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1942

Editor's Note: Many of the books are out of print. The header information will be as complete as I can make it.

The Matchlock Gun by Walter D. Edmonds (Econo-Clad, $12.25, fourth-grade level). ISBN: 0613118502.	The Medalist A boy saves his mother from an Indian attack during Colonial times. Exciting story that provides much information about Colonial life, especially during the French-Indian War. It ends too quickly, though, and reads almost like an extended picture book.
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (HarperCollins, $13.56, fifth-grade level). ISBN: 0060264500.	Honor Book Life in the prairie town of DeSmet picks up speed in the fourth novel of the series. This is the author's most episodic novel, and I don't mean that as a compliment. Laura gets in trouble with the new teacher, who happens to be the snooty sister of Almanzo, her future husband, who starts showing a romantic interest in Laura as she approaches the age of 16. Mary goes off for a seven-year stint at a college for the blind. Carrie is stricken by a mysterious ailment that saps her strength.  Laura develops an intense rivalry with a girl who used to live near the Wilders in Minnesota. Laura is hired to be a teacher at a nearby village. The author raises these issues to a tepid temperature and then, frustratingly, drops them for a hundred pages. Or drops them completely until the next novel. The novel has no pace or flow, which is a hallmark of the earlier pieces in the series. Modern readers may experience a fit of political correctness when the men folk of the town put on a stage show in which they dress up as "darkies." The other books in the series: These Happy Golden Years, The Long Winter, By the Shores of Silver Lake, On the Banks of Plum Creek.
George Washington's World by Genevieve Foster (paperback, Beautiful Feet Books, $15.95). ISBN: 09643803-4-X. (This information is for the expanded edition, revised by Joanna Foster, the author's daughter, in 1997).	Honor Book Students will find the information they know about the Revolutionary War and George Washington greatly enhanced, and more importantly, placed in context, by the author's global perspective of the 18th Century. Virtually all students and most history teachers, among whom I number myself, know much about the Revolutionary period but have little knowledge of the world events that came to produce the climate and individuals that moved the American experiment forward. I knew much of Steubens and Lafayette but I knew little of the events in Europe that sent them to us. I have a newfound feeling for the internecine wars of Europe. Kids may feel at sea when reading the first few chapters because they are introduced to a flurry of people, but the threads that bind the characters soon make a fascinating pattern. I wouldn't turn an entire class loose on this book, but I would surely hand it to my history buffs. I would also recommend that teachers, even high school history teachers, read it too. Three years later, she picks up where she left off, with Abraham Lincoln's World. It is even more readable than this book.
Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski (HarperCollins, $16.89, fifth-grade level). ISBN: 039730076X.	Honor Book The fact-based story of a girl who was kidnapped by Indians in the mid-1700s in Pennsylvania and then became an adopted Indian. Well-told tale rich in history and sympathy for Native Americans. Girl is a fairly decent role model. A newer version of this story, by another author, was released in spring of 2001.
Down Ryton Water by Eva Roe Gaggin (Viking Press, seventh-grade level) Out of print	Honor Book The author provides the background of the Pilgrims who came to America aboard the Mayflower, focusing most heavily on their origins in England and their years in the Netherlands. Gaggins gives history buffs deep insights into the lives of the Pilgrims. We learn of their struggles against the Crown in England, their hasty departure to freedom in Amsterdam, and later of their comfortable life in Leyden. We learn how they assimilated into Dutch culture only to be chased away again by British agents. And, finally, we see them adapt to life in the New World. I loved this book, but I'm a history fanatic. I fear that the only young readers who would enjoy it share my disease. However, I think "Down Ryton Water" should be mandatory reading for U.S. history teachers - they will learn as much as I did and have a far deeper understanding of the Pilgrims and their struggles.

Copyright David Ross 2003