What Was It Like? Teaching History and Culture Through Young Adult Literature by Linda J. Rice

Written by an assistant professor of English who is also a National Board Certified Teacher who taught in the schools for ten years, this handbook for teachers is a must-have for English and history teachers. The purpose of the book is to provide interesting, active learning activities for middle and high school students. Each chapter focuses on a time period and provides summaries of the young adult novels and several intriguing activities for students. Chapter topics include the Great Depression, migrant farm experiences, the Holocaust, Japanese internment camps, Koreans during the Japanese occupation, the Civil Rights movement, and Vietnam. In the Great Depression chapter, the author features Cynthia DeFelice’s Nowhere to Call Home (2001), Richard Peck’s A Long Way from Chicago (1998), and Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (1997) to cover the themes of “ingenuity, interdependence, resourcefulness, perseverance, and hope as strategies for navigating through life’s uncertainties.” Each chapter has a brief historical overview of the time period, summaries of featured young adult novels, descriptions of active learning projects, role play and simulation activities, creative writing assignments, an annotated bibliography, and a list of references.

The activities included for each novel are thought-provoking and easily adaptable to any classroom. The integration between young adult literature and historical events is seamless and provides learning across the curriculum. Many student work samples are included with black-and-white photographs. The annotated bibliographies at the end of each chapter contain other YA works that could be used instead of the featured works the author selected. Librarians should purchase this professional resource and use it to create awesome projects with English and history teachers.