Voices of the American Civil War: Stories of Men, Women, and Children Who Lived Through the War Between the States

Rating:
Summary: An uneven classroom resource
Review: Voices from the American Civil War could be, in many ways, an excellent resource for a teacher. The publisher suggests its use in grades 4 - 10. The textual organization is excellent. Grouped by year of the war, each of the two dozen or so chapters has background information, an introduction to the main personnage in the story, a lively, fast paced short incident, and a brief afterword.

Then, for each chapter, there are questions that test knowledge gained, suggestions for further research, ideas for reality games and further thought provoking questions.

The main character of each brief story is presented as a real person with birth and death dates and some added biographical material. These dates and this material, however, do not always seem to check out, especially in reference to John Mercer Langston and a character named "Mary Livingston" who seems to be based on Mary Livermore of the Chicago Sanitary Commission. If these well known and easily verified historical personnages are presented incorrectly, what is the reader to think of the others?

I would have loved to recommend this book. I find its flaws extremely disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: An uneven classroom resource
Review: Voices from the American Civil War could be, in many ways, an excellent resource for a teacher. The publisher suggests its use in grades 4 - 10. The textual organization is excellent. Grouped by year of the war, each of the two dozen or so chapters has background information, an introduction to the main personnage in the story, a lively, fast paced short incident, and a brief afterword.

Then, for each chapter, there are questions that test knowledge gained, suggestions for further research, ideas for reality games and further thought provoking questions.

The main character of each brief story is presented as a real person with birth and death dates and some added biographical material. These dates and this material, however, do not always seem to check out, especially in reference to John Mercer Langston and a character named "Mary Livingston" who seems to be based on Mary Livermore of the Chicago Sanitary Commission. If these well known and easily verified historical personnages are presented incorrectly, what is the reader to think of the others?

I would have loved to recommend this book. I find its flaws extremely disappointing.