Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

TheDauphine I remember this show as a kid and how much I enjoyed watching. It is both an educational and entertaining show that teaches kids about the American Revolution. There are very few children's shows on television that are about history, much less those that are as good as this one. Sure, there are good shows that teach kids about many other subjects like math and English, however history is greatly overlooked.The story is about Sarah, a Loyalist girl from England, James, a colonial journalist working for Ben Franklin, Henri, a little French orphan, and Moses, a freed African who works at the print shop. Together they live and experience the American Revolution firsthand.However there is one thing I wish this show had done, which was show a little more of what it was like to be a loyalist in America during and post war. Sure there were a few loyalists here and there, but it would have been more interesting if they had shown a little more of the struggles that loyalist families had at that time and how families were torn apart do to the war. That aside, it's still a great history show for kids.Long story short, this is one of my favorite shows from when I was a kid, and there should be a lot more like this on television today. Particularly shows that can get kids interested and excited about history.

richard.fuller1 As an American with an English parent, I don't find many of the depictions of British so offensive. I think my mother shrugged much of it off as being the American way. Yes, it would be nice to see a more open depiction of the English (wow, that would be a first) from the Revolutionary war, and no, you won't ever be seeing any such fair-minded depiction of Confederate children or WWII Japanese kids coming to any animated program anytime soon.I would often leave the TV going in the next room and kept hearing this melodramatic violin music and crescendo in a cartoon for a commercial bumper, then accompanied by a half-hip hop ending credits. I became intrigued and ended up watching the show (as well as having Walter Cronkite doing Ben Franklin, the one that finally got me was Dustin Hoffman) Whether the show has historical accuracy is one major facet. That the show is so obviously slanted American, I don't focus on this aspect.What I do note is the pretentiousness in the main characters of the youths, happily engaging in friendship with the slaves (hard to refer to them as such in the program).I just watched the episode with the declaration of independence coming about and the one African-American fellow kept boldly and steadfastly insisting on freedom for slaves. The cartoon literally seemed to want to end on an upbeat note, but uh, guys, freedom ain't coming about for any slaves anytime in these peoples lives.So until the, GOD BLESS America! The whole program TRYING to deal with this and not wanting to say 'but for now, you're still a slave' is like a SNL skit.The episode was further compounded by the two kids, the redhead girl and the blonde guy (same Hollywood imaging they always have. Check out the hair color reversals from Johan and Peewee who used to be on the Smurfs), WANTING to report on the goings on but being told they weren't allowed. And Im going to really get a kick out of watching this show now and when someone is talking, seeing one of these kids off to the side writing on a little notepad.They're "reporting!" It was funny when the guards kept removing the kids from the doors and windows and the kid says "those guys take their jobs too seriously!" All I could think was these waifs were taking the idea of reporting the events too seriously.In the 70s, we were given Schoolhouse Rock, with America Rock, and a generation or two to this day cannot recite the pre-amble without singing it. I took a daily grade as a zero in school for not reciting the pre-amble simply because I can't. I must sing it.A few scant years before, there was US of ARchie, a show I did enjoy, which runs very similar to liberty Kids here.These are all at least an introduction, yes, inaccurate, but they can be an introduction.

unreasonableboy Being British I'm terribly offended by this show, it shows us in a bad light and is full of historical inaccuracies. It should be taken off the air and I'm considering filing a class action law suit against PBS and it's sponsors for all of the racism and nervous shock it causes me! No only kidding! I saw this show recently and not only is it an excellent children's TV show but they could do allot worse by allowing high school students to see this -- it should be on the curriculum. I think that a cartoon might hold the attention span of the students longer than a documentary or a history lecture.Having said all that PBS is taking some risks here with this show. It actually shows the Americans in a good light which what I know about PBS is unusual. I'm sure this as far as they would go, because they would never dare show a cartoon series of the Mexican-American war, Custers last stand, the Alamo, the gold rush or even W.W.II in such a noble way without creating outrage from disgruntled Spanish-speaking Americans, native Americans as well Asian Americans(not to mention law suits).It seems that we Brits are still fair game in the eyes of PBS. If PBS want's to continue receiving vast amount of cash from it's sponsors and pledge money from willing viewers keep an eye out for "civil war kids" and "slavery kids" some time in the future

Matthew Cooper (MagusYanam) As a history 'buff' from a young age, I first watched 'Liberty's Kids' mainly out of curiosity. I was disappointed, to say the least, to find a public television programme spewing forth such sophomoric pablum to pass for 'history'. The episodes that I watched did not address the causes of the War of American Independence (other than to say, more or less, that it was because the big, bad British wanted to tax the poor downtrodden colonists out of their hard-earned cash), nor the actual circumstances of most of the colonists. It was neither factually correct (merely selectively), nor intellectually honest (as most other PBS shows, I've found, are).Firstly, the war was fought as a direct result of a treaty that the British made on behalf of the colonists with the various Native American tribes that allied with the French during the Seven Years' War. The Proclamation of 1763 recognised native claims to land west of Appalachia, which many colonists chose to ignore. Instead, they preferred to encroach upon native lands and murder the rightful owners, then protested when British common law made objection. The Stamp Act and the Sugar Act were, granted, more immediate causes, but the discontent over taxes fed off of the prior discontent over the Proclamation.The war was a rebellion, and as most rebellions are, the WAI was messy. It caused a great deal of suffering among many colonial communities, more so among those still loyal to the Crown, and even more so among the Native Americans that found themselves being dragged in. (A notable player in the Northern War was the Mohawk nation of the Haudenosaunee led by Joseph Brant, but Brant seemed not to warrant mention, being a Native American.) Nor were the tens of thousands of colonists that were driven from their homes either by force or by circumstance to Canada, to Britain and to the West Indies throughout the war (and after). The representative of the Loyalists on the show was an elderly English lady of means, perpetuating the stereotype that the Loyalists were on the whole reactionary, well-off, and 'out of touch'.More disturbing to my mind has already been touched on by a previous reviewer - it doesn't help kids understand the motivations and the mindsets of the British, preferring instead to make them the Empire of Star Wars: wanton, callous and cruel (in the historical school of Mel Gibson, naturally. It's always a simple battle between 'us' - the 'good guys', and 'them' - the inscrutable, inhuman 'bad guys'). Come on, folks, give kids some credit for intelligence. They understand more than they let on - they can understand a few moral complexities, such as there certainly were during the War of American Independence. Shows such as 'GhostWriter' and 'Mister Rogers' Neighbourhood', that taught social responsibility and, yes, critical ethical thinking, are far more valuable than this pap. Come on, public television, show some class!