When I was about 12 my father gave me Arundel, by Kenneth Roberts. He’d already established the tradition of presenting me with a book every birthday, and that paperback, my first historical novel, was his choice around then.

I already knew my dad was not like others. He taught me to love Gene Kelly instead of Fred Astaire, he showed me how to tune up the Austin Healey when I was 7 (and never to say motor when I mean engine), he narrated Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe to me and my brother (at the dining table, with props) like the epic adventure it must have been, permanently overshadowing Columbus for us.

And with Arundel, he introduced me to one of his American heroes: Benedict Arnold.

Dad also liked Jefferson, Franklin of course, and that renegade Thomas Paine, but it was his admiration for Benedict Arnold that showed me the significance of perspective.

I learned that Arnold had been a good man and a great soldier. That he was successful, badly wounded, in command again, defamed, cheated of promotion and then, frustrated and embittered beyond what it takes for a book character to become a misanthropic hermit, he changed sides in the Revolutionary War. But most of all I learned that, if the British had vanquished the upstart American settlers, Benedict Arnold would have been a hero of that conflict instead of becoming an archetype for traitor.

It was all a matter of point of view. Called POV nowadays. You choose your side, and you fight to win. If your side prevails you’re a hero. If your side loses, especially if it was a side you switched to, you might be reviled.

So, yes, it’s best to choose correctly for yourself and not switch. But then again, Ben Franklin was attacked about his French connections, and he never wavered. Plenty of good people have gotten bad press. Your best protection is to choose honestly and try to ignore the gossip.

Dad’s book choices were never what I would have selected and usually something I enjoyed. Sometimes they were as inspirational as he. The following year it was Carson’s The Sea Around Us.