We were shopping at Ollie's when we came upon these neat-looking biographies in the "Who Was... ?" series published by Grosset & Dunlap. I was excited to find them at bargain prices since my boys love biographies.
However, even though the back cover of each book tells us they are written at the 3rd grade reading level, I'm not so certain all of them contain appropriate material for your average 8 or 9 year old. While there's bound do be disagreement, I just don't think that children need to know that Louis Armstrong's mother had "lots of different boyfriends," each one of whom he called step-father or that he was married four times. They also don't need to know about Sally Ride being in love with another woman. Yes, these are all facts about the lives of real people, but they are facts that can wait until children are older.
Some of these books also have more editorializing than I think should be in a biography aimed at young folks. These little ones are not yet discriminating enough to recognize a writer's bias and easily mistake opinions for fact.
For example, in the book about Abraham Lincoln, we learn about the Civil War, "The war did not end quickly. On both sides, soldiers died in bloody battles that didn't accomplish anything." Is this a fact? Or is the author just adding in a personal belief about the meaninglessness of war?
In the book about Jackie Robinson, we read about young Jackie and his friends, "They'd swipe fruit from local stands. They'd throw dirt at passing cars. Sometimes they'd take golf balls from a golf course, then sell them back to the players. It wasn't right, but the boys never did anything violent or got into big trouble." I don't really want my sons to read this and think it isn't really a big deal to behave in these ways; boys will be boys-ha!
Overall, I cannot either recommend or denounce the entire series because I haven't read all of the titles. From the ones I have read, the books are interesting and have extra historic tidbits to further explain the time period. Many of them also do have some degree of bias, some minor, some not so minor. I would say that if you are concerned, you should read a specific title before handing it to your boy. They are not all written by the same author, and some are simply better than others.
Except for the above quotation, I really liked the "Who Was Jackie Robinson?" book, written by Gail Herman. The book showed Jackie to be an excellent role model who practiced self-control and was a hard worker. It was an enjoyable read.
I appreciate your thoughts here, as we own only one that you mentioned but have read several others. Like you, I love that they are engaging and easily understandable, along with the informative illustrations and historical event insets. These books offer a great way to learn about (and remember) historical people and events. I also agree that some contain inappropriate material for the intended audience (3rd/4th graders), and that some of that material is highly controversial and unproven (e.g., Jefferson's alleged relationship with a slave in Who Was Thomas Jefferson?). Even if it were proven, why is it in a children's book? It's aggravating because the rest of the book has such great material, but I don't feel comfortable with it, since it's claiming something as fact that is not (and I really don't want to get in with the nuances of relationships with my children when they're that age, anyway!). The grammarian in me also cringes with every sentence that begins with a coordinate conjunction. While I use that colloquial writing style in blogging, I would expect that books geared for children would be written with correct grammar. I've also noticed sentence fragments in several of the books, which I think is just with certain authors of this series. Even with those grammatical errors, they are great read-alouds because we tend to speak that way. But... I just want to thank you for your comment on my favorite things post and respond in a more thorough format with you. I took down the overall recommendation on our blog post due to these reasons and decided I may write a post to list the pros and cons. I didn't want to give the impression that I have read and approve of all of them. Since then, I've decided just to recommend specific ones that have made the cut for our family! Thanks a bunch, Jody, and thanks for all the great book reviews! I look forward to looking more into the books that you recommend!
ReplyDeleteThank you for all of your hard work. Now that I have a couple of blogs, I appreciate how much work it its. When I started, I envisioned keeping this blog updated more frequently, but I simply can't. I had hoped that the book blogs could be a help to like-minded parents who also didn't have much time.
DeleteI agree with your assessments of books, both grammatically and content-wise. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that we can be there learning with our children and pointing out items we have issues with, making them springboards for discussion.