By Linda Thornhill and Sally Barnard
Trisms
www.trisms.com
1203 S. Delaware Place
Tulsa, OK 74104-4129
918-585-2778
Reading Through the Ages is a comb-bound 127-page book that contains a recommended reading list for history studies which can be used to complement any history curriculum. The table of contents lists time divisions and corresponding events, starting with 4000-500 BC (prehistory and ancient) all the way to 2000-2005 (War on Terror).
All the books listed are said to be either biography or historical fiction. Books are organized by reading level--adult, young adult, junior, or easy reader. The last category also includes picture books. Book entries also contain the number of pages and a very brief review.
To use Reading Through the Ages, you simply look up the historical period you are studying and locate titles of interest according to the reading level you want.
I appreciate that this reading list includes adult titles for those of us who like to learn along with our children and want to parallel our personal reading to the period of history we are studying as a family in homeschool. Compared to other history reading guides, this book, at $18.95, is a good value.
Those who like more meat to their book reviews may be disappointed by the very short summaries here. I would like to have more annotation per item. Why did the authors choose to include a particular book? Get me excited about it! Some books have the note: "some language," but there is no further explanation. What exactly does this mean? Swear words? Misusing the Lord's name? Mature themes? Also, the book would be easier to use if the historical time divisions were in larger type. Flipping through the book, it is difficult to locate a particular point in history. I also think the book would benefit from an author or title index. One might want to check for a specific book to see where it fits in.
All in all, Reading Through the Ages is a helpful resource. Everyone studying history in a systematic fashion would benefit from a literature list such as this to aid in supplementing the basic text of choice.
Product review by Kathy Gelzer, The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC, January 2007
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