Early American Reading for Kids

by Roseanna M. White

I'm a homeschooling mom. That means that, while we're still basking in the joys of summer, I'm also planning out the next school year (less than a month until it begins!). While my family is planning vacations purely for fun, I'm trying to figure out how to turn them into field trips. And I admit it--I'm excited about next year. Why? Because we're starting 2 years of American History. =D

With the curriculum program I use, we've been going chronologically through world history for those first four years (my older is 8, entering 4th grade, my younger 6, entering 1st). I've enjoyed all we've been studying together, from the Ancient Egyptians up through the Renaissance, but I got a wee bit giddy when my box of books for next year arrived. These are books I know. Books I've read. Books I love. These are the stories that make America what it is--and I'm so, so excited to be sharing this with my kids.

I thought it would be fun to take a look at the early American books we'll be reading this year, and also some of the field trips we'll be taking. I know not everyone homeschools, but I've gotten a number of questions over the years about great reading material for the younger crowd, and you just can't beat most of these!

I know I'm going to be bursting with stories to share on the CQ this coming year--stories of natives and immigrants, of founding fathers and the courageous citizens who fought for freedom. And I'm also hoping to get the family to Philadelphia to see Ben Franklin's house, to Virginia to visit Mt. Vernon and Monticello, and to some of the battlefields and historic landmarks littering the east coast, where I'm lucky enough to live.

I'd love to know east coast sites you recommend, 

or supplementary reading for kids!

This is my shelf of readers--some my daughter (the 8-yr-old) will read on her own, and others we'll read aloud, together, with my son.

I know it's a little hard to see all the titles. But here's the list--these are all recommended for 8-11, but I'm confident my 6/7 yr-old will be able to follow along too, so long as we have conversations about all we study (which we always do). It's a long list, but they all look great! (All the links are to Sonlight, from whom I got them; they're also all available elsewhere.)

And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?

The background and story of Paul Revere's famous ride, told by a master story-teller.

If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution

A detailed study of the United States Constitution.

Winter at Valley Forge

A first-person journal account of what it was like at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78.

Incans, Aztecs & Mayans

Fascinating account of three major civilizations that existed in the "New World" before Europeans arrived.

Pedro's Journal

A fictional account of Christopher Columbus' first voyage.

The Landmark History of the American People: From Plymouth to the West, Volume I

A fascinating introduction to American culture as it has shaped and been shaped by events from the Pilgrims to the mid-1800s. Written by the former Librarian of Congress.

North American Indians

Profusely illustrated introduction to a broad range of North American Indian peoples.

The Light and the Glory for Young Readers

A history of how God worked through the founders of America to establish this nation. From European explorers' first sighting of land to the devout Pilgrims and Puritans to the Revolutionary War, it would seem God had a plan. Meet the evangelists of the First Great Awakening, founding fathers who desired to obey God, and other men and women who risked much to follow what they believed God had for them.

The Very First Americans

Long before Columbus landed in America, hundreds of groups of people had already made their homes here. But where did they live? What did they eat? How did they have fun? And where are they today? From coast to coast, learn about these first Americans!

From Sea to Shining Sea for Young Readers

Tells America's story during its first fifty years as a nation. These were the days of Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Boone, Francis Asbury and Charles Finney, Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston. During these years Conestoga wagons and circuit riders became famous, the Second Great Awakening sparked revival across the nation, Indian wars and slavery were major concerns, and the Louisiana Purchase and the Oregon Trail expanded American boundaries from sea to shining sea. God was also at work in the young nation, giving its settlers opportunities to shape its history and to be His people.

Children's Encyclopedia of American History

A groundbreaking guide to American history, this reference book explains events, moments, trends, patterns and people in concise articles designed to appeal to children ages 8 and up.

The Sign of the Beaver

A white boy in the Maine wilderness is rescued by an Indian chief.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

A girl raised in luxury in the Caribbean struggles to adjust to Puritan New England.

Johnny Tremain

A young apprentice silversmith is caught up in the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution.

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Fascinating true story of the poor apprentice who, shortly after the American Revolution, transformed navigation from an art to a precise science.

Walk the World's Rim

A 14-year old Indian joins Cabeza de Vaca's 16th-century expedition through the Southwest.

Justin Morgan Had a Horse

The true story of a young boy who trained the first all-American (but now world-famous) Morgan horse.

Calico Bush

Left an orphan shortly after her family arrives in the New World, young Marguerite is "Bound-out" for six years to serve the Sargent family in exchange for food, shelter and clothing.

The Journeyman

Touching story about a boy, despised by his father because of his artistic bent, who leaves home to find his place in the world.

Swift Rivers

Eighteen-year-old Chris spends a winter with his grandfather in a cabin in Minnesota.

Tree in the Trail

See the history of the Sante Fe trail through the eyes of a great Cottonwood tree. Starting with the first Spaniards in the 1500s, follow three centuries of Indian tribes, wagon trains, buffalo herds, New Mexican settlements and changing times.

The Secret of the Sealed Room

Young Patience Martin works as an indentured servant in 1721 Boston. When her mistress dies of a mysterious poisoning, Patience runs away and meets an inventive, adventurous young printer's apprentice named Ben Franklin. Can the new friends crack the case and save Patience's life?

Toliver's Secret

Ten-year old Ellen Toliver must conquer her timidity to take a secret message through enemy lines during the Revolutionary War.

What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?

Breezy biography by award-winning author gives insights into Franklin's intriguing life and personality.

The Lewis & Clark Expedition

A highly readable account of the quintessentially American adventure of discovery and hardship as Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led their men on an exploration of "the interior parts of North America."

Pocahontas and the Strangers

Familiar story of a young Indian girl who saved the life of John Smith, an early American frontiersman.

The Matchlock Gun

A ten-year-old boy saves his family from raiding Indians during the French and Indian war.

Meet Thomas Jefferson

An easy-reading introduction to the third president of the United States from boyhood on.

Phoebe the Spy

Dramatic true story of a little black girl who foiled a plan to kill George Washington.

Meet George Washington

George Washington's life from boyhood to presidency in a large, boldface type.

Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman

The true story of the famous steamboat builder by an award-winning author.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Award-winning story of a frontier American widower who advertises for a wife . . . and gets Sarah.

The Courage of Sarah Noble

Eight-year old Sarah journeys into the wilderness with her father--and ends up alone!

The Cabin Faced West

Anne is lonely when her family moves to the Pennsylvania frontier . . . until a special evening when a stranger comes to dinner.

Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims

The story of the meeting of two cultures--and the young man who helped bridge the gap between them.

The Bears on Hemlock Mountain

Jonathan goes to get "the biggest pot you ever laid eyes on" — on the other side of Hemlock Mountain.

Sarah Whitcher's Story

The true story of a little girl who is lost in New Hampshire woods back in pioneer days.

A Lion to Guard Us

Award-winning author tells a true story about three children left alone in London in 1609 who make their way to the Virginia colony.

The Skippack School

Simple but insightful story about a German boy who immigrated to America about the year 1750.

The Thanksgiving Story

Caldecott Honor Book recounts the story of the Pilgrims from the time they left England on the Mayflower through the first Thanksgiving celebration.

Om-kas-toe

Om-kas-toe is a member of the Blackfeet Indian tribe in the early 1700s--before
horses.

~*~

Roseanna M. White pens her novels under the Betsy Ross flag hanging above her desk, with her Jane Austen action figure watching over her. When she isn’t homeschooling her small kids and writing fiction, she’s editing it for WhiteFire Publishing or reviewing it for the Christian Review of Books, both of which she co-founded with her husband.

The Irish, The Scots and the Scotch-Irish

Throughout the 1600s, the English government encouraged the move of lowland Scots, Welsh and the northern English–Protestants all—to “Ulster Plantation” in the north of Ireland, in the hopes of some influence and balance over the independent, Catholic Irish. In Scotland, Highlanders and Lowland Scots were also leery of each other, separated by many cultural ideas as well as religion over multiple centuries. Indeed, all British history is spattered with the blood of religious animosity—quite obvious in the Tudor period.
 

From "Free Printable Maps.com"  here is today's United Kingdom.

Starting around 1718, large scale numbers of Scotch-Irish left northern Ireland for the new world. (At this time, they referred to themselves as Irish, but the term changed to Scotch-Irish when, a century later Catholic Irish Immigration began to surge, heightened during the famous Potato Famine in the 1840s.)  The Scotch-Irish Protestants settled well in North America, flourishing in their new freedoms and kept the traditions of strong work ethic and education. But few welcomed their Catholic peers from Scotland and Ireland with open arms. The Irish were one of the most poorly treated immigrant groups ‘welcomed’ to the new world, due in part to the earlier establishment of their Protestant countrymen.

Back home in 18th century Scotland, the north still held to its ways of clan society and the wearing of kilts until these practices were made illegal after the failed Jacobite Rebellion (the hope of putting a Catholic King back on the throne and disposing of the Protestant one) in 1745. Tartan was banned and families were forced off their own land, branded traitors to the English King. It wasn’t until 1782, almost 40 years later, that King George reinstated the right for Highlanders to wear Tartan—no doubt, a purely political move.   

Ironically, all Scots regiments serving in the British Army were outfitted in kilts throughout this time.

The Scotch Irish in America comprised 40% of the Continental Army. Not surprising, when their immigration numbers are estimated at 25-40,000 in the 18^th century. Most welcomed the chance to fight against Britain, or more specifically the English King. Even so, many leaned toward the Tory side and moved to a more loyal Canada.

Around the turn of the 19th century, the continued policy of ‘The Scottish Clearances’ included both northern Catholics and lowland Protestants and flamed a surprising new alignment of nationalism between the two based on little more than hatred of the English.

Those early 19^th century abuses sent a huge number of Gaelic speaking Catholics to the Cape Breton area of Nova Scotia, mid-Atlantic America, and North Carolina in particular. Many settled north of Lake Ontario and made up the Glengarry district whose men formed one of the toughest British regiments to fight in the War of 1812.

Many North Americans don’t understand the significant influence of these two Celtic countries on our histories, or the unsettled religious history. An estimated 27 million Americans are descendants of those Protestant Scotch-Irish alone! Thankfully, the "new world" eventually allowed old animosities to fade enough that Catholics and Protestants today prefer to celebrate a combined Celtic heritage.

The Scotland of today is more united under the ideal of the independent Scot--represented by the Highlander, the wearing of Tartans, the kilt, and renewed interest in the Gaelic language, and as always, their hesitance to be ruled from beyond their border. (Ironically, it was Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's love of the land and its wild history that prompted a resurgence in the use of the kilt and tartan!)

In Northern Ireland (remember it is part of the United Kingdom and not the same as the country of Ireland!) those referred to in North America as the Scotch-Irish are called Ulster Irish, or more loosely, ‘the Orange’. Unfortunately, the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland became synonymous with the animosity between Catholics and Protestants. Those same Scotch-Irish and Irish who left for the new world found its ‘melting-pot’ mindset brought them more easily to reconciliation.

So that's just a wee bit of the Celtic history shared by many of us in the 'new world. I hope you've enjoyed it or learned something new. What's your tie to this particular emigration? If none, what surprises you most about their history?

For myself, I have yet to find any ancestry outside of Great Britain. It's not a big place geographically but bursts with fascinating history.

Guest Post by Janet Grunst: Coming To America

No, I’m not referring to the 1981 Neil Diamond hit song or the 1988 Eddie Murphy movie, but the seventeenth and eighteenth century emigration to the North American Continent of a vast number of people, many in servitude.




Two common means that brought Europeans to North America:

Free Willers or Redemptioners were emigrants who had a portion of their passage to the west paid prior to their passage and were permitted a specific amount of time once they arrived in the Colonies to raise the unpaid portion of the cost of their transportation. Failing to do this they would become indentured for a period determined by the amount of passage costs still owed.
Indentured Servants were emigrants who signed contracts, or “indentures,” committing themselves to work for a fixed number of years, usually four to seven, in payment for their passage. The captain would transport the indentured servants to the American colonies, and sell their legal papers to colonists; farmers, planters, and shopkeepers, thereby providing them a labor force.

Why would these people leave their homeland for such an uncertain future? There are probably as many reasons as there were people who emigrated from their homeland to an uncertain future in a distant land. Some unscrupulous people called “spirits” profited by prowling seaports and slums recruited victims who were destitute and might sign anything for a meal, a drink, or a promise of a better life. Others, in Britain or Germany, found the cost of a transatlantic passage might cost anywhere from a half to a full year’s salary, so they saw it as an opportunity to escape the poverty at home. Several poor crop years in the eighteenth century brought people from Britain and northern Europe.

The conversion to commercial agricultural enclosures and the high cost of rents caused many Scots to emigrate. Between 1763 -1775 about 20,000 Scottish Highlanders came to North America. Ireland was impoverished causing many to flee for what they perceived to be a better life. Many from England wanted to escape what they viewed as a dismal future. Others were convicts, sentenced to deportation and on their arrival in America were indentured unless they had personal funds to maintain themselves.

What conditions did they endure to come to America? If you think travel is stressful today it’s a walk in the park compared to travel across the Atlantic in the seventeen and eighteenth centuries. It was risky for anyone but often perilous if not deadly for indentures servants. Often a hundred or more passengers were housed below deck in poorly lit, stuffy, cramped quarters so low that adults couldn’t stand up straight for what could be a seven to twelve week voyage. During frequent ocean storms the vessels would pitch and roll creating sickness and terror. Food was limited to salted meat, smoked fish, peas, hardtack, and molasses as long as it lasted and the water was brackish. A prolonged voyage often meant severe rationing. Scurvy was commonplace due to the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables. Many of the travelers became ill and died as a result of these conditions.

What was life like once they reached the Colonies? The lives they found on this side of the Atlantic depended largely on who purchased their indenture and what kind of labor they were committed to perform. Their lives could be very restrictive and harsh, sometimes so difficult that they did not survive their years of service. Some of the indentured servants were in the service of individuals who treated them like any other employee and some lived like family members. Often as part of their contract, indentured servants were promised a small tract of land and other incidentals when their service ended.

There was no permanent stigma attached to indentured servitude, and the families of these persons blended readily with the total population. Children born to parents serving their indenture were free. Terms of an indenture contract were enforceable in the courts, and runaway servants could be forced to return to their masters and complete their service. Many of these people were skilled in a trade or were artisans. Upon completion of their years of service, many went on to become very successful business people and pillars of their communities.

In 1775 a formal ban on Scottish emigration along with informal restrictions of overseas movements from England went into effect. Indentured service for the most part ceased after the American Revolution.

What about you? Do you have an ancestor who was either an indentured servant or a redemptioner?

Janet Grunst is a member of Colonial American Christian Writers and a new contributor to Colonial Quills. She lives in the Historic Triangle of Virginia. Janet is a member of Tidewater Christian Writers, ACFW, and My Book Therapy. Her two sons serve in our country's armed forces.

Independence Day Celebration - Characters Welcome!

Might you care to partake in some refreshment
as we commence our Independence Day Celebration?
Please do. We are serving Liberty Tea and Independence Day Cake.
(The receipts for these treats shall be forthcoming.)

This house is from the Palatinate of Germany and
now located at The Frontier Culture Living Museum
in Staunton, Virginia.

Some came from across the ocean, desiring freedom from religious persecution and from famine.  My ancestors Johan and Suzanne Rousch saw nine of their sons march off to serve in the American Revolution.  I cannot imagine what that must have felt like.  And miraculously, all survived!

Shirley Plantation in Charles City, VA on the James River.

Others’ families had ventured across those same waters, over one hundred fifty years earlier, generations of their family having lived under English rule now becoming more unbearable. People whose British ancestors helped settle Virginia now found themselves at war. 

Some risked their lives printing pamphlets and other materials for the “rebel cause” while yet others simply kept working to provide the simple necessities soldiers would need.

And then there were those, who seeing no other way out, took up arms to defend their freedom of self-rule.  

The following video is long and very touching, but it does hit on some hard and sad truths of what our forefathers did for us and our freedom!

Come gather with us under this tree, older than this nation itself.
Let us share our stories and fellowship, for freedom's sake!