Based on Charlotte Mason’s Educational Philosophy, this resource includes living books* to teach history.
Miss Mason’s heart was for her students to have an abundant and diverse feast that would enable them to grow in knowledge, compassion and service. Therefore, I selected 15 multicultural books, along with 8 traditional biographies, to help give a more broad view of our American History. That’s a total of 23 books!
I did my best to provide a relevant, parallel narrative for each traditional biography. You have the option of alternating the biographies or completely substituting the traditional biography with a multicultural one.
In addition, Miss Mason taught her nation’s history on a 4 year rotation and used “forms” instead of grades. As a result, the current book recommendations are for:
- Form 1B / Grade 1
- 3 titles (a Traditional and Multicultural Biography along with a book on Historical Events)
- Forms 1A – 2 / Grades 2-6
- Traditional and Multicultural Biographies divided into 4 history rotations
- Books on Historical Events and Historical Fiction
- A total of 20 book titles
There are more book recommendations to come for the upper forms. Please understand, however, that it does take hours of research to choose the right books for each time period, which is why this resource is of value to you. Once purchased, you can use the time saved to move ahead in implementing these books into your American History plan.
*Living Books – quality, narrative writing that brings a subject to life
Amber Johnston –
This is such a quality, time-saving resource! I have multiple children across Form 1 and Form 2, and it’s so wonderful to have an at-a-glance recommendation for how to integrate traditional biographies with multicultural biographies, historical fiction, and historical events. And the suggestions span across four time periods so I’ll be able to use this to help plan the next several years. This list has exactly the types of books I want to share with my children and having it all laid out for me makes it a wonderful enhancement to my full history program. I’m definitely pleased with it.
Ana –
I’m grateful for the time and effort poured into this source as it clearly outlines a list of multicultural books that I can use with my kids for years to come. This tool will definitely save me from devoting painstaking hours in trying to find the right books that reflect diverse voices. I highly recommend it to others!