Happy Unconventional Life

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Our Favorite Alaska Adventure Stories

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Is there anything better than curling up with a really good book?  Our family has found a series of five books that make us wish we had nothing else to do with our lives, but read!  We’ve been reading a five-volume series of Alaska adventure stories called Aunt Phil’s Trunk.  I love reading non-fiction to my kids and these books have quickly become a favorite in our home!

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Aunt Phil was Phyllis Downing Carlson and she was a longtime school teacher during the 20th century who later became an Alaska Reference Librarian at the Anchorage Public Library. She loved researching Alaska history and over the years she published many stories from Alaska’s past in various magazines.  When she died in the early 1990’s, her niece Laurel Downing Bill inherited a trunk full of her Aunt Phil’s entire life work.  As Laurel went through what was in the trunk, she knew she had been entrusted with something very, very special that she needed to share with the world.  So, Laurel took an extreme step.  She decided to go back to school and learn how to best share these stories with the world!  She majored in journalism and minored in history so that she could learn how to craft stories people would want to read.
(This is Laurel)
Then Laurel set to work putting Aunt Phil’s writings into chronological order.  Sometimes she would fill in some gaps by weaving additional details into the stories that she had discovered through research. But a story is even better with pictures.  So Laurel got busy searching through thousands and thousands of historic photos in museums, university and library archives until she found the perfect photos to accompany her stories.  The result was a 5-book series that Laurel named “Aunt Phil’s Trunk.”  Each book is about 350 pages long and is packed full of true short stories about the people and events that have shaped Alaska.   These books are so well done that they were selected to receive the Literary Classics Seal of Approval, a prestigious award reserved for books which uphold the rigorous criteria set forth by the Literary Classics review committee of publishers, editors, writers, and illustrators.

Time Periods Covered In Aunt Phil’s Trunk

This is what you will find in each volume of Aunt Phil’s Trunk:
Volume 1 – up to 1900 – includes early Alaska up to Klondike Goldrush era
Volume 2 – 1900-1912 – birth of many towns, Iditarod trail, and Denali
Volume 3 – 1912-1935 – Alaska railroad, early aviation, and farmers heading north
Volume 4 – 1935-1960 – WWII Japanese Invasion, Alaska-Canada highway and battle for Attu
Volume 5 – 1960-1984 – early statehood, Good Friday earthquake, And the Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline

Why we Love Aunt Phil’s Trunk

Our family loves the Aunt Phil’s Trunk series because we love adventure stories!  I love that the stories are short, making it easy to read just a story or two at a time, when we have a few minutes here or there.  But we really love the pictures!  I wanted you to be able to peek inside the books and see how bursting full of pictures these books are, so here’s a quick flip through on video so you can see for yourself:

 Actually, to be perfectly honest, it’s not just my kids who love these books.  These are really interesting adventure stories and I’ve been secretly reading them by myself after the kids go to bed.  Don’t tell my kids what I do after they go to bed, ok?

What Other People Are Saying About Aunt Phil’s Trunk

We aren’t the only ones who love this series!  Here’s what some other people have had to say:

“People with an interest in Alaska’s history will thrill at the unique and extensive array of information offered within this series.  Photographs, newspaper clippings and other
images help complete this series, which is highly recommended for home and school”

“… most well researched, well written and fun to read Alaska history available.”  Alaska Dispatch News, 2016

“Anyone interested in Alaska history will love this book. It is full of interesting and little-known facts about the state. The stories behind these facts are colorful and entertaining.”  Writer’s Digest

“Aunt Phil’s Trunk’ offers an impressive compendium of superbly presented stories, tales, anecdotes and reminisces of the people, places, events and history of Alaska … personal, community and academic libraries would be well advised to acquire the entire set …” – James A. Cox, Editor-in- Chief, Midwest Book Review

Using Aunt Phil’s Trunk As Part of A Curriculum

The Aunt Phil’s Trunk books are fabulous as a stand-alone series of books.  But since they cover such a wide array of times and events, they are also perfect for studying Alaska studies, American History, WWI, WWII, and other topics because so many stories relate to events outside Alaska, too.
To make it easier for parents to incorporate these books into a curriculum, Laurel has provided Workbooks and teacher guide for grades 4 through 12.  The workbooks are about 140 pages and include comprehension and vocabulary exercises, crossword puzzles and review questions.
In our home, I haven’t focused on the history (it speaks for itself) as much as I’ve been drawing out the character lessons that are implied.  People are incredible and it’s fun to talk about the character traits people in the stories demonstrate.  For example, one man followed through on his promise to carry Alaska’s first piano over the mountains on his back. He showed dependability and determination.  Another man was dishonest and ended his career in political disgrace.  Both men made choices that determined their legacy and we have spoken quite a bit in our home about how our choices determine our legacy as well.

A Special Discount

Laurel wants to give Happy Unconventional Life readers an opportunity to try out the first book in the series, the student workbook and the teacher’s guide, so she has issued a special coupon code to save $15 on the bundle she calls the “Gold Nugget Special.”  Click here to Learn More About Aunt Phil’s Trunk and use the code:  Homesteader
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