If You "Hate" History, Try a Novel

I’ve been reading a lot of historical fiction lately and you know what it has made me discover (at the tender age of 33)?? I DON’T HATE LEARNING HISTORY!

13 years in public school and 3 years in college and I would have told you that it’s just not my thing. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have a brain for history (or math).

Well, it turns out that’s not true.

You know what I don’t have a brain for? Dense, boring, history TEXTBOOKS!

And c’mon, how many of us can say we actually enjoy learning about historical events through a textbook?

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading books like All We Thought We Knew and The Women of Oak Ridge by Michelle Shocklee, The Alice Network by Kate Quinn*, and The Timeless Series by Gabrielle Meyer . . . all of these books have taught me endless fun facts about historical events without having to sit through a dry lecture.

This reminds me of one of the many reasons I’m excited to homeschool. There’s not just one way to learn—we all know that, right? There are endless ways to learn about history, there are countless ways to learn how to read, there are several ways to solve the same math equation (as I recently learned while teaching my son how to subtract two digit numbers)… what a great reminder that if my kids “hate” history one day, I can hand them a well-written, well-researched novel and say, “try this.” ❤️

*I enjoyed this book, but for my friends who are sensitive to R-rated content, this is not a clean read.

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