DiamondAir

> From: adarl52357@...
> We are followers of a "living saint" from India known as Ammachi and are
part
> of a Hindu Satsang in the San Francisco Bay area. I'm happy to see that
there
> is such diversity in the unschooling community. I'm also glad to know that
> some of you are Native American. We're studying American History this
year,
> my 11yo daughter and 15 yo son and I. We're watching the video series,
"500
> Nations" which is that subject from a Native American point of view. It's
> very well done and very intense. If anyone out there is studying American
> History, I also have some good books to recommend, let me know. -Amalia-


Some more thoughts that occurred to me:

Have you checked out the book "Don't Know Much About History : Everything
You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned" by Kenneth C.
Davis?? I just got it from a used book store and haven't read it yet, but I
read his book on the Civil War (from the same series) and it was really
fascinating. It might be too dry for 11 and 15 year olds, but maybe not. He
fills it with good anecdotes and answers commonly held myths (for instance,
in the Civil War book, he had a subchapter heading "Was Jefferson Davis
really captured wearing a dress?").

For Native American studies, when I was a teenager I really loved reading a
book (novel) called "Hanta Yo" by Ruth Beebe Hill. It's very long and quite
deep (for a novel), set in the Lakotah nation. It has been translated fully
into Lakotah and back out to English, which makes it read differently than a
novel written purely in English. Depending on how interested your teenager
is, he might like it. Warning, it does address some fairly serious issues
that you might have to talk about - sex, war, torture, etc. or might not
want a child reading (depending on your viewpoints I guess). It covers many
of the rituals, songs, etc. of the tribal life in a way that non-fiction
books really can't, giving at least a small feel for a way of life so very
different from modern culture.

Blue Skies!
-Robin-
Mom to Mackenzie (8/28/96) "I have magic in my mind"
and Asa (10/5/99) who doesn't want to take her fairy wings off...ever
http://www.geocities.com/the_clevengers Flying Clevenger Family