Disneyland in Heidleberg?

Knowledge (via the library) had never held any appeal to them, with the exception of Micah. Our frequent trips were viewed as a necessary evil. After I informed them that we would no longer “do school,” that they would be in charge of their learning, and could choose what and when they wanted to learn, the library had suddenly transformed into DISNEYLAND.

Nathan, now 4, was astonished at all the cool books about snakes and spiders that he could take home. “No,“ he said laughing with a mischievous smile, ”We can’t take these home. They’ll put us in jail.” (Another learning opportunity which I quickly explained.) To my embarrassment, I was equally shocked that as many times as we had gone to the library, he thought it was only to pick out a new video. Jacob surprised me with choosing a biography on Leif Erickson so I quickly showed him how to use the computer to find more Viking books. Hannah choose mostly craft books and a few fiction stories. Micah will devour any and everything that has words. One of his choices that he was especially excited over (aside from the "History of POOP" book) was a video documentary on Stalin…

You see, our study on astronomy had led to the space race, which led to Russia, which led to Lenin and Stalin and communism, and Karl Marx, which led to Micah (totally unprompted by me) to write a paper on Stalin that he wanted to enter into a Reader’s Digest contest. It’ll probably win too, if he ever finishes it before his interest wanes. I had never seen such quality of writing from him, although I knew he was capable of it- I’m talking college level.

Anyway, our mound kept growing and growing, and I was thankful, for three things: That there was no library book check-out limit, that I had so many helpers to carry all those books out, and that there are never any late fees at military libraries! Twenty videos and about fifty books later, a happy troo loaded their treasures in the back of the van. Yeah, enough materials to hold us over for a few days.