Joyce Hill

A school assignment to look for an old penny opens up a world of adventure and living history for a group of students. Join them as they search for old pennies, hold them in their hands and wonder: Who held them when they were new? What was this country like? With each penny found, more history comes alive. The pennies lead back to the wave of immigration in the early 1900s, through the Influenza epidemic and The Great War, on to the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression and World War II. All this is seen through the eyes of young people the same age as the students. The powerful ending demonstrates how a simple penny can tie people together and carry a strong message of hope and the American spirit. The book includes discussion questions intended to stimulate thought-provoking conversation and creativity. The book is suited for the home, classroom, library or homeschool bookshelf. The book is also available in hardcover (ISBN 978-0-9795818-0-9)

A Penny in My Pocket

Old English Minor Heroic Poems

John Wilkinson

In the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem many pilgrims came to Jerusalem. The translations in this book are of seventeen western accounts of pilgrimage, written between 1099 and 1185, and there are two additional accounts from eastern pilgrims, Abbot Daniel from Russia and John Phocas from Antioch. As a whole this collection shows the gradually developing way in which western Christians understood the Holy Places. Some early pilgrims depended on authorities, many of whom by 1099 were out-of-date. They tried to deliver the truth about the Holy Places and to be reticent about their own reactions. But the pilgrims who appear later in the collections made their own archaeological judgements, and were more free about their own reactions. Pilgrimage after 1099 was altered by the fact that by their victory over Jerusalem the Dome of the Rock fell into the Crusader's hands. Otherwise the differences of practice between eastern and western pilgrims were slight. Thus eastern pilgrims visited the Greek and western pilgrims the Latin monasteries. Western pilgrims had a different idea of the location of Emmaus, and before 1185 a western Way of the Cross was beginning to take shape. These were slight differences, and in general all Christian pilgrims, whether from east or west, visited the same Holy Places as they had during the preceding period. Most of the works in this collection were translated into English a century ago by the Palestine Pilgrim's Text Society. But these texts were produced separately as pamphlets, and lacked a general introduction. In this book therefore the texts are retranslated, sometimes from more accurate texts. In introducing the texts some valuable new evidence from archaeology has been used and enabled a new assessment of their dates.

Joyce Hill

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