We had the privilege to review for Heritage History, which is an extensive collection of Historical Books. Heritage Classical Curriculum includes five titles: Young Readers, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, British Middle Ages, and British Empire.
Our family reviewed the Young Readers collection. “This collection is the introductory unit of the Heritage Classical Curriculum. It includes easy-to-read, introductory selections from many historical periods and provides a broad introduction to Western Culture suitable for grammar school age students. Specially featured are short stories from American, European, Ancient, and Biblical history. Includes 86 books, Recommendations, and a Teacher’s Guide”
First Impression
The CD is very easy to navigate especially for a visual person. The website Heritage History is packed full of information! There are two ways that you can use this program alone as it’s own history or they have even incorporated books into popular history programs. For example; Tapestry of Grace is used and recommends many books from Heritage History but you can also find many more on the certain topics you are studying for your units. This actually made my heart smile, as they have taken the “leg-work” out for home-school mamas and anything to save time and planning is awesome in my book. I totally agree with the statement concerning Tapestry of Grace “we have identified many more books in the Heritage library with similar subjects that could provide adequate substitutes.” See below for an example:
“Tapestry of Grace currently recommends about a dozen books that are available from the Heritage History Library, but we have identified many more books in the Heritage library with similar subjects that could provide adequate substitutes.”
Books Recommended by Tapestry of Grace
- Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall
- Struggle for Sea Power by M. B. Synge
- This Country of Ours by H. E. Marshall
- Story of the Romans by Helene Guerber
- Famous Men of Rome by John Haaren
- The Story of Europe by H. E. Marshall
- The Story of the Middle Ages by Samuel Harding
- Simon Bolivar by G. A. Sherwell
Books with subjects similar to those Recommended by Tapestry of Grace
- Theodore Roosevelt for Bully for You Teddy Roosevelt
- True Stories of Our Presidents for Presidents of America
- The Story of Napoleon for Napoleon
- Golden Fleece for Jason and the Golden Fleece
- Alexander the Great for Alexander the Great
- Story of the Greeks for Ancient Greece
- Hannibal for The Punic Wars
- George Washington for George Washington’s World
- The Adventures of Marco Polo for Marco Polo
- Stories of the Vikings for The Vikings, Viking
- Hernando Cortes for Hernan Cortez
- The Story of Columbus for Columbus
- Days of Queen Elizabeth for Elizabeth I
- Ferdinand Magellan for Ferdinand Magellan
- The Netherlands for The Netherlands
- William the Silent for William of Orange: The Silent Prince
- American History Stories – II for The Colonial Period
- Peter the Great for Peter the Great
- American History Stories – III for The Revolutionary Period
- Reign of Queen Victoria for Victoria and Albert
- Boys’ Life of Edison for Thomas Edison
- The Story of Japan for Japan: The Land
- Florence Nightingale for Florence Nightingale
- The Story of China for China: The Land
- Great Inventors for Always Inventing: Alexander Graham Bell
- Little Book of the War for Introduction to the First World War
How is the CD organized?
NEW USERS: Introduction, Getting Started, Recommendations
LIBRARY: By Subject, By Genre, Summaries, Series
STUDY AIDS: Overview, Characters, Events, Images, Teacher’s Guide
CURRICULUM: User Guide, FAQs
E-TEXTS: E-Readers, Self-Publishing, Copyright Terms, FAQs
We jumped right into some of the stories as we have a very heavy history curriculum and love living books! Here is how the Young Readers are broken down:
- STORIES FROM HISTORY
- SHORT BIOGRAPHIES
- BIOGRAPHY
- BIBLE STORIES
- LEGENDS AND FOLKLORE
- ADAPTED LITERATURE
- HISTORICAL FICTION
How did we use it?
We use Tapestry of Grace so with that in mind it was full of read-alouds for our curriculum. The Young Readers is really geared for 4th grade and up. I found that my 2nd grader could read many of these books on his own but we did most of them as read-alouds. Here are a few that we read:
Will we use it as part of our homeschooling?
Yes, Yes, Yes, I cannot say enough about Heritage History, it is like having a history library in your own home. The books are about 30 cents a piece. If I can recommend anything it would be to get the downloadable Kindle version as it was difficult to snuggle up and read most of these on the computer. We have a kindle and will be downloading the library into our Kindle as per instructions here. We will use this as a supplement to our history program but it definitely can be used as a stand alone history with the study aids and wonderful website they have put together! An entire list of books can be found on this page for Young Readers.
What about those Study Aids?
Directly from the site: “Instead of describing the Study Aids in detail, abbreviated samples are provided below. In most cases, these samples were provided by creating a PDF image of a portion of a much larger file. Study aids that accompany each curriculum include:”
- Age specific core reading recommendations.
- Dozens of historical maps.
- Outline maps and geography terms.
- Summary of each historical era.
- Battle dictionary listing all wars, battles, and conflicts.
- Short biographies of famous characters.
- Timelines describing major events of each era.
- Hundreds of high quality images.
- Accountability records
How much does it cost?
Each volume sells individually for $24.99. Their entire 5 volume set ,The World History Collection, is available for $99.99, a savings of $25 if bought individually.
Come see what the crew is saying about it here.
**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.
