History via Literature
Quick! What’s the title of your children’s most beloved story?
Remember the name of the main character in your favorite novel?
What was your most-cherished text book?
The first two questions were easy, right? The last one . . . ?
We remember characters in stories. Well-told plots engage us and are easy to call up even years later. Recollecting a time frame becomes effortless in the context of an exciting narrative. History comes alive in books . . . it just doesn’t come alive for us all in text books.
Historical biographies and fiction are chock full of wonderful, sometimes barely-believable stories that will have your children yearning to discover what happens next. If you ever struggled with having to memorize dates, wars, or important leaders and felt that all you got for your trouble was a passing grade but no true understanding of historical events, this curriculum method should appeal to you.
Reading stories of amazing, courageous, and flawed human beings who are at the very center of history is fun and easy. After introducing your children to a couple of the “main characters” in the period you’re studying, check out some historical fiction that includes those characters. Your kids will be excited to learn more about people they already know. For this reason, their studies will “stick.”
Your public library is a great place to start. Many will have book lists sorted by periods (e.g., American History: Colonial, Revolutionary War, Civil War, etc.) that will include the types of books listed above. A terrific website called A Book in Time provides reading lists as well as suggestions for activities and crafts to tie-in with the historical events being studied. Amazon.com, of course, is another online source for reading suggestions and has the bonus of providing reviews from parents as well as children.
This curriculum doesn’t begin and end with books, either. Check out some of Jim Weiss’ CDs that are known for their well-produced, beautifully narrarated stories. Add a few age-appropriate biographies and documentaries to your Netflix queue. Include historical fiction audio books in your children’s daily reading schedule. Your students will be utterly engaged, learning about history in an exciting way that will feed and promote their natural curiosity.
But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s an April 2009 blog entry from Melissa Wiley, homeschool mom to six and author of The Martha Years books about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s great-grandmother, Martha Morse Tucker, and The Charlotte Years books, about Laura’s grandmother, Charlotte Tucker Quiner:
Halfway through lunch, Beanie lets her book fall to the table. She sighs contentedly.
“I LOVE Einstein,” she announces.
She’s reading our small collection of Childhood of Famous Americans biographies, one by one. So far: Amelia Earhart, Sacagawea, Albert Einstein.
“Do you know why I like these books so much, Mommy?” she asks. “Because when I finish one, I feel like I know the person in real life. I feel like Albert Einstein and I are real friends.”
And nobody forgets their friends.