We travel a lot. We like to visit amusement parks and children’s museums but I like to see the architecture and history of our destinations too. I try to turn something that is potentially boring for kids into fun by finding some books to get the kids interested. So this summer, when we drove from Florida to New York, I let each of my kids pick a stop that they were interested in visiting. I was surprised when Ellison picked the Jamestown settlement and Ben picked the Liberty Bell and the Benjamin Franklin museum in Philly (things that they learned about in school this year). When trying to find some books, I stumbled across the My America series. This fiction series is in the form of diary entries of children during historically significant time periods such as the Jamestown settlement, American Revolution, and the Civil War. Each time period has three books. While the series was discontinued in 2004, it is available on Amazon. I was thrilled to find that my son’s audiobook program had several titles. We listed to the three Jamestown books written by Patricia Hermes entitled “My America: Our Strange New Land,” “The Starving Time.” and “Season or Promise.” (Click on book covers for affiliate links)
These books follow a girl named Elizabeth who travels from Plymouth, England to the Jamestown Settlement in 1609 after a harrowing 71-day journey at sea. Elizabeth starts keeping a diary for her twin brother Caleb who stays behind because of his bad lungs. The precocious Elizabeth chronicles her friendships, interactions with Native Americans, Capt. John Smith, and Lord Delaware, the hard winter, when almost the entire colony starved to death or died from fever and disease, and the hopefulness the colony starts to feel when things finally start getting better.
I would love to say my kids were psyched to listen to these books, but that would be a lie. I had to promise them that if they listened to two chapters of the first book and didn’t like it that I would turn it off. Three books later they asked if there was a fourth. Parenting win!
We all really enjoyed Jamestown. Ellison was able to answer a lot of the historian’s questions and Ben was engaged for a while but playing in the dirt was just too enticing for him to listen the entire time.
We had an amazing summer – one for the ages – so stay tuned for some more of our book recommendations from our travels!
No Comments