If you are looking for a very basic **beginning reader** that fits into the living book category, then this book is a decent option. I use the term 'beginning reader' because the flow of this book is very Dick-and-Jane in its style. I was quite disappointed with it, and my spouse was opposed to its use in our school as well. However, our kindergartner is already reading well, so maybe it would be a perfect fit for a child just beginning to string words together.
The fault lies not with the book, but with me for not understanding its purpose --it's a reader, not a history book. I should have viewed the free versions online before ordering at PBS.
Here is what Eggleston wrote in the forward about this book:
"THE primary aim of this book is to furnish the little learner reading matter that will excite his attention and give him pleasure, and thus make lighter the difficult task of learning to read. The ruggedness of this task has often been increased by the use of disconnected sentences, or lessons as dry and uninteresting as finger exercises on the piano....
All the narratives are historical, or at least no stories have been told for true that are deemed fictitious. Every means which the writer's literary experience could suggest has been used to make the stories engaging, in the hope that the interest of the narrative may prove a sufficient spur to exertion on the part of the pupil, and that this little book will make green and pleasant a pathway that has so often been dry and laborious."
This book is available for full viewing at The Baldwin Project and for full download at Google Books.
The fault lies not with the book, but with me for not understanding its purpose --it's a reader, not a history book. I should have viewed the free versions online before ordering at PBS.
Here is what Eggleston wrote in the forward about this book:
"THE primary aim of this book is to furnish the little learner reading matter that will excite his attention and give him pleasure, and thus make lighter the difficult task of learning to read. The ruggedness of this task has often been increased by the use of disconnected sentences, or lessons as dry and uninteresting as finger exercises on the piano....
All the narratives are historical, or at least no stories have been told for true that are deemed fictitious. Every means which the writer's literary experience could suggest has been used to make the stories engaging, in the hope that the interest of the narrative may prove a sufficient spur to exertion on the part of the pupil, and that this little book will make green and pleasant a pathway that has so often been dry and laborious."
This book is available for full viewing at The Baldwin Project and for full download at Google Books.
