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by Elaine Landau. 48 p. What Would You Do? series. Enslow Publishers Inc. June, 2008.
This book explores the beginning of the American Revolution by asking the reader to imagine a scenario, such as King George III's financial problems; providing basic background; then ends the segment with a "What would you do?" box. The reader considers anywhere between one and three possibilities, then turns to page to discover what happened in history and the consequences of that decision.
Each event that led the American colonists down the road to revolution against King George presented the participants with life or death decisions. This set-up encourages readers to reflect and think a bit more deeply about historical events. There are copious illustrations, at least one on every page, from maps through reproductions and photos of museum pieces. While its "easy reader" appearance may put some older students off, the content is a bit too sophisticated for the average third to fifth grader. And, the American Revolution isn't part of the curriculum for those grades. Still, there are those special readers who may have interests and reading ability far above their peers and, more importantly, there are seventh graders who are still struggling readers.
The American Revolution is taught in grade seven at my school. Social studies teachers responsible for teaching the Revolution might want to read this aloud and allow time for small group discussion. My colleague who teaches social studies and I have designed a project-based research activity around the Revolution. I will blog in more detail about it at a later time, but we have divided the events and found a selection of picture books and easier non-fiction titles about each. Students are grouped in pairs and trios and assigned an event. We can easily differentiate the reading to tailor the difficulty to the group's ability.
A Timeline of events between 1760 and 1783, glossary round out the back-matter. The "Learn More" page recommends seven books for further reading and two web sites. The url for the Kidport Reference Library took me to an unrelated page and I could not find it by searching the site. The other site is a link to The Paul Revere House.
Other titles in this series are: George Washington Crosses the Delaware: Would You Risk the Revolution?, The Emancipation Proclamation: Would You Do What Lincoln Did?, The California Gold Rush, and The Louisiana Purchase.
