For his fifteenth birthday in 1805, young Noah Blake's parents gave him a little leatherbound diary in which he recorded the various activities on his father's farm. This reprint of an actual early nineteenth-century book provides today's readers with a delightful rarity — a view of bygone days through the eyes of a young boy. Eric Sloane has taken the notebook with its brief comments and expanded the daily entries with explanatory narrative and 72 of his own remarkable drawings.
Verbal and graphic sketches detail the construction of an entire backwoods farm as well as such common tasks as making nails, building a bridge, splitting shingles, spring plowing, and maple-sugaring. The result is "an extraordinary glimpse into everyday Early American rural life . . . [that] will delight readers of all ages." — History in Review.