I'm trying to put together our American History reading for next year. I'm requesting books from the library about a dozen at a time to review them. Most are written between 1940 and 1980. I pulled them off lists of engaging, well-written read-alouds. Given the subject matter and the dates, I have to vet them, or at least take a look to see whether their flaws are few enough to deal with via on-the-fly word substitution. Overly p.c.? Um... no, I don't think they need to hear words like "savage" quite as frequently as they turn up in these older books.
Even though one must select passages with care -- discrimination even! -- I find the population of older books to have more specimens that are well-written by someone who loves the subject, books that assume the reader has an interest too. Most of the pleasant read-aloud nonfiction seems to come from the depths of the Central Stacks. Often there's a yellowed pocket pasted in the back, a "Date Due" card tucked inside. Newer juvenile nonfiction has its good examples, but the library shelves are choked with glossy, photo-packed volumes that appear to be written by the Committee for the Propagation of Book Reports.
Anyway, I was flipping today through a 1959 book about pioneers in the Northwest Territory. I'm only looking for stuff up to 1803 or so, and so was just about to toss it on the "not this year" pile when a proper noun caught my eye. It referred to a small settlement, but it had the same unusual name as a road I remembered driving past more than once.
I went back and looked closer. Following a typical family from Connecticut over the hazardous trail to Ohio, said the dust jacket. I flipped forward to where the family buys their quarter-section in the Cincinnati land office, and then forward some more to the scene where they reach their claim, one side of which is bordered by a particular creek.
I clicked around for a few minutes in Google Maps. Well, we're going to have to read this one at some point, because the (fictional) land claim is, as far as I can tell, a few miles at most from my kids' grandparents' house. The creek mentioned in the story runs through their town. I think that retracing the fictional family's (approximate) route from the Ohio River to their claim could be a fun project to undertake by car sometime during a visit, that is, if the kids enjoy the story when we get around to reading it.
Fabulous! Want to share the name and author?
Posted by: Deanna | 11 January 2008 at 07:05 PM
I'll do so by e-mail.
Posted by: bearing | 12 January 2008 at 10:38 AM