Last night Olivier and I went to Christian’s Back to School Night to meet his teachers. Christian is fifth grade this year and this year we learned that fifth grade students in our school district are studying US History for Social Studies beginning from Colonization to present day. That’s a lot of history to cover. Part of their curriculum requires that students choose a time period in which to study and do research, and later, present what they have learned to the class.

In Language Arts the children are required to read at least 400 pages each quarter (nine week period). On the topic of reading, in the state of Texas fifth grade students are encouraged to participate in the Texas Bluebonnet Award Program, a program that introduces students to new authors and a variety of current books, which list of books many fifth grade students are taking advantage of for their required reading. That way they can tackle two reading areas in one go.

While the purpose of the Texas Bluebonnet Award is to help students discriminate and to identify their favourite books I’m also of the mind that not all books are worth reading especially when there are so many great titles already out there that will never get touched if other and oftentimes more inferior ones are constantly being introduced.

History can be an exciting subject when one is not learning just the dates alongside a fragment of important events, so to address two requirements at once I thought rather than focus on the Texas Bluebonnet Awards reading list in which to obtain his required reading, that I would introduce Christian to the wonderful literature already available and give precedence to the US History part of his curriculum instead.

Here are a few titles I have in mind:

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Britches by Ralph Moody (or anything by Ralph Moody for that matter)
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh
Courage to Run: A Story Based on the Life of Harriet Tubman by Wendy Lawton
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
Biographies by D’aulaire
Calico Bush by Rachel Field
The Signers: The 56 Stories Behind the Declaration of Independence by Fradin and McCurdy

And from the list Christian can “develop his powers of discrimination” and select from them his own favourites.