2nd Friday so we’re back to history again, and it looks like this month you’re getting a book bonanza – next week I’ll post my review of The Fathers, which leaves me this week to toss out a handful of childrens’ history books we’ve enjoyed over the past month.
Despite our passion for medieval history, a certain mother has determined one must, nonetheless, study other eras. So our official topic for this school year is American History. We started out with reading about various renaissance-era European explorers; whipped out the timeline notebook and determined that Christopher Columbus followed right on the heels of Joan of Arc. I think in the usual method of studying history in American schools, we tend to lose some of that sense of continuity: Chris C. belongs firmly to the course called American History, St. Joan belongs to another course in a different year, called European History or Medieval History or some other thing, and we never quite grasp that the events of the Hundred Years’ War would have been part of the renaissance explorers’ heritage, much the way the legacy World War II is still felt today.
Anyhow, we’ve since slipped into the colonial era, and I’ve got three nice books concerning the Revolutionary War era to share with you this month:
Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride by Stephen Krensky, illustrated by Greg Harlin; the topic is exactly as it says. Harlin’s watercolors elegantly capture the mood of the night’s events – so brilliantly done I’d recommend this book to aspiring artists and photographers. I can’t do them justice, so just go look. The text is clear and effective – you learn the technical details of the ride, and also the real danger, urgency, and excitement – but spare enough that it won’t be overwhelming to a competent but young reader, or to the parent charged with the read-aloud. A map at the start of the book shows the route of the ride (you will need a larger US map of your own to put the location into context), and an epilogue summarizes in three paragraphs the rest of the Revolutionary War and it’s ultimate conclusion.
Can’t recommend this book enough – interesting to adults who never had a chance to learn more about this famous event, and engaging to children who like a little adventure with their history. Frankly, if I had a student of any age who was history-resistant, I’d put this book in front of him, and mine it for all it was worth.
By the Sword: A Young Man Meets the War by Selene Castrovilla, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth, tells the story of Benjamin Tallmadge’s first foray into battle in August 1776. This is a more demanding text than Paul Revere’s Ride, and focuses as much on Tallmadge’s inner life as a new recruit in the colonial army as with the outward adventure of the Battle of Long Island. The intentionally-hazy oil-painted illustrations support the feeling of inward reflection, and of a man looking back on a turning point in his youth.
[Does introspection make good history? At our house, mothers were unanimously in favor of this exploration of the danger and emotional turmoil of warfare; a certain boy complained that the story ended just as it was getting to the good parts – I suppose he wanted to read the rest of war while he was at it.]
At the end of the book is a detailed timeline of Tallmadge’s life, a list of relevant historic sites to visit around modern-day New York City, a page in which the author explains how she researched her book and how she made certain literary decisions, and then a very detailed bibliography. There is also a brief note from the illustrator about his art research techniques, and from the typographer about the choice of fonts. Good stuff — really helps the student catch on to the study of history.
I’d say this book is more appropriate for older children – third grade and up. The level of detail and discussion of historical research could be helpful even for much older students, as this is the same kind of work that would go into better term papers for highschool and beyond — perhaps more effective than a lecture from the instructor, and would be a quick, easy read for the teen who must be plagued with this lesson. (Okay, let’s be frank: your average college history TA would give anything to get to grade an undergraduate history paper as well-researched as what the author models here.)
Finally I wanted to mention Welcome to Felicity’s World, 1774: Growing Up in Colonial America. Written by Catherine Gourley, though you will be hard-pressed to find the author’s name in this publication, which is part of the “American Girl’s Collection” as something of an accessory to that popular childrens’ historical fiction series. Not a bad book though – there’s a reason the American Girls franchise has done so well. The concept is something like DK’s Eyewitness Series, exploring colonial life and the Revolutionary War through many illustrations, photographs, short captions, moving stories, and sometimes more detailed narrative explanations, all divided into topical sections and subsections. It therefore makes a good browsing book – you can pick it up anywhere and look through just the bits of special interest.
This is most definitely a girl’s book, but subtly so – Mr. Boy has been reading it enthusiastically, and so far does not seem to have noticed the feminine bent. Maybe some month when I’m scrapping for a history topic I’ll walk you through the differences between girl-books and boy-books in more detail, to show you how it’s done; for now I’ll just say that it nicely combines social history with the usual names-‘n-dates type outline of a traditional textbook. Good reliable backbone for an elementary-years history program, and probably fairly easy to get hold of, since it is part of such a well-known brandline. Felicity lives in Williamsburg, VA, by the way, for those who are looking for a text to coordinate with a field trip.
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