TheDauphine I remember this show as a kid and how much I enjoyed watching. It is both an educational and entertaining show that teaches kids about the American Revolution. There are very few children's shows on television that are about history, much less those that are as good as this one. Sure, there are good shows that teach kids about many other subjects like math and English, however history is greatly overlooked.The story is about Sarah, a Loyalist girl from England, James, a colonial journalist working for Ben Franklin, Henri, a little French orphan, and Moses, a freed African who works at the print shop. Together they live and experience the American Revolution firsthand.However there is one thing I wish this show had done, which was show a little more of what it was like to be a loyalist in America during and post war. Sure there were a few loyalists here and there, but it would have been more interesting if they had shown a little more of the struggles that loyalist families had at that time and how families were torn apart do to the war. That aside, it's still a great history show for kids.Long story short, this is one of my favorite shows from when I was a kid, and there should be a lot more like this on television today. Particularly shows that can get kids interested and excited about history.

adelenpaul For those of you that love Liberty Kids as much as we do, here is some wonderful news! There is an online education streaming video provider that has 40 of the Liberty Kids episodes. There are two places to go: www.unitedstreaming.com or www.cosmeo.com. They both offer the same videos but united streaming is created more for schools/teachers and cosmeo more for home use. Cosmeo is about $10/month or $99/year. We receive this free through our state education agency and use it ALL the time! We homeschool and use the videos, Liberty Kids included, in our teaching day all the time. I highly recommend the service! (And if you're interested, they also have CyberChase, My America, Dear Diary and Royal Diaries as well. My daughter never seems to get tired of the Magic Schoolbus videos as well. I only wish they also had the Schoolhouse Rock videos. :-)

Matthew Cooper (MagusYanam) As a history 'buff' from a young age, I first watched 'Liberty's Kids' mainly out of curiosity. I was disappointed, to say the least, to find a public television programme spewing forth such sophomoric pablum to pass for 'history'. The episodes that I watched did not address the causes of the War of American Independence (other than to say, more or less, that it was because the big, bad British wanted to tax the poor downtrodden colonists out of their hard-earned cash), nor the actual circumstances of most of the colonists. It was neither factually correct (merely selectively), nor intellectually honest (as most other PBS shows, I've found, are).Firstly, the war was fought as a direct result of a treaty that the British made on behalf of the colonists with the various Native American tribes that allied with the French during the Seven Years' War. The Proclamation of 1763 recognised native claims to land west of Appalachia, which many colonists chose to ignore. Instead, they preferred to encroach upon native lands and murder the rightful owners, then protested when British common law made objection. The Stamp Act and the Sugar Act were, granted, more immediate causes, but the discontent over taxes fed off of the prior discontent over the Proclamation.The war was a rebellion, and as most rebellions are, the WAI was messy. It caused a great deal of suffering among many colonial communities, more so among those still loyal to the Crown, and even more so among the Native Americans that found themselves being dragged in. (A notable player in the Northern War was the Mohawk nation of the Haudenosaunee led by Joseph Brant, but Brant seemed not to warrant mention, being a Native American.) Nor were the tens of thousands of colonists that were driven from their homes either by force or by circumstance to Canada, to Britain and to the West Indies throughout the war (and after). The representative of the Loyalists on the show was an elderly English lady of means, perpetuating the stereotype that the Loyalists were on the whole reactionary, well-off, and 'out of touch'.More disturbing to my mind has already been touched on by a previous reviewer - it doesn't help kids understand the motivations and the mindsets of the British, preferring instead to make them the Empire of Star Wars: wanton, callous and cruel (in the historical school of Mel Gibson, naturally. It's always a simple battle between 'us' - the 'good guys', and 'them' - the inscrutable, inhuman 'bad guys'). Come on, folks, give kids some credit for intelligence. They understand more than they let on - they can understand a few moral complexities, such as there certainly were during the War of American Independence. Shows such as 'GhostWriter' and 'Mister Rogers' Neighbourhood', that taught social responsibility and, yes, critical ethical thinking, are far more valuable than this pap. Come on, public television, show some class!

njan ..when I watched this for the first time; I really don't know that it would be possible to create a more insidious piece of programming - the fact that it is shown on PBS astounds me. This show is being promoted in a user friendly format, so as to slip in the most sugary manner possible down the throats of our children; that in itself should be a bad sign, regardless of the message which the show carries as payload.The fact is that the messages the show gives off and the stereotypes contained therein are reprehensible, and represent the very worst bigotry possible; the americans characterised are portrayed as either old and wise (franklin) or young and well-intentioned (most of the rest of the regular cast), and all of them are good, intelligent, ethical people. The british in the show (one of whom is played by Michael York, a highly talented thespian educated at oxford, fallen to such depths as 'dark planet' and this, a Patrick Stewart of poor fortune with a streak of Pearce Brosnan) are portrayed to the greatest extent possible as mean-spirited, callous, and capable of dreadful things.The fact is, *regardless* of whether such stereotypes are true or not, such portrayal is *not* appropriate in this day in age, especially given the 'special relationship' now endured by the United States and the United Kingdom. It would be possible to make a more mindlessly anti-english, pro-american show, but this hasn't been put together mindlessly: the intention of the show is quite deliberate, and it is - as stated - to slip messages like these quietly into the supplicatory, nurturing television watching of young next-generation americans, the messages of which they will blithely and unthinkingly assimilate as parts of their own ideology.