Children's Literature, Briefly

Chapter 12.... Historical Fiction

I really liked the point that this chapter made: Text books don't always do their justice! All texts books can really do is skim over something briefly, while inserting dates and not talking about the people who were actually there. Text books also don't give you different perspectives, they only talk about the "Americanized" version of a tale. In this way, history books falsify history because they aren't giving you the complete story. When someone does actual research into an event, such as pilgrims and colonization, that person would learn that the Native Americans probably were not the savages that the history books makes them out to be.... and that maybe the colonists were not so nice either.
This chapter also mentioned some great books that I remember loving, such as the Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, about a young Jewish girl who goes to open the door for Elijah during Passover and ends up being transported into the Holocaust and meets one of her ancestors. I always thought this was the coolest book, and ever since then I always wanted to have a Jewish Passover so I could open the door for Jehovah too! This book not only taught me about the Holocaust, but about Jewish culture and traditions as well. Another book this chapter mentions is Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry. I just always loved Lois Lowry, but this book was also great because it dealt with times in history, but it wasn't sugar coated like a text book would be.