Allow students to step back in time to experience the thoughts, feelings, dilemmas, and actions of people from history. For each history topic, Miller suggests two titles-one for use with the entire class and one for use with small reading groups. Summaries of the books, author information, activities, and topics for discussion are supplemented with vocabulary lists and ideas for research topics and further reading. This integrated approach makes history meaningful to students and helps them retain historical details and facts.

Ever since children have learned to read, there has been children’s literature. Children’s Literature charts the makings of the Western literary imagination from Aesop’s fables to Mother Goose, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Peter Pan, from Where the Wild Things Are to Harry Potter. The only single-volume work to capture the rich and diverse history of children’s literature in its full panorama, this extraordinary book reveals why J. R. R. Tolkien, Dr. Seuss, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Beatrix Potter, and many others, despite their divergent styles and subject matter, have all resonated with generations of readers. Children’s Literature is an exhilarating quest across centuries, continents, and genres to discover how, and why, we first fall in love with the written word. “Lerer has accomplished something magical. Unlike the many handbooks to children’s literature that synopsize, evaluate, or otherwise guide adults in the selection of materials for children, this work presents a true critical history of the genre. . . . Scholarly, erudite, and all but exhaustive, it is also entertaining and accessible. Lerer takes his subject seriously without making it dull.”—Library Journal (starred review) “Lerer’s history reminds us of the wealth of literature written during the past 2,600 years. . . . With his vast and multidimensional knowledge of literature, he underscores the vital role it plays in forming a child’s imagination. We are made, he suggests, by the books we read.”—San Francisco Chronicle “There are dazzling chapters on John Locke and Empire, and nonsense, and Darwin, but Lerer’s most interesting chapter focuses on girls’ fiction. . . . A brilliant series of readings.”—Diane Purkiss, Times Literary Supplement

Of the many ways cultures have to socialize the young, western cultures have relied heavily on books to transmit certain social values and to cast aspersions on others. In her new study, American Children's Literature and the Construction of Childhood, author Gail S. Murray argues that the meaning of childhood is socially constructed and that its meaning has changed over time. Of course, "society" has never spoken with one voice but in almost every era, a dominant culture has prevailed. Books written for children reveal this dominant culture, reflect its behavioral standard, and reinforce its expectations. Covering the entire history of American children's literature, from The New England Primer to the works of authors like Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak, Murray explores the messages behind the stories, and what these messages reveal about the society that conveyed them.

Similar to U.S. History Through Children's Literature: From the Colonial Period to World War II in format and approach, historical fiction and nonfiction are integrated into modern U.S. History. For each of these topics, Miller suggests two or more titles-one for use with the entire class and one for use with small reading groups. Summaries of the books, author information, activities, and topics for discussion are supplemented with vocabulary lists and ideas for research topics and further reading. This integrated approach makes history more meaningful to students and helps them retain historical details and facts by immersing them in stories surrounding historical events. A well-researched and thorough resource.

This integrated teacher resource provides lesson ideas for the instruction of social studies and history concepts within the context of quality multicultural children's books and picture books. Each chapter focuses on three picture books related to various multicultural themes in American history. Chapters are organized chronologically, and by theme, and include book summaries, materials lists, student-centered activities, related books and poetry, and links to national history standards. Multicultural themes include: Old West American Revolution Slavery Civil War World War II and the Holocaust Vietnam Native Americans

Pages of the Past is a tool to help educators find and use quality literature to engage students and enrich the study of U.S. history. The eight chapters cover key events and periods in American history that share proximity in time, as well as common themes and issues. Annotated bibliographies list children's literature titles that reflect the themes and issues of each chapter and period. The books were chosen for their potential to engage the imagination, elicit emotional responses, challenge students to think from new perspectives, stimulate an interest in further reading and learning and create opportunities for students to relate events from the past to the issues of today. Each chapter includes discussion starters and well-designed activities for further exploration. Challenging reproducible worksheets reinforce the concepts through crossword puzzles, word searches, research projects, take-home exercises and more. Most activities can be completed with a minimum of time and expense. Pages of the Past is designed to offer students exposure to compelling characters that help them imagine what it might have been like to share in the experiences that shaped -- and continue to shape -- our nation.

The first comprehensive study of slavery in children's literature, Slavery in American Children's Literature, 1790-2010 historicizes the ways generations of authors have drawn upon antebellum literature in their own recreations of slavery. Beginning with abolitionist and proslavery views in antebellum children's literature, Connolly examines how successive generations reshaped the genres of the slave narrative, abolitionist texts, and plantation novels to reflect the changing contexts of racial politics in America. As a literary history of how antebellum racial images have been re-created or revised for new generations, Slavery in American Children's Literature ultimately offers a record of the racial mythmaking of the United States from the nation's beginning to the present day. Book jacket.