Authors: Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon
Illustrator: Guy Francis
Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3388-5

“Even if it is a myth, Betsy Ross and the story of the flag is still an important part of American history,” Bo reiterates in Betsy Ross's Star (Blast to the Past , a children’s book written by Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon.

With one hundred and twenty-one pages, this paperback book is targeted toward ages seven to ten years old, has no profanity and no questionable or scary scenes. Illustrator Guy Francis depicts an early American seamstress sewing a flag with four children around her on the front cover. The back cover has two paragraphs about the book along with a drawing of Betsy Ross and mentions the seven prior books in the series. Inside there are ten black and white drawings along with two flag designs by Betsy Ross and Francis Hopkinson. Also included at the end of the book is an explanation by the authors of fact verses fiction about the creation of the American flag.

The main object of this series is to ask young children what if a person in the past did not create, state, make or invent something that changed our lives today but quit instead. This book hones in on the tradition that Betsy Ross designed and sewed our country’s first flag.

The eighth book in this children’s time-travel series, Abigail’s shy but smart friend Bo is adamant that it is a myth Betsy Ross designed the American flag based on hearsay and no documentation. When Abigail, Bo and twins Zack and Jacob use History Club’s teacher’s time-travel computer, they first go back to March 1870 to hear William Canby give a speech about his grandmother, Betsy Ross, making the flag but that does not prove anything since almost one hundred years later. Next they travel to June 1776 to see George Washington talk to Betsy Ross, to May 1777 to see a receipt for flags she made and then to 1780 to watch Francis Hopkinson declare he designed it. With the evil Babs Magee, assistant to their teacher who stole a time travel computer and makes havoc on history by trying to claim her own fame, on their trail, they see the five star paper design Ross gave to Sam Wetherhill that was not rediscovered until 1925. With mere minutes left on their computer clock and even though they cannot physically prove Betsy Ross designed and made the first flag of the United States, they make sure William Canby gives his speech about his grandmother’s creation that became accepted tradition.

A reader not only learns dates, times and places in our history about the flag, but there are a plethora of quotes from Joseph Addison, Mark M. Krug, Mark Twain, David Thelen, Helen Keller, Margaret Carty, Bill Gates, Jean Cocteau, Aldous Huxley and Henry Ford. This book shows how American tradition is passed down through the ages, explains a few flag laws, and tells some of the personal life of Betsy Ross and her three husbands along with Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, music composer and Treasure of Loans for America.

With the authors’ notes explaining the book was hard to research with little or no factual proof of who made the flag, it is a good testimony to how history is reported throughout the years and turned into a traditional belief.

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