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Spies!

Sneaks, Snoops, and Saboteurs Who Shaped the World (Rivals!, Book 4)

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Spies!

By: Scott McCormick
Narrated by: Kdin Jenzen, Carly Robins, Gabriel Vaughan, Genesis Oliver, Gregory Connors, Josh Hurley, Kevin T. Collins, Ron Butler, Elizabeth Evans, Feodor Chin, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Khristine Hvam
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About this listen

Exclusively on Audible, hilarious history for ages eight and up.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Listen to the hilarious-but-true adventures of the world’s most amazing spies, document their actions, and most importantly: Do not let the enemy see you laugh.

Here are the dossiers:

  • Hercules Mulligan: Sure he sings about horses and corsets in a certain musical, but in real life he spied under the noses of the British for the entirety of the Revolutionary War - even when they were convinced he was a spy.
  • Josephine Baker used her fame as a singer and dancer to smuggle hundreds of documents past the Nazis and helped numerous Jewish refugees escape Europe.
  • Elizabeth Van Lew operated the largest spy ring for the Union forces - right in the heart of the Confederate capital.
  • The Chevalier d’Eon: This 18th-century French diplomat, soldier, and spy became an international celebrity when she announced that she was a woman who had been forced to masquerade as a man - or was the other way around?

Spies! has it all: secret turnips, infiltrating pigeons, encrypted clothing, milk messages, prison breaks, snooping kitties, grave robbing, hanging monkeys, bumbling Brits, and even original songs.

So grab your miniature cameras and memorize your maps, Spies!: Sneaks, Snoops, and Saboteurs Who Shaped the World will steal its way to your funny bone.

©2021 Scott McCormick (P)2022 Audible Originals
History Kids Audible Originals Funny Witty History For Kids
About the Creator - Scott McCormick

About the Creator

Scott McCormick: When he’s not flustering emus or stymying mambas, Scott McCormick enjoys annoying his children until they tell their mother. He also writes. He writes all kinds of stuff. Some of it is good. He wrote the Mr. Pants series of graphic novels. Those were good. You should totally check them out. So are the books he writes for Audible, including Rivals! Frenemies Who Changed the World, and its sequel, Rivals 2. He’s also excited about his first novel, The Dragon Squisher, which is just as funny and squishy as it sounds. Scott lives on the western edge of the easternmost part of southern North Carolina, right smack in the middle of it all.
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I really like the premise of this series and, because I love history, am excited to see it presented in an interesting way for my kids. However, there's a difference between 'making history come alive' and 'making sure we get a certain ideological message across'. While all of the books commit the latter offence to some degree, Spies, the final book that I listened to, pulled out all pretence of simply being a delightful retelling of history. By chapter 3 I had to force myself to keep listening just so I know what my kids had been told and can undo any damages.
2 examples of 'the message':
1. Constantly making out men to be evil and idiotic while all women are, if not perfect angels, then highly intelligent and blameless ones. If the woman were so amazing then they should be able to proudly stand on their own deeds, not require the men to be knocked down around them.
2. Deciding that the French spy must be transgender when the only evidence given in the story says that he bought a few dresses as presents and wore a dress to a Russian cross-dressing party (as did all the other men). Otherwise, according to this very audiobook, he never once said he was a woman, didn't want to live like one, but was forced to. Society at the time may have questioned his sex but apparently the readers aren't allowed the same liberty!

Don't present as certain historical fact that which is clearly, by the evidence laid out in the book, not. Making educated guesses is one thing, but making unfounded claims based upon clear ideological biases, has no place in a book that insists it's doing its best to present an accurate recount.

Great premise but too ideological to be called history (or even historical fiction)

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