Books for Beginning Readers: History

This is a follow on post from Books for Beginning Readers: Nature & Science. These are books that were favourites in our home. Besides being readable for beginning readers, the stories are based on historic events and history has been an area all of my children have loved.

Step into Reading Books - these are in order of difficulty, starting from the easiest.

The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto by Natalie Standiford. Balto carries a diphtheria vaccine to the town of Nome, in Alaska during a terrible storm in 1925.

Tut's Mummy by Judy Donnelly - from the death of Tutankhamen over three thousand years ago to the discovery of his tomb and its treasures in 1922 by English archaeologist, Howard Carter.

The Titanic Lost & Found by Judy Donnelly - after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the ship lay on the ocean floor for over 70 years until 1985, when it was found by 'Argo,' a specially made underwater robot, the invention of scientist Robert Ballard.

The book is a step up from Tut's Mummy & introduces paragraphs.

The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War by Emily Little - 6 short chapters. Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann had read Homer's Iliad and believed that the city of Troy did actually exist. In 1870 he went to Turkey and began to dig...

'An I Can Read Book'


Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express by Eleanor Coerr


Based on a real character. Not much historical content but a fun read for boys especially. One of my boys knew this book inside out & we heard him narrate a chunk of it while he was asleep one night.

Sam the Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley - a young boy's experience of the Battle of Lexington, the famous battle that marked the beginning of the American Revolution. My Aussie kids loved this and its companion book, George the Drummer Boy.

The start of the American Revolution from George the Drummer Boy's view.

We've got an older hardback copy which I couldn't place when I was looking through the other books but it was another favourite.

 Follow the Drinking Gourd: a Story of the Underground Railway by F.N. Monjo - 6 short chapters. The writing in this book is of a smaller print than any of the other books I've posted here.

Crazy Horse: Sioux Warrior by Enid Meadowcroft is more of a short chapter book but it is an interesting read for a beginner who is ready for something more than one of the shorter readers above. 11 chapters, 80 pages & large print.

The author has written three other books about American Indians in this series.

Books for Beginning Readers: Nature & Science

Finding an interesting selection of books to bridge the gap from when a child first begins to read until they are able to read with sufficient fluency can be difficult, especially if that time period is prolonged. I'll be posting books that worked well for us at this stage, dividing them into different categories.  Most of them work well for around the ages of 4 to 8 years. I read these aloud (many times over) to my non-readers but my children loved to read them on their own when they first started reading for themselves. The 'Science I CAN READ' books are well-illustrated and interesting, narrative non-fiction and there is a wide range available secondhand. These are some we used & liked:

Elephant Seal Island by Evelyn Shaw

A Nest of Wood Ducks by Evelyn Shaw

Red Tag Comes Back by Fred Phleger

Ants Are Fun by Mildred Myrick

Caterpillar Green by Marla Martin

This book is published by Rod & Staff Publishers and is unusual in that it is a chapter book of 139 pages of good sized print with words broken down into syllables. The story is about a classroom of children who follow the journey of a green caterpillar as it becomes a beautiful butterfly. The story is told in both prose and poetry and is helpful in developing reading fluency with words of multiple syllables in the context of an interesting aspect of the natural world.

The Microscope by Maxine Kumin 

An illustrated poem about the Dutch scientist, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who was more interested in looking through his handmade microscopes than in keeping his shop. He saw things with the microscope that no one had ever seen before.

Germs Make Me Sick by Melvin Berger

'Germs all all around you, but they are too small for you to see. Many germs are harmless, but two kinds, viruses and bacteria, can make you sick. Read and find out about germs, how they make you sick, and how your body works to fight them off and keep you healthy.''