Posted on 12/07/2007 9:07:46 PM PST by Maine Mariner
My 12 year old son is developing an interest in history. About five years ago, I read a book review of an American History book written by a woman that was considered unbiased, that is it did not blame America for everything that has gone wrong in the world. The book was written for younger students. There may have been more than one book written. What I recall from the review was that it was well written and kept the kids interested (no mean feat for my 12 year). Does anyone know about the book or who the author is.
You may be thinking of A History of US by Joy Hakim. You can go directly to her website or search for reviews online. Her work is quite popular with homeschoolers.
Thank you. I check out Mrs. Hakim website. I am pretty certain that is the author I am looking for. Thank you for your help
This probably isn’t the book you are looking for, but we’ve loved these so much, I wanted to suggest them. Genevieve Foster wrote a series of books for children. We have some but not all - they are among the best history books for children I’ve ever personally seen.
My personal favorite book of hers is “Augustus Caesar’s World”. It is richly detailed and my kids loved it at that age - loved all of her books, in fact.
Another book I highly recommend is “A Child’s History of the World”, which you can see reviewed here: http://www.amazon.com/Childs-History-World-V-M-Hillyer/dp/0899669387 This is the history book that the Calvert School uses. The reviews are useful - read what people have to say. IIRC, the book is out of print unless you order it through Calvert, and you can find it here: https://store.calvertschool.org/pc-295-1-a-childs-history-of-the-world.aspx I have no connection to Calvert, so I hope it is okay that I am posting the link.
Get books written before 1965.
bump
I’d go back a little further....circa 1930.
I have heard good things about Joy Hakim’s book. For background reference, I suggest keeping a copy of our book, “A Patriot’s History of the U.S.” around-—but it’s NOT for middle-schoolers.
Word is that Bennett didn't even know of our book when he had already nearly completed his, and decided that even though it replicated much of what we said, he went ahead anyway because he thought he could sell it on "his name," which certainly has been the case.
There is a series of history books by Clarence Carson. The following scathing review by a leftie on Amazon of “America: From Gridlock to Deadlock 1985-2001” raises my opinion of Carson:
By M. T. (Bloomingdale, IL United States)
We had struggled a bit with the most appropriate title for our review of this, the sixth and final(thank God!) of Clarence Carson’s volumes on Basic American History. And then, in searching for this title on Amazon’s search engine, we discovered that author Carson had another book by the name “Flight From Reality”. Indeed, this serves as the perfect heading for Carson’s final flight of fancy.
Within the corpus of this text, Carson reveals his admiration for the “political philosophy” of comedian Rush Limbaugh. Indeed, this is a book said comedian could well have written. Sadly, Limbaugh, like Carson, evidently, lacks much respect for ontological, logical, and moral truth. And this lack of respect for the essential types of truth comes across loud and clear in this final volume.
Carson includes an entire chapter on President Clinton’s “assault on law”. In this context, we wonder how Carson would comment on the much more egregious assault on the law lately conducted by neoconservative stooge George Walker Bush. Never mind that. We’ve heard enough of Rush’s show to know the answer. Carson would be quite untroubled with illegal war, unconstitutional wire tapping, rendition, and the torture and unlawful detainment of American citizens. How truly sad that such a character as Carson was, for a time, allowed to don the garb of an academic.
Near the end of this volume, Carson includes a section on the death of Princess Diana. His gratuitous attack on this lovely and charitable woman says all that we need to know about the character of author Carson. It is not often that reading a book supposedly about history makes us truly angry. But the experience of finishing Carson’s despicable work has done just that. No truly moral and honest person could actually enjoy this despicable work. We are stunned that some so called conservatives recommend this series to students. Perhaps they have never read it. Now that we have, we can make the following judgment: It should never be recommended. Rather it should be shunned.
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