"Land of Hope Young Readers Edition" Topic

Vols 1 and 2 are now out, available on Amazon. No kindle version for the YRE yet.

I thought members might be interested in some comments on the way McClay presents the Civil War -- as an example of his overall approach.

First, the story is told almost completely from the Union perspective, primarily from Lincoln's.

Two chapters cover the war (with two more on Reconstruction). The first is "The House Divides" and emphasizes -- again, Lincoln -- that it was to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. There is discussion of the Corwin Amendment. This chapter ends with Antietam and Emancipation.

Next chapter is "A War Redefined" which redefinition, of course, entails the abolition of slavery.

Campaigns and battles are covered from "30,000 feet." There is no mention of Shiloh or Chickamauga. There is, however, quite a bit about Grant.

In contrast, McClay spends most of two pages (in a text of under 500 pp.) on Lincoln's Second Inaugural.

Remembering that this is aimed at middle schoolers who will (hopefully) take another US history course, I think it is a splendid approach. The stress is upon IDEAS, and the nice thing about ideas is that if you understand them, you don't need to memorize them.

HIGHLY recommended. (I had nothing to do with the writing of this text, but know it thoroughly because we are preparing a teachers guide and student workbook for it, out next year.)

..almost completely from Union perspective…that seems to leave a lot out? No looking to glorify the Lost Cause, but it's not all about Lincoln.

To repeat that old quote, history is written by the winners

Haven't read the book, but a Southern perspective seems necessary, even if we disagree with that perspective? War isn't a one-way street, or at least not a prolonged one. Understanding the attitudes and beliefs that led the South to secede and the leaders to fire the first shots seems to be as significant as Lincoln's rationales and motivations, or the views of the North as a whole, whether in accord with Lincoln's or not. Lincoln may have pushed the issue of asserting Federal authority at Fort Sumter, but it was Beauregard who opened fire. Certainly the political decisions that produced his orders should be considered and discussed. Why did the South believe and act as it did? I would think those ideas should be covered as well.

Having said that, stressing ideas is certainly preferable to memorizing events. History is the result of ideas (both good and bad); nothing which people do happens out of thin air. A date is merely when something happened. A location is merely where. In and of themselves, they mean very little.

Again, I have not read the books. If my library acquires them, I shall give them a look.

Mike, it is primarily a matter of keeping the text short. There are a LOT of details, some rather important, that are not mentioned, or that get a sentence when we'd rather a paragraph.

It is elegantly written and an easy and fun read. That comes at a price.

I can't answer for the book itself, but I tend to think that you do need to establish a basic framework of what happened. At a later stage you can introduce "it's a little more complicated than that".
Now I think of it, I'm sure that I was taught chemistry that way. Just about every year we discovered that what we had been taught before wasn't the whole deal.

advocate, yes, you can memorize facts, but understanding requires depth that comes with time and maturity.