April 1, 2015
Gr 3-6-Well designed and informative, these books are ideal for those new to primary source documents. The fonts-large, plain, and bold-are offset by plain backgrounds. An apt and clearly captioned photograph appears on each page. "Critical Thinking" sidebars feature inquiries that encourage deeper consideration. In Dust Bowl, one sidebar describes how a period advertisement called the Midwest "'that garden of the world, '" then asks readers, "How might merchants and land developers have benefited by calling the area a garden?" The incorporation of primary sources adds not only academic value but a sense of immediacy as well, such as a quote in Slavery that provides a chilling account of what happened on a slave ship ("the slaves in the night were often heard making...a howling noise, something expressive of extreme anguish"). VERDICT Strong options for introducing the concept of primary source analysis.
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