Read Aloud--Minnesota History

This year I have been "teaching" Minnesota history to the boys. It has been a lot of fun. It's mostly consisted of reading some really great novels and following it up with content from the text Northern Lights, from the Minnesota Historical Society.  The text has been a good supplement to our reading and has guided us through the main topics.  This post is going to be about the novels that I've read aloud to the kids so far.

Our first Minnesota novel was The Broken Blade by William Durbin.  This is the story of the son of a voyageur in Quebec who is forced into the canoe work after his father is hurt.  It is a great story that really gives a lot of information about the lives of the voyageurs and their arduous journey through the great lakes on their way to Grand Portage, Minnesota.  It held the boys attention and each night they were asking for more and wanted to find out what happened next.  William Durbin has a number of historical fiction novels, many set in Minnesota.

Next we read what has been my favorite read so far, Early Candlelight by Maude Hart Lovelace.  At 342 pages, this is one of the longest books that we've read in our read aloud journey, but it was just too good of a book to not get all of the way through.  The story is set just outside of Fort Snelling, at the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers.  The two main characters are Jasper Page, a trader who works closely with the voyageurs, the natives and the soldiers and Dee, the oldest daughter of a squatter family that lives just outside the fort.  The story was so gripping and complex.  There were definitely some more adult sections of the story that I had to process with the boys, for instance when one of the sergeants steals the Indian wife-to-be of Dee's brother.  The fight that ensued led to some definitely adult language, but very true to character and not gratuitous.  As we got further along in our history text, we found out just how much of this novel was really true.  The author put many real characters in and weaved history into the fiction so well.  This is a novel that I would recommend to anyone.  If you're looking for your next great read, pick this up.  We can't wait to go to historic Fort Snelling this summer when it opens again.

After that, we read On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilders.  We love Little House on the Prairie so it was fun to read this.  I had not ever read any of her work.  It is not the best book that I've ever read, but it was again another great look into the history of the sodbusters of Minnesota.  We got a great picture of what is was to live in a sod house, break the land, build a house out of purchased lumber and hope for a good crop only to have it ravaged by locusts.  The girls joined us for many nights of this one.  They love to play Laura and Mary so this just added fuel to that fire.

Last night we just finished our second William Durbin novel, Blackwater Ben.  In this book, Ben joins his father who is a cook at a lumber camp in northern Minnesota.  Ben is not thrilled about the work and wonders why his father is always pushing him so hard.  When another cookee, Nevers from South Carolina, joins them, Ben's load is lifted and he finds a good friend.  The book gives a very interesting look into the workings of a lumber camp at the height of the timber industry in Minnesota, about 1898.  When we go to the north shore this summer, we are hoping to get to see some of the last remaining old growth white pine in Minnesota.  While I didn't enjoy this one as much as the other Durbin novel we read, the boys really seemed to love it.  It would team really well with another novel that we read a few years ago, Swift Rivers by Cornelia Meigs.  Its the story of the river runs that happen after the timber is felled and sent to the river to be transported to the mills.  The boys referenced it often as we read Blackwater Ben.

I love history and so doing this project with the boys has been great.  Our next read will go back in time a little, a biography of Little Crow, a native leader who was involved in the Minnesota Dakota War of 1862.  I can't wait to get around to some of the historical sites.  We are hoping to do some field trips this spring.  Cross your fingers.