The following is a list of nonfiction (and a few classic) books in approximate chronological order that I’d like to read for background and information as I prepare and teach my young elementary-aged son history. Note that I have no intention of teaching my son at this level of depth! I read these books for my personal enrichment as I also teach my son. Think of it as my personal post-graduate training following the same history schedule as my son (and, in the future, my daughter as well). Links to reviews if I have read the work. Lists are in progress!

American History

(Curriculum for my son’s K4 and K year 2012-2013)

• 1491 by Charles C. Mann
• North American Indians by Theda Perue
• Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Written in Bone by Sally M. Walker
• Death By Petticoat by Mary Theobald
• Faces from the Past by James M. Deen
• Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (to reread; I read it in high school)
• Common Sense by Thomas Paine (to read)
• Founding Mothers by Cokie Roberts
• Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
• John Adams by David McCullough (read before blogging)
• 1776 by David McCullough (read before blogging)
• Thomas Jefferson by Jon Meacham (to read)
• Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
• Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (to read)
• Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman
• The Mormon People by Matthew Bowman
• Brigham Young by Leonard Arrington
• Nineteenth-Century Mormon Architecture and Planning by Mark Hamilton
• What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (to read)
• The Impending Crisis by David Potter (to read)
• Abraham Lincoln by Joe Wheeler
• Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
• Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (to read)
• To Be a Slave by Julius Lester
• White House Kids by Joe Rhatigan
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony by Penny Colman
• The Chicago School of Architecture by Carl Condit
• Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams
• A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (to read)
• Truman by David McCullough (to read)
• Personal History by Katharine Graham
• Spencer W. Kimball by Edward Kimball
• Kissinger by Walter Isaacson
• All the President’s Men by Carl Berenstein and Bob Woodward
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

Ancient History

(Curriculum for son’s 1st grade year, 2014-2015)

 

Medieval History

(Curriculum for 2nd grade year, 2015-2016)

 

Early Modern History and Modern History

(curriculum for 3rd grade year, 2016-2017)

 

World Geography

(I teach generic geography before American history; I may revisit for son’s 4th grade year/Strawberry’s pre-k years, 2017-2018)