Rad American History A-Z: Movements That Demonstrate the Power of the People
By Regan McMahon,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Great storytelling and context in fresh, dynamic history.
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What's the Story?
RAD AMERICAN HISTORY A-Z offers stories of people and movements that have helped shape and change the United States socially, politically, and culturally. Many of the people are underdogs whose stories are not often told. The biographical, historical, and up-to-the minute contemporary profiles are arranged alphabetically, and the last page of each entry offers a short list of four or five other stories that fit that letter, with one-line descriptions. In the chapter for B, for example, list on the last page cites these five: Beat Generation, Birth Control Pill, Black Panther Party, Brown Berets, Brown V. Board of Education.
Is It Any Good?
This fresh collection of key historical moments and people who made history is engaging and inspiring. Rad American History A-Z: Movements and Moments That Demonstrate the Power of the People incudes people readers may have never heard of but who stood up and made a difference in their time and their community, and made life better for those who came after them. It drives home the point that the history we learn often depends on who wrote it, and celebrates many unsung heroes who never made it into a history book -- before this one!
Each entry per letter is six pages long, offering a great deal of context for the inspiration and arc of a movement or the roots and rise of an individual. Every one opens with a dynamic illustration in Miriam Klein Stahl's signature black-and-white cut-paper style and ends with a list of four or five other significant items that start with that letter and a one-line description. The writing is so good and the content so rich throughout the book, it makes readers wish all the items in those lists got the full treatment, too.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the activists in Rad American History A-Z. Were you surpised how ordinary many of them seem? What casues a regular person to stand up and risk their reputation or even their life for a cause they beleive in?
Why do you think you haven't heard some of thises stories before? How does history depend on who writes it?
if you were going to tell a history of your family, your school, or your town, what stories would you include? What unsung heroes do you know about?
Book Details
- Author: Kate Schatz
- Illustrator: Miriam Klein Stahl
- Genre: History
- Topics: Activism , STEM , Great Boy Role Models , Great Girl Role Models , History , Science and Nature
- Book type: Non-Fiction
- Publisher: Ten Speed Press
- Publication date: March 4, 2020
- Number of pages: 169
- Available on: Nook, Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: March 4, 2020
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