What was it like to be a boy at the turn of the first millennium --- the Year 1000? An 11-year-old Saxon named Edmund knew, and now he shares it with you. Every turn of the century thereafter, from 1100 to 2000, another boy shares his story. Learn about a world almost lost in the mists of the past through the eyes of eleven real boys, all the author's actual ancestors. Lavishly illustrated. Includes extra material for learning and study. Ideal for homeschool use in history, social studies, geography, spelling and vocabulary. "Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong. . . . Men from children nothing differ. And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." William Shakespeare (proud to be included in this fine book) "Thank you for the book Boy Centuirons. Daddy read it on the airplane and I read the whole thing last weekend. I liked everything in the book, especially the stories about America. Tell me when you write another book." from Josiah (Plymouth, England, UK) Brian Hogan . Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, Brian has since lived all over the planet. From Navajo Land in Arizona to the far-flung steppes of Mongolia, the Hogans' had more than thirty homes on five continents. Brian enjoys history and climbing out as far as he can on the branches of his family tree. The boys in this book were all found on those long and thick branches.Traveling extensively, Brian speaks all over the world and teaches young people to live and work in cultures very different from those they grew up in. He is passionate to let every nation know about God's open invitation to join His family.Brian is the author of two other books favored by readers young and old. There's a Sheep in My Bathtub--the story of the Hogans' Mongolian adventures, and An A to Z of Near Death Adventures--twenty-six true tales of the author's close calls and brushes with death around the world.These days Brian and his wife Louise make their home with a flock of backyard chickens in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. Helen Looman . Raised in the tiny town of Fraser, Colorado (400 residents at the time), Helen has lived in such varied places as New York City; Salmon, Idaho; Desamparados, Costa Rica; and Dambadarjav, Outer Mongolia. In Mongolia she homeschooled missionary kids from Kindergarten to eighth grade and taught English as a second language to ages four through seventy. Helen was also helped begin the first Christian Women's meetings in Mongolia, that eventually became Women's AGLOW Mongolia. She returned to the United States in 1996, where she currently resides with her husband and dogs in Southwest Colorado. Helen's many travels to Europe, Asia and the Middle East, has given her a deep love and appreciation of historical time and place, which made working on this book a thorough delight. Can you imagine life before smart phones, cars, television, or even electricity? Young Edmund of Wessex can't imagine anything else. He lives in the year 1000 in England and gazes at manuscripts lovingly and artfully illuminated by the hands of monks rather than at images on a screen. Life in Edmund's world is certainly more difficult than in ours, though perhaps not more dangerous--the dangers are just different.In Boy Centurions , Edmund shares a day in his life with the reader--the very first day of a new Century! And so do ten other boys, living at one hundred year intervals from one another. Life and society slowly progress and change over the thousand years covered in this book, the speed of changes accelerating as the pages turn. The only reason this book is classified as fiction is that the details of the lives of our boys had to be created from what historians know about their times and places. The boys themselves are factual. They played, worked, studied, breathed . . . lived, real lives. A small slice of each of those lives are recreated in the pages of this book. And so . . . they live again.This is a great book to read-aloud with someone. Even after the stories, you will find it packed with background information and colorful maps and a family tree. The ample glossary is designed for easy duplication for vocabulary lists (home schoolers-- you have our permission!) Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, Brian has since lived all over the planet. From Navajo Land in Arizona to the far-flung steppes of Mongolia, the Hogans' had more than thirty homes on five continents. Brian enjoys history and climbing out as far as he can on the branches of his family tree. The boys in this book were all found on those long and thick branches. Traveling extensively, Brian speaks all over the world and teaches young people to live and work in cultures very different from those they grew up in. He is passionate to let every nation know about God's open invitation to join His family. Ra