The "Kindred Spirit" books engage readers in history through the eyes of 11-year-old Nathaniel and 13-year-old Cody, recently deceased. As the boys bond through a mutual interest, Cody discovers that his inclusion in the spirit world allows him to be anywhere in the world, at any time in history. So, in Before the Revolution, the boys visit Alexandria, Virginia, as the colonies head towards rebellion. They witness events at such sites as Gadsby's Tavern, Carlyle House, and the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary, and Christ Church, all of which welcome visitors to this day. (Images of the Alexandria sites are now included.)
In Uncivil Nation, the boys witness the beginning of the Civil War, from the day Union troops seize Alexandria, through the unfortunately eventful evening of April 14, 1865, when a group of Confederate sympathizers planned to assassinate the American president, vice-president, and secretary of state at the same time. The book revisits the sites from the first book and adds St. Paul's Church, where a minister was arrested during a Sunday service, John Brown's uprising at Harper's Ferry, and the remarkable funeral hijacking that evoked outrage among patients at L'Ouverture Hospital on the site of what had been the largest slave market on the East coast. It also follows the lives the Lincoln conspirators and those who shared the President's box when John Wilkes Booth broke in. Both books emphasize the human element of the events that are included, and that the sites, many of which played significant roles in both eras, remain open to visitors. Subsequent books in the series will explore events during King Philip's War and Queen Anne's War, including the attack on Deerfield, Massachusetts and the subsequent events that befell the kidnapped survivors; the Bloody Brook massacre, also in Deerfield; and the "Angel of Hadley," Massachusetts. All of the books are based on primary sources, dialogue often taken from letters, petitions, and public documents. A free study guide for Before the Revolution is available on Teacherspayteachers.com.This guide includes more than 150 vocabulary words (including selected word studies and etymologies) taken from Before the Revolution, the first in a series of Kindred Spirit young-adult historical fiction. This guide, which focuses on extant historical sites in Alexandria, Virginia, also includes a glossary of literary terms, an explanation of the elements of a story, a guide to maintaining a reading journal, a dictionary of parts of speech, and questions that include recall, interpretation and understanding, and "beyond the story," for additional research and exercises. A study guide for Uncivil Nation, also set in Alexandria, Virginia, during the Civil War, and the second book in the series, is anticipated early in 2021. This book revisits the Alexandria sites in Before the Revolution and introduces extant sites at Harpers Ferry and in Washington, D.C.