Have you heard of Jockey Hollow? Jockey Hollow is the camp in the wilderness of New Jersey where George Washington was as a General during the Revolutionary War. Jockey Hollow: Where A Forgotten Army Persevered To Win America’s Freedom, by Rosalie Lauerman, is a book that brings us right into the action of the freezing, starving and fighting that this troop is about to face.

When you think of history books, you think of boring and dull books that you fall asleep trying to read. Well, this book is not that! While there are a lot of facts packed into over 100 pages of this paperback book, there are also a lot of pictures, maps and drawings to keep a person interested.

While reading this book, you are not just reading a book, you are reading through journals. Not only that, but the author gives us links to visit to find out more when we reach a topic that we find more interest in. With the journals, we get a feeling for how desperate the soldiers felt while sitting in Jockey Hollow.

As we read, we noticed words or dates that were in bold occasionally, these would be mentioned on the side in further detail. This was a great way for me to quiz the kids, or to find vocabulary words to help them understand further.

We followed General George Washington and his team as they suffered, but also as they won. By the end of the book, we were reading about the victories and we were happy to see the turn around that had happened.

At the end of the book, the author has included extras such as a Gallery of Heros, where we found out more about key players in this book, A Timeline of Events, which was a great resource for our own personal timeline. There was also a Places to Explore, which was all sorts of great links to find out more information and Additional Reading which was a great resource for having my oldest read more. I loved the books listed here and so did he!

Adding history books that are more than just the facts has always been a goal of mine. Jockey Hollow is one of those books that needs to be on the bookshelf. This is a great resource of survival, overcoming and winning. We thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be using it over and over again in the years to come.

—Product review by Amanda Hopkins, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, December, 2016