Assigned Literature
Here are the twelve books that we assign to go along with the lessons in Exploring World History. We have some notes about these titles in the Guide for Parents and Answer Key.
- Units 3-5: The Cat of Bubastes (G. A. Henty)
- Unit 8: The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
- Unit 10: Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare)
- Units 13-14: The Imitation of Christ (Thomas à Kempis)
- Units 16-18: Here I Stand (Roland Bainton)
- Units 19-20: A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
- Units 21-22: North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell)
- Units 23-24: The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom)
- Unit 25: Animal Farm (George Orwell)
- Units 26-27: Bridge to the Sun (Gwen Terasaki)
- Units 28-29: Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton)
- Unit 30: The Abolition of Man (C. S. Lewis)
Alternate Literature
If you choose not to use one or more of these books, here are some other titles for you to consider:
- Novels by G. A. Henty give good historical information as the backdrop to the stories he tells. Henty wrote dozens of books. Most of them deal with English and European history from medieval to modern times, but he wrote several dealing with ancient history. Be aware that Henty's novels contain graphic violence and some demeaning comments about different ethnic groups.
- The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare is a Newbery Medal book (1962) set in the time of Christ. It focuses on a young man caught up with Zealots who wanted to defeat the Romans and how the young man is changed by Christ.
- The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli (Newbery Medal, 1950) is set in medieval England and gives good historical background that helps the reader understand life during that period.
- Instead of Here I Stand, you might select a biography of Martin Luther for younger readers.
- Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis, the 1933 Newbery Medal winner, reflects life in China in the 1920s amid the political and social chaos that existed there at the time.