Betsy Ross and the Silver Thimble: Ready-to-Read Level 2 (Ready-to-Read Childhood of Famous Americans)

I asked my granddaughter, age 7, for her review. She said she "likes it a lot." I wished it hadn't been so definite about what girls and boys could/could not do, but she said she understood that's the way it was in Betsy Ross's time.

Great book. My daughter used this book for her character parade at school. It was easy to read and had a great story.

I used this book for a Girl Scouts/Brownies Try-it patch on Genealogy. We talked about sewing by hand and using a thimble. This book is just right for a taste of history: Betsy Ross and sewing.

This is a quick read focusing on Betsy Ross's childhood. Young Betsy wants to do carpentry just because one of her brothers tells her she can't. But she's not cut out for the task, nor is that where her passion lies. What she's really good at is embroidery. This is a cute story about being true to yourself. The only problem is, the book doesn't give any indication of how accurate the account is. There is a page at the end that mentions Betsy's accomplishments as an adult, but this is not the resource to use if you are looking for a biography.

The message of this book is for girls to stick to sewing and boys can do carpentry.

This book is a bunch of hooey. We got it in a collection of biographical books for kids we purchased for our little non-fiction lover. So tonight we got it out for the first time. It's stated message is "be true to yourself." It's real message is that carpentry is for boys, and sewing is for girls. Also fails to mention that Betsy Ross probably didn't sew the first American flag and that the version she did design was likely sewn by slave women (per the flag's display in the National American History Museum). So tonight's bedtime lesson was don't trust the history books, dear girl.

The message in this book is supposed to be "be true to yourself", but it actually comes out as "girls aren't allowed to do boy things like carpentry, they have to do girl things like sewing". This, despite the book being written in 2002!And don't give me that "times were different back then" nonsense. The real Betsy Ross sewed uniforms and blankets, and filled musketballs as well. There were women in the army during the Revolution, albeit not very many and mostly in disguise. And given that this story is COMPLETELY MADE UP, it would have been just as easy to write a different made-up story with a different message.Yes, you heard me, completely made up. It is fiction. And I can prove it. How? Because the whole story starts when 6-year-old Betsy's brother George tells her that she can't help make a table, it's a boy thing. (Her mother's response is to tell her "You like sewing, why don't you sew with me?" instead of telling her son to stop squabbling.) But George wasn't born until Betsy was 11 years old. There is absolutely no way he was able to boss his sister around five years before he was even born!So let's see. It's a fictional story presenting itself as somewhat credible and passing off outdated ideas about gender roles. Is it well-written?No, not very, not even for a beginning reader. This is a "J" level book, about early second grade reading level. There are many very interesting books on that level. Your kid would be better off reading Frog and Toad than this execrable pap.And of course, it ends with the note that Betsy's sewing was "very important" because she made our first flag. Except that she probably didn't. That old chestnut has been passed around almost as long as we've had a flag, and there's never been any proof or evidence for this.And yet, parents and teachers the nation over are putting this book and others like it in the non-fiction pile. Well, it isn't non-fiction, and it's not well-written either. Pass it by.

My grand daughter and I am looking forward to making up this doll's wardrobe. A delightfuly "vintage" book.