THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 12, 1995 TAG: 9512120038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: [Peggy Earle]
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
GIFT IDEA: give the kids 10 volumes of amazing stories. True stories. Sound interesting? Now try this on for size: it's American history. Wait! OK, maybe it doesn't seem like the thing to light up a child's face on Christmas morning, but you don't give them to a child. Give them to parents to be shared with a child. Those parents, that is, who'd like to give their kids a certain advantage in school.
Joy Hakim's ``A History of Us'' (Oxford University Press, paperback set, $99.50) can do just that. How? Let's face it, for many of us, just the words ``American history'' dredge up cranky memories of lists - dates, names, definitions. We frantically memorized them in time for tests and then promptly replaced them with the next list, and so on. What fun. The subject is still being taught that way to many American schoolchildren, and their response is much the same as ours was - listitis!
Virginia Beach resident Hakim's highly praised 10 volumes present our American heritage as a collection of exciting, entertaining and illuminating yarns.
Hakim is the former journalist and teacher who has metamorphosed the American history curriculum for those lucky kids whose schools have adopted ``A History of Us'' as texts.
What makes these books so special? Well, maybe it's that Hakim really knows her audience.
Children of the '90s are a sophisticated bunch. Raised on multimedia, ``Sesame Street,'' ``The Electric Company'' and (shudder) music videos, they're capable of absorbing many more elements at one time than we could at their age (or even now). Hakim's books, while printed in black and white, sparkle with a lively mixture of text, photos, cartoons, news items, sidebars, drawings and graphics on every page.
Our kids want the truth from us - and they can take it. The history Hakim presents is never sugar-coated with rationalizations or excuses. It's told in all its ugliness as well as its beauty; happy successes and fatal mistakes. And always with a keen sense of humor. Sound like something worth remembering? Add it to the list. Your Christmas list, that is. MEMO: The 10-volume hardcover set is $149.50; individual volumes are $14.95 in
hardcover and $9.95 in paper.
by CNB