Welcome to Rumbel Strip. This is Erica Heilman.

People said he was very, not classically handsome, but striking looking.

He was very athletic.

You're average size size but very muscular.

Wonderful ice skater.

It said that his calf just looked fabulous and a stocking.

Great legs, you know.

That's Steve Shankin, talking about General Benedict Arnold's legs.

Steve is a writer of exciting stories for kids about American history.

When he started out, he was a writer of boring textbooks about American history.

Blah, blah, blah, many people died.

You remember.

Steve wanted to bring new energy to textbook writing

to mine American history for fresh new details and anecdotes that could capture the interest of

fifth graders. This is an interview about how he failed and the pull and push of

priorities about how we teach our origin story to American children.

Welcome.

I was working on textbooks and eventually worked my way up to the point where I was actually writing

sections of books.

And a big moment in my life and my writing life came when the editors told me okay now basically

this is your big break you're going to write part of this new fifth grade US history book and

it's not just any part but you're going to write the kind of prototype.

...