A Land Remembered Should Be Required Reading For Every Florida Student

Love, love, love this book! Should be required read­ing for all school-aged chil­dren.” ~Teena O’Dell

A Land Remem­bered is very pop­u­lar in class­rooms and home schools through­out Flori­da, and for good rea­son. It has every­thing need­ed to fire the imag­i­na­tion of young read­ers: cow­boys, Indi­ans, wild ani­mals, hors­es, hur­ri­canes, alli­ga­tors, cat­tle rustlers, steamships, dogs, fierce bears and so much more. While catch­ing read­ers up in the vibrant sto­ry, it also teach­es about Flori­da his­to­ry and the ear­ly pio­neers who set­tled the “last fron­tier.” They’re trans­port­ed back into a wild and sparse­ly inhab­it­ed Flori­da, and come to under­stand the state’s ori­gins in a way that no his­to­ry book could teach.

The best book I have ever read… it is a book that every stu­dent in this state should have to read before they grad­u­ate high school…

~Mark McK­in­ney

Many teach­ers and par­ents have told us they could not encour­age a child to read until they gave them a copy of A Land Remem­bered and, like mag­ic, the child became so engrossed in the book that they could­n’t get them to put it down. Then stu­dents often get their par­ents to read the book, and they spread the word among their friends. We have heard so many amaz­ing sto­ries from peo­ple of all ages who say that this book fun­da­men­tal­ly changed the way they view Flori­da and that it has shown them the joy of reading.

Thank you Patrick Smith for writ­ing this book which is an inter­est­ing and plea­sur­able way to share old Flori­da and its rich his­to­ry. My stu­dents wait for me to read from it and have even said we will miss recess if you read it.

That says it all when it comes to stu­dents. It must be good if they are will­ing to miss recess.

~ Eliz­a­beth Brew­ster. Dunedin

Par­ents who read this book when they were stu­dents, back in the 1980s, are now giv­ing it to their chil­dren to help them dis­cov­er the won­der­ful expe­ri­ence of read­ing. Just read some of the things that teach­ers and stu­dents have said about A Land Remem­bered here and you’ll see what this book means to so many peo­ple. It’s often called “The Flori­da Crack­er’s Bible” and lov­ing­ly kept as a cher­ished book.

A Land Remem­bered is avail­able in the stan­dard edi­tion and in a two-vol­ume stu­dent ver­sion, spe­cial­ly edit­ed for younger read­ers. Vol­ume 1 con­tains chap­ters 1–23. Vol­ume 2 con­tin­ues the sto­ry with chap­ters 24–45. The stu­dent ver­sions are avail­able in both hard­bound and soft­bound editions.

In VOLUME 1, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Flori­da scrub on Ish­mael, his marsh­tack­ie horse, with his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at his side. His par­ents, Tobias and Emma, scratch a liv­ing from the land, gath­er­ing wild cows from the swamp and herd­ing them across the state to the mar­ket. Zech learns the ways of the land from the Semi­noles, with whom his life becomes entwined as he grows into manhood.

In VOLUME 2, with the birth of Zech and Glen­da’s son, Solomon, a new gen­er­a­tion of MacIveys learns to ride hors­es, dri­ve cat­tle, and teach rustlers a thing or two. Sol and his fam­i­ly earn more and more gold dou­bloons from cat­tle sales, as well as dol­lars from their orange groves. They invest it in buy­ing land, once free to all, now owned and fenced and increas­ing­ly pop­u­lat­ed until it becomes just “a land remembered.”

Click here now to go to our online shop to pur­chase. Vol­ume dis­counts are avail­able.