Thursday, March 7, 2013

Living History Books

In our home, we have a daughter who can not read enough history books! Rebekah prefers American history, because it's a little more exciting than Canadian history.  She also likes biblical history.
So, I have found that buying all these books is really starting to add up.  I bought her the first 5 of the Heroes of History by Janet and Geoff Benge.


 
 
These books are great! And Rebekah can remember most all of the facts she reads, but there are so many and it would cost a fortune to buy them all.
 
I thought it would be nice to have some Living History books. Living History books are books written in a story format about real people or events. That makes them easier to relate to and remember and maybe a little more interesting than a biography book.
 
So, we set out to some thrift stores.  We were blessed at the first thrift store. We found a Signature Book about "The Story of Edith Cavell" for $ 0.50.  These books are out of print, but can be found on Amazon, Ebay, or at thrift stores or library book sales.  Rebekah and I both read it and it was very good.  We looked up the Signature Biography Series and found out they have 51 titles.
 



I had also read that Landmark Books are very good and have many titles. So, I headed off to a local used book store. You would not believe what was sitting on top of a box just as I walked in.  The Clara Barton Landmark Book!  The owner hadn't put it on a shelf yet, because he didn't know what section to put it in. Which makes me think he doesn't get a lot of those types of books in.  He charged me, I think $1.50.

I see now, we just have to make more of an effort to look at the thrift stores and used book stores for these books so that we don't spend all of our homeschool funding on history books! We might even find some "Heroes of History" if God wills and Rebekah can read until her heart's content.

PS: If you check out Rebekah's blog, Country God Girl, you will see she has a whole section on history posts.

This post is linked up to Thrifty Thursday

7 comments:

  1. I always look for books at thrift stores because you never know what you may find! I'm glad you found some good history books for your daughter!

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  2. I thrift several times a week and the books is always the first stop. I think older books are so much better written with more of a God/Family/Country focus too. Hope you find some good ones. Check out free books for Kindle too. I found you through Thrifty Thursday. Take care and have a good week. :)

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    1. Hi AllyJo
      I completely agree with you about older books being more wholesome. Of course, not ALL older books, but you have a better chance of finding good ones. I love gutenberg.org because they have thousands of free ebooks, on all types of subjects, and there are many more websites like it. That is how I found a lot of information for our Daniel Boone unit study.
      Thanks for visiting!

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  3. We LOVE Heroes of History. That is what I use as read alouds to the kids. We have ALL learned so much from them. The younger kids might get bored, and come in and out of the room as they please, but over all I feel these books have taught them so much more then what is even in their history books!

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    1. Shannon, you are so blessed to have these books and to be able to read them aloud to your kids. Rebekah is too old to have me read to her and the boys wouldn't listen. So, I am hoping to take time and read the ones we have myself. I did read George Muller and learned so much from his pure faith that the Lord would meet his every need. It was SUCH an encouragement!

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    2. My youngest son doesn't listen either. BUT, I finally found a series that he likes... Narnia.(not history, but at least he will sit still for reading :) My girls wouldn't read those books and he LOVES them. Anyway, I don't have the George Muller one, so I will look for it. I do really love these books!

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