Customer Reviews

Imogene's Last Stand

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My 8 year old son and I just love this book. We've read it twice now and will be reading it again. Imogene is a determined patriot, whose love of history leads her to do amazing things. We particularly enjoyed the quotes she uses from famous people in history and were excited to read more about those characters. This book is one you need in your library. Every person, of every age can read it and enjoy it, because in the immortal words of my son, "Wouldn't it be great if everyone had at least a little Imogene in them?" Indeed it would. Bravo!

My youngest daughter received this book as a gift and she read it immediately. However, she refused to pass up the chance for reading along with her, (possibly because I use voices for the different characters). We enjoyed every single page, but I became sad as I saw how the community responded to Imogene's many cries.

In celebration of Kwanzaa and the need for the community to come together, this book brought many things home. Because it strongly encourages girl-power and the use of yesterday's wisdom to accomplish many of today's tasks, I stand behind Imogene and shout OUTSTANDING!

I am looking forward to reading it again, sharing it with other children, and reading it many for years to come.

This is a great book to use over and over in the classroom. It has so many teaching moments the list could go on and on. So simply put it is a great book to use to integrate Social Studies and Language Arts. Enjoy!!

A cute little girl uses historical quotations from famous Americans and references from American eras to defend her project from demolition.

Abraham Lincoln

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Davy Crockett at the Alamo

William Morris (we love his chair)

John Paul Jones

Paul Revere

Theodore Roosevelt

Chief Joseph

Viet Nam war protestors

Abraham Lincoln

Martin Van Buren

Eleanor Roosevelt

It just goes to show, you can take almost anything out of context.

Demeaning names for the "bad" characters -- the mayor is Mayor I. M. Butz; the woman police officer is Officer Ditzwilliam. On the plus side, it's good to see the president protrayed as a black woman -- Condi, we still need you! However, the illustrator has made the black woman president seem like a fool, holding a plaque where the printed material is sideways to the engraving.

The end papers of the book include a little teasing reference to what the Viet Nam war protestors were shouting -- jokingly encourages your child to find out that the word was "HELL no, we won't go."

Liddleville, New Hampshire was one of those small towns that if you drove though quickly you'd never know you missed it. It was full of history, but the only person who seemed to know that was Imogene Tripp. It was said that her first words were "Four score and seven years ago," but maybe that was pushing it a bit. At any rate, she was passionate about history. Every opportunity she got in school, she was talking about history. She was soooo interested in it she even had to go visit the Liddleville Historical Society, a "centuries-old house stuffed with dusty antiques." It was, as her Daddy exclaimed when they opened the door, "a mess."

Imogene was so excited the only thing she could say was "Wow!" She cleaned and organized the cobweb-ridden mess and told her father that the "mess" was history "And in the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., `We are made by history.'" When she was finished cleaning and organizing the "history" of Liddleville she threw open the door (dressed in an historical costume of course) and waited for the crowds to come. And waited and waited and waited. Mayor I. M. Butz soon declared that the house would have to be torn down to make way for a shoelace factory. Money counted more than history. How on earth would Imogene convince the town and Mayor Butz that history was more important than shoe laces?

This Liddleville, New Hampshire tall tale gives the reader many American historical tidbits to think about. In Imogene's travels we get to take brief looks at Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., William Morris, John Paul Jones, Paul Revere, Teddy Roosevelt, Chief Joseph, Vietnam War protesters, Martin Van Buren and Eleanor Roosevelt. Imogene's little vignettes about historical figures may entice the young reader into learning more about them. Each figure has a thumbnail illustration and a very brief historical sketch in the end pages. If you have a youngster who loves history like Imogene, they just might be interested in this zany, but historical tall tale!