|
|
Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox Guide for Teachers
Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox Posters
Chasing the Swamp Fox (SCETV documentary)
Palmetto: Symbol of Courage
|
Reviews and Reader Comments
 Fran Hawk, The Charleston Post and Courier, 2006
[P]roves that truth is (at least) as exciting as fiction....Palmer keeps the biography in fast-forward by choosing deftly the historical high points and the fascinating facts that keep children reading. The illustrations by her son, James H. Palmer, Jr., surround the text on every page. Forts and forests, raids and rivers, maps and portraits of the Patriots bring the tale vividly to life….In addition to being a great story, the book is an excellent research tool....[T]his book works for any age.
Monty Rainey, Amazon.com, 2006
Being a grandfather of eight, ranging in age from 18 months to 13 years, I’m always on the lookout for something good to add to the children’s wing of my home for those sleepovers. I stumbled across this gem by accident and I’m glad I did. It’s difficult to find books with historical content that will hold the interest of children, but this book fits that bill nicely. The captivating artwork is coupled with historical text that is spot on accurate. At only 60 pages, this makes perfect bedtime reading; long enough to teach something valuable about an underrated figure in American history, yet short enough that it will hold their interest to the end.
Midwest Book Review, Children's Bookwatch (vol. 17, no. 9), Sept. 2007
Kate Palmer's articulate and informative text is effectively combined
with James Palmer's superbly executed illustrations to provide young
readers with an engaging biography of one of the American Revolution's more colorful characters and successful military leaders
whose exploits in South Carolina against the British became an
inspiration to George Washington's often beleaguered American
forces elsewhere in the war. Francis Marion and the Legend of the
Swamp Fox is as educational as it is entertaining and an
enthusiastically recommended addition to family, school, and
community library American History reference collections in general,
and American Revolutionary History supplemental lists in particular.
|
