She works as a teacher-librarian in Asheville City Schools. Kirsten LeClerc is a mother, writer, and avid reader. Look for these books at your local library or bookstore. Releasing in 2021 from Random House are “History Smashers: Pearl Harbor” and “History Smashers: Titanic.” I wish I could have read History Smashers when I was in elementary school.

Absolutely smashing Candace Fleming, award-wining author Informative and fun, eye-opening and entertaining. This is a series that will engage upper elementary and middle school history buffs.Īlso check out “History Smashers: Women’s Right to Vote” (2020), where Messner examines the long road to the Nineteenth Amendment. Kate Messner’s History Smashers: Women’s Right to Vote, illustrated by Dylan Meconis, is an inspiring and timely history of the centuries of struggle that women waged to vote in America. Kate Messner serves up fun, fast history for kids who want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Cartoonish illustrations by Dylan Meconis are visually appealing and often add humor to the text. History is rarely simple, and Messner does an outstanding job of making complex topics engaging and encourages readers to think about events from multiple perspectives. Oh, and the first Thanksgiving meal? It was likely venison and eels rather than turkey and cranberry sauce. Remember the corn that was supposedly given to the settlers by the Wampanoag people? The Pilgrims actually dug it out of a storage pit and took it without asking. Their children probably had toys and were allowed to play sometimes. People started referring to the Plymouth settlers as Pilgrims in the 1800s.īased on historical records, it seems that the Pilgrims’ clothing may have been more colorful than the drab stereotype. William Bradford did use the word once in his book about Plymouth Colony, in the context of making the journey for religious reasons.

History smashers kate messner