By H.E. Marshall
The story of the United States told to a child as one long tale, from the first explorers and the early colonies through the Revolution and the Civil War, a short chapter at a time.
The same author who told England's story as one long tale did it for the United States, and it reads the same warm storybook way. It runs from the Norse sailors and Columbus through the founding of the colonies, Jamestown and Plymouth, the long road to the Revolution, Washington and the new nation, and on into the Civil War and beyond, each explorer, colony, president, and battle getting its own short, vivid chapter. It's the classic 'living book' spine for American history, built to be read a chapter a sitting and narrated back, so the sweep of the country's story strings together in a child's mind as a chain of people and events rather than a list of dates.
This is the most demanding book on the shelf, the stretch for a fluent older reader ready to carry the full span of a country's history in narratable chapters. The storybook voice is what makes centuries of history stick, and the strong shape of each episode makes it excellent narration and timeline-notebooking material. It asks the most of the three history and geography spines here, longer, denser, and, importantly, the one that most needs a grown-up reading alongside, because its old point of view needs talking through as much as its facts need learning.