Concise American History

by Heather Ventura
(Olathe, KS)

Product: A Child's Story of America (Second Edition)
Subject: History, American
Levels Used: we used it for 3rd grade
Dates Used: 2011

Likes:
1. It is in story form, so kids enjoy hearing it or reading it. It is a great concise history of America from Columbus to the 1980s.

2. The picture and text inserts throughout the text. My son loves these. Some are simple sketches of a person, event, place, or thing (like Ben Franklin, a steamboat, maps, etc) but some are copies of a page from Poor Richard's Almanac or the actual words of the Mayflower Compact.

3. This text is more than just an outline of events and places. Sprinkled throughout the book are snippet biographies of great heroes in our history. We used these to launch into more in depth biographies from the library.

4. There are 29 chapters so it can easily be rolled into either 1 semester or 2 (we did it in one semester, roughly two chapters a week).

5. There are review questions at the end of each chapter that can be answered orally, answered in written format, and/or used to make a test.

Dislikes: Although this text is Christian, it glosses over any Catholic heroes (and only gives lip service the first Catholic colony). I love history told in story form, but every once in a while this text is a little "folksy" for our taste; however, this is easy enough to edit while reading.