Dear America; My Name is America; The Royal Diaries
These are young adult historical novels written in a diary format, clearly intended to teach history in an entertaining manner. My local library has pretty much all of them. I like being amused by history, I like faux diaries, and I already like some of the authors (Joseph Bruchac, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Laurence Yep, Walter Dean Myers), so I thought I'd give some a try.
My Name Is America: The Journal Of Joshua Loper, A Black Cowboy
, by the usually reliable Walter Dean Myers, was a bit disappointing. While it was well-researched (as far as I could tell) and had some good comic bits, it felt even more like "one thing happened and then another thing happened" than I expected given the diary format, and the overall effect fell flat.
Has anyone read any of these? Are any worth checking out? And while I'm at it, does anyone know of any diaries by actual historical black cowboys?
I already know to avoid the books in this series about Indians (Native Americans) written by white people. But some of the Royal Diaries look pretty interesting: Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595 (The Royal Diaries)
, Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 (The Royal Diaries) (Royal Diaries)
, Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South, Southern China A.D. 531 (The Royal Diaries)
...
ETA: Hey! Looks like Scholastic India has a "Dear India" series! I wonder if I can get my hands on any of those. Not at my library, that's for sure...
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/935278.html. Comment here or there.
My Name Is America: The Journal Of Joshua Loper, A Black Cowboy
, by the usually reliable Walter Dean Myers, was a bit disappointing. While it was well-researched (as far as I could tell) and had some good comic bits, it felt even more like "one thing happened and then another thing happened" than I expected given the diary format, and the overall effect fell flat.
Has anyone read any of these? Are any worth checking out? And while I'm at it, does anyone know of any diaries by actual historical black cowboys?
I already know to avoid the books in this series about Indians (Native Americans) written by white people. But some of the Royal Diaries look pretty interesting: Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595 (The Royal Diaries)
, Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 (The Royal Diaries) (Royal Diaries)
, Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South, Southern China A.D. 531 (The Royal Diaries)
...
ETA: Hey! Looks like Scholastic India has a "Dear India" series! I wonder if I can get my hands on any of those. Not at my library, that's for sure...
Crossposted to http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/935278.html. Comment here or there.