Musings of a Snickerdoodle

Tillie Pierce:  Teen Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg by Tanya Anderson gives a very interesting perspective of the battle of Gettysburg.  As the title indicates, Tillie was a teenager at the time the Confederates invaded her state (Pennsylvania) and thence ended up at her hometown of Gettysburg.  As the danger grows Tillie's parents allow her to go with a neighbor who desires to flee, with her two children to a safer spot at her own parents farm.  Ironically, their refuge ends up being a not-so-safe place with war taking place around them and nearby on the Round Tops. Tillie and her friends accept the situation in which they are placed and end up helping with the wounded and helping give water to active soldiers and in so doing she meets various soldiers participating in the battle (including General Meade) all the while worrying about her own family back in the main town.  The book is filled with interesting facts about the Civil War and many ...

The Illustrator's Notetaking Bible has a nicely bound bible, with a very handy lay-flat design, making it easy to write or color in it.  On the inside each page has only one column of text with large margins on either side.  Some of the margins have lines for writing in, many of them have pictures that one may color in (the Illustrator part).  I like to doodle sometimes while listening to sermons, sometimes it helps me think and stay focused, so I thought that this was an interesting concept.  But upon examination it was rather disappointing.  In a way, it is reminiscent of the illuminated manuscripts of the past, except that in the illuminated manuscripts I've noticed that the text didn't seem to have as dwarfed by the illustrations as this one appears to me to do on many of the pages (perhaps they did, I just don't remember).  If the text of the Bible itself weren't so small or if it were more…I don't know, 'fancy' I guess, it would seem more fitt...