History on Your Bookshelves

I’ll bet that if you’re a reader like me, then you’ve collected a few….or a thousand….books over the years.  And I’ll also bet that even if you know you’ll never read a certain title again, that it’s hard to get rid of the copy.  And I’ll also bet that several of your volumes have thick layers of dust collecting on the spines.  If that last assumption is not the case, please don’t tell me, okay?

I have collected books for a couple of decades now and have several shelves laden with the contents.  Lately, however, I’ve been perusing them more often looking for things for Bonny Annie to read, and I’ve come up with some long-forgotten treasures.

Currently, we’re in the thick of a two-year study of American history.  Annaleigh’s curriculum is actually designed to be completed in a year, but we’re drawing it out over two in order to keep her and Dirty Harry covering the same subject matter simultaneously.  Bonny Annie reads voraciously though, so I’ve been trying to find extra books to fill in the holes.

Right now she’s in the middle of the series pictured above.  It’s The Keeper of the Ring series by Angela Elwell Hunt. Each book focuses on real and fictional characters that surround one of our country’s first settlements.  I had collected this series when I was a newlywed college student, almost twenty years ago…back before I had three kids and had the time and the metabolism to loll around reading thick books and eating entire bags of peanut M&Ms in one sitting.  When we got to this point in history, I remembered reading and enjoying them years ago and went searching for them.  As it turns out, I had to scrounge a couple of copies up on Amazon.  I guess I loaned a few out and never got them back.

Now, you can say what you like about Christian fiction.  I know, I know.  I’ve read some duds too.  Lots of them.  But there are some really good works out there, and this series….and really anything by Angela Hunt….is one of them.  For this series, don’t let the covers that are illustrated like this scare you….

Or this…

Just ignore and get past the simpering females, with swoony faces, heaving chests, and flowing tresses.  I promise you that these are not Harlequin novels.  You will find no bodice-ripping or sweaty, glistening muscles between these pages.  While there are some romantic elements, they are handled tastefully and surrounded by historical fact and sandwiched within a well-written yarn.

Other good series that I’ve found on my shelves include the following….

• The Theyn Chronicles, by Angelea Elwell Hunt (Middle Ages)
• The Mark of the Lion series, by Francine Rivers (Ancient Rome)
• Refiner’s Fire series, by Lynn Austin (Civil War)
• Kinship and Courage series, by Jane Kirkpatrick (Westward expansion, pioneers)
• Emerald Ballads, by BJ Hoff (mid-1800s, Irish immigration)
• The Zion Covenant, by Bodie Thoene (WWII)

And I’m sure there are many, many more.  In fact, if you’ve read some great historical fiction, please leave your suggestions in the comment section.

Also, I’m not limiting my additions to Bonny Annie’s education to just Christian fiction.  Many, many good titles abound in the classics section.  I know she will be reading one of my all-time favorites, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith in about a year, when we to turn-of-the century times.

I know she needs to know the facts of history, and we spend a good bit of time on that too, but in the meantime, it’s okay to let those facts come alive within the pages of a good read.