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A review by faithd
A Young People's History of the United States: Columbus to the War on Terror by Howard Zinn
5.0
Read this with my son (2nd grade) over the course of about 6 months as we are studying U.S. History this year.
This is a very comprehensive overview of U.S. history starting from the 1400s up to 9/11. It focuses on the stories of Native Americans, blacks, immigrants, people of color, and women. There is also some mention of the LGBTQ community, but it's not a focus.
This book definitely doesn't sugar coat the atrocities that happened throughout the history of the U.S., and there were a number of times (especially in the beginning part of the book which focuses on the treatment of Native Americans) that I wondered if this would be too horrific and depressing for my son to hear. I pushed on anyway, and I'm glad I did.
It does get a bit more hopeful as it goes on and talks about what people can accomplish when they work together for a cause, such as when americans banded together to protest the Vietnam war, or during the civil rights movement.
It was helpful for me to read about things that I vaguely remember from my childhood (Desert Storm, etc.) and get more context about what was going on. I really appreciated how the different wars were explained from all sides.
I also really appreciated how the authors get the reader to question things. They will state what it was the american public was told (for example, "we need to fight in Iraq because they have weapons of mass destruction") and then give evidence for other possible explanations of why our government has made certain decisions. I think it's a really good lesson to teach our children...to question things that they are told.
This book was maybe a little beyond the comprehension of my second grader, but I think he was still able to get a lot out of it as I read it to him. It would probably be best for like 10-13 year olds? However, my son was engaged with it and would get very upset to hear about how black and indigenous people were treated throughout history, which I think (and hope) sparked his compassionate side.
This is a very comprehensive overview of U.S. history starting from the 1400s up to 9/11. It focuses on the stories of Native Americans, blacks, immigrants, people of color, and women. There is also some mention of the LGBTQ community, but it's not a focus.
This book definitely doesn't sugar coat the atrocities that happened throughout the history of the U.S., and there were a number of times (especially in the beginning part of the book which focuses on the treatment of Native Americans) that I wondered if this would be too horrific and depressing for my son to hear. I pushed on anyway, and I'm glad I did.
It does get a bit more hopeful as it goes on and talks about what people can accomplish when they work together for a cause, such as when americans banded together to protest the Vietnam war, or during the civil rights movement.
It was helpful for me to read about things that I vaguely remember from my childhood (Desert Storm, etc.) and get more context about what was going on. I really appreciated how the different wars were explained from all sides.
I also really appreciated how the authors get the reader to question things. They will state what it was the american public was told (for example, "we need to fight in Iraq because they have weapons of mass destruction") and then give evidence for other possible explanations of why our government has made certain decisions. I think it's a really good lesson to teach our children...to question things that they are told.
This book was maybe a little beyond the comprehension of my second grader, but I think he was still able to get a lot out of it as I read it to him. It would probably be best for like 10-13 year olds? However, my son was engaged with it and would get very upset to hear about how black and indigenous people were treated throughout history, which I think (and hope) sparked his compassionate side.