Civil War!: America Becomes One Nation by James I. Robertson, Jr., is the book we used as our “spine” for our Civil War studies. This is the first time I’ve successfully used a nonfiction book on just one topic as a read-aloud for our studies (as opposed to more of a survey, like History of US or Story of the World). I read most of the chapters aloud, opting to have the girls read the chapters about the battles (each one entitled a year of the war–“1861” and so on) themselves. After reading the first one of those, I realized it contained too much battle minutiae to read aloud. The intervening chapters, of which there are a dozen, are about particular aspects of the war: “King Cotton and His Slaves,” “Union vs. Confederate Resources,” “Grant, Lee, and Other Commanders,” “Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks,” and “Diseases, Wounds, and Death,” and other topics. Chapters are ten to twelve pages each, which is a good length for reading aloud. Photographs, diagrams, and artwork are included, but they’re not overly intrusive. We found the prose to be engaging, even enjoyable, and I’m pretty sure we’ll remember a good bit about the time period thanks to sharing this book together. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that James I. Robertson, Jr., is a noted Civil War scholar. I give this book a Highly Recommended and only hope that I can find something similarly succinct and engaging for future history studies. (Knopf, 1992)
