Growing with the Grain, Dynamic Families Shaping History From Ancient Times to the Present tells about exceptional (though not necessarily famous) people from across several continents and more centuries, seen in the context of their family life and especially their childhood experience, education, and reading. Accomplishments in a variety of fields are described, from business to poetry, and from printmaking to mathematics. Approximately sixty brief family biographies are arranged chronologically, so skimming through the volume serves as an abbreviated introduction to world history, from ancient Rome to the present. The recommended readership ranges from under 10 to over 90. The book is ideal for informative browsing.

Drawings made by the author's daughter, Chloë Feldman Emison, introduce each biography, and a world map is provided, along with suggestions for further reading. Each biography also features a historiated initial which comments on the text to follow, and there are abstract decorations as well. The book, produced in hard cover with heavy paper, is intended to be a beautiful object as well as a good read.

The author, Patricia Emison, teaches the history of art and the humanities at the University of New Hampshire. The book originated as a homeschooling project with her elder daughter when she was 13 and 14. Chloë's watercolors and pen and ink drawings have been shown by the Tara Peck Gallery in Portsmouth, N.H. (see the review in the Portsmouth Herald, Dec. 14, 2006: "impressive and whimsical"), the Salmon Falls Village Gallery in Rollinsford, N.H. ("funny and interesting," Seacoast Online, July 21, 2007), in the Burlingame Gallery in Exeter, N.H., in a solo exhibition in the Emerging Artists Room and as part of an exhibition called "Telling Stories," which included a book-signing and reading by Jodi Picoult, and in the "Size Doesn't Matter" juried exhibition at the Heartwood College of Art, Kennebunkport, Maine. A large pen and ink drawing is on exhibit at the Carol Shea Porter Congressional district office in Dover, N.H. and a watercolor hangs in the Manchester office. Chloë's work can currently be seen at the Three Graces Gallery in Portsmouth, N.H., where both ^Growing with the Grain^ and ^The Lady with the Alligator Purse^ are also for sale.

Terms children might not be familiar with are defined along the way, but the writing is not geared to any specific juvenile age. Instead, it is intended for browsing by readers of a variety of ages, ideally for parents and children to share both reading and talking about. See The Wire, Dec. 6, 2006: "intended for a wide audience...thoroughly researched, but not dry and academic...readers can understand the ways in which history is full of connections."

The book is now available in a limited edition of 500 copies, signed and numbered. ISBN 0-9765572-0-7, 340 pp., numerous b/w illustrations, $40.00 plus $5 shipping and handling ($10 overseas, surface), by personal check. There is also a 20-page paperback full-color picture book, The Lady with the Alligator Purse, illustrating the clapping rhyme "Miss Lucy had a baby; she named him Tiny Tim," 4 x 6". Second edition available for $10 (including postage and handling; bulk discounts available). Please write to order: pae@ladyillyria.com. "Growing with the Grain" is also for sale at the UNH Bookstore, Durham, N.H.' "Lady with the Alligator Purse" at RiverRun Books, Portsmouth, N.H.