A Letter From the Author

Hi there,

Thanks for taking the time to learn about this series I have worked so hard on. As a teacher of American and World History for 10 years at both the middle and high school level, I have endeavored to teach my students that history is not just a bunch of boring dates and facts. In class we conduct skits, hold debates, watch movies, and even play games.

While I have had some success with this, I always remembered how the book Johnny Tremain made me fall in love with history.  The more I taught, the more I realized that in order to help my students truly understand history I needed to recreate the feelings and emotions of kids their own age in the times we were studying. If I could do that, then they would get a real appreciation and love for history that would never go away.

After 10 years of  writing and researching, I have created just that. Young Heroes of History is historical fiction written with the objective of making history approachable to the young mind. That means that while the main characters and the basic storyline are imagination, the situation that they are in and the challenges they have to overcome are real. The everyday stories and events in these books happened all the time. In fact, much of what you will read comes from real people and real events but we have put new characters in. There is an extensive bibliography at the end of each book and all the information is painstakingly researched, many times on the actual site of the event. Indeed, when you look at the cast of characters you will notice that many of the people listed actually existed and did the kind of things they do in these stories.

Keep in mind that we have changed some things to make it easier to read. For example, the accents and special words that both the Irish and the Negroes usually use when they speak have been mostly ignored in order to make the characters dialogue easier to read. Once in awhile, they will slip into their regular accent to remind you that they do indeed talk different from the characters around them but for the most part you will find the language easy to understand and accept.

Finally, there are many ways you can read these books. Each book stands on its own so you could focus on just one time period or battle. You could buy a set of mixed books that cover the material you are interested in. Of course, the best way to read these books is as a set series, reading each book in order. With each book tied in by family relations, they feed off each other and create other lessons unique to what a series can do. Last but not least you should understand that the reading level is designed for ages 11-14 but it has been used with children as young as 9 and as old as 16. Good luck and thanks again for your interest.