Dear Carrie,
We just started Bigger Hearts for His Glory! It is going well, but I have one question. We read A First Book in American History yesterday and today. I loved it – both days! However, my kids are normally excellent at remembering stories and narrating. They couldn’t remember much at all. The language in this book seems hard for them to understand. Will they be able to learn to narrate Eggleston’s books? Maybe they are too young, but they fit in Bigger Hearts on the placement chart for everything! They are 8 and 9 1/2 years-old.
Sincerely,
“Ms. Please Help My Kids Narrate Eggleston’s Books Better”
Dear “Ms. Please Help My Kids Narrate Eggleston’s Books Better,”
First, I’ll explain why we chose Eggleston’s books! Eggleston’s books qualify as living books. Eggleston wrote in short chapters in narrative form. Likewise, he included interesting anecdotes and stories about real people. He was the sole author, and he was passionate about his subject matter. (Consequently, he was a Methodist minister and later a journalist. He actually interviewed family members to get the stories he wrote). For these reasons, Charlotte Mason would say these books are living books. Therefore, they are good to use for narration.
Eggleston’s Fascinating Biographical Approach
We found Eggleston’s writing to be more memorable than any other American history text out there. Yet, it gives a great overview of the important men and women that our children should know from American history. Also, a biographical approach is much more personal than a study of events. I was fascinated with the reading and learned many things I had never heard before.
Eggleston’s style grows on you the more you read!
That being said, Eggleston is an acquired taste, whose style grows on you the more you read. His books are also not filled with beautiful pictures, so they require a more seasoned listener to appreciate the retellings. My boys are loving the books and learning so much. It was a tough decision to choose spine books for American history, yet surprisingly most texts we reviewed were easily set aside for one reason or another until we settled on Eggleston.
Multiple pictures with little history content is not memorable.
On a side note, I went to school during the new textbook era when books began to be filled with multiple pictures but included very little history content. I can honestly say I remember nothing from my growing up years about history. We definitely did not do any biographical readings, and I never felt like the people we read about were real people. They just didn’t jump off of the page in any memorable way, except for their pictures. By the time I became a public school teacher, the textbooks were even broader in their “coverage”, covering everything in a sentence or two but not really looking at anything or anybody in history in depth. History became social studies and with it actual “history” was left behind. This is the opposite of Eggleston.
Concerns About Using Textbooks or Historical Fiction Books As Spines
So, when we began homeschooling, and we began coming across history books like Eggleston’s that were written years ago in a living way (when the writers were much closer to the time period in which the history was happening), we knew this was the way we wanted our children to learn history. In our search for this type of book, we found that many homeschooling companies did not use this type of book but instead used either textbooks, or read through an encyclopedia as a spine, or used historical fiction as a spine, or did a combination of these.
Each of these options has its concerns. Using textbooks was too similar of a route to that which we’d grown up doing, so our family desired to stay away from that route (as we saw little fruit from it within our own experiences). Reading from an encyclopedia like a textbook does little to aid in actual retention or understanding of history, as encyclopedias are filled with snippets of information and many sidebars. To read through an encyclopedia is also using the book in a way other than it was intended to be used, as encyclopedias are meant to be reference books. Using historical fiction as a history spine also presents some problems, as historical fiction gives the impression that all of what is being read is true and leaves the reader wondering what truly is a part of history and what is fiction.
We choose living books as our spines!
So, at Heart of Dakota we desire to use accurate living books as our spines as much as possible and then fill-in the background details with historical fiction or with other genres that give a fuller picture of the period. We directly tie the day’s activities to the readings to give them even more life.
Give Eggleston some time!
I’d encourage you to give Eggleston at least 9 weeks of just reading the book as written (without paraphrasing or stopping to explain as you go) before making a judgment about his worth as a writer. Charlotte Mason maintained that kiddos could understand much more than we give them credit for if we only would stop getting in the way of the text. If you search the board for past posts on Eggleston, you’ll find many moms who grew to love his style of writing right along with their children. The habit of attention needs to be cultivated in order for kiddos to interact with readings that are more living. They definitely take a more mature listener. In the end this is what makes the reading more memorable.
Blessings,
Carrie
