This is Angela Odell, and you are listening to Real Cool History for Kids, a podcast show featuring history told from a distinctly biblical worldview perspective.

Welcome to an adventure.

Welcome to episode 171 of Real Cool History for Kids.

This episode is for Ezra Solz, who wanted to hear the story of a man whose imagination carried him far beyond the walls of a prison cell.

This man's name was John Bunyan, and he wrote one of the most famous Christian books ever written, The Pilgrim's Progress.

John Bunyan was born in November of 1628 in a small village called Elstow near the town of Bedford

in England. His family was really poor, and life was not easy.

John's father worked as a tinker, who traveled from place to place fixing pots and pans.

When John grew older, he learned that same trade, carrying tools with him as he

walked from home to home to mend broken things. John didn't have much schooling. He learned

to read and write, but books were rare and very expensive. Even so, John had a vivid imagination. As a boy, his mind was filled with big dreams

and really deep fears. He worried often about right and wrong, about heaven and hell, and about whether

his life truly mattered. Nowadays, John would have had the diagnosis,

I'm pretty sure, of having anxiety. England during John's childhood was a troubled place.

The country was torn apart by arguments over power and kings and religion.

The government and the official church were closely connected and people were expected to worship

in a very specific way. And anyone who believed differently or preached without permission,

well, they could be punished very severely.

When John was still a teenager, England fell into a civil war. In 1644, John Bunyan joined

the army that supported the parliament in that civil war. There's no clear evidence that he actually fought in many battles,

but later he believed that God had spared his life more than once.

Soldiers around him were injured or killed,

...