Using Children's Literature for US Geography - Looking for Suggestions

[Guest zealth]

I will be leading a US Geography "class" for our homeschool coop in the fall and have spent hours looking for appropriate texts. This idea was originally born out of Holling C. Hollings books, but these books skip some massive regions of the country, priomarily the west coast, the southeast/deep south and the non-contiguous states of Alaska and Hawaii. I would love to at least incorporate the west and south in this class though suggestions for Alaska and Hawaii are also welcome.

 

For those of you not familiar with Holling's books (and I recommend you GET familiar), they are travelogues of a sort with a character moving through various regions of the country, the plotline intimately tied to the location. These books ride the line between picture books and chapter books, which is really ideal for the crew I anticipate this fall. I would love suggestions of other texts that would have a similar feel and would address the regions I am currently lacking. If you or someone you know have supplemented the Holling books or the Beautiful Feet Geography curriculum in a useful way, I would love to know that too!

 

Thanks!

 

Gina

[Tina]

I got this from one or another forum years ago, so not sure who to thank. Anyway, here's a list of books to go with various states for the grammar stage.

 

Alabama:

 

A Picture Book of Rosa Parks - Adler

From Plant to Blue Jeans - Hommedieu (re: cotton)

Life on a Plantation - Kalman

Plantations - Stone

Eli Whitney - Alter

 

Alaska:

Mama Do You Love Me?

A Child's Alaska

Mush!

Circle of Thanks

Akiak

 

Arizona:

Tuesday in Arizona

Cottonwood Trees - Prevost

Squirrel's Song - Wolkstein

Is My Friend at Home? Bierhorst

 

Arkansas:

Come Go With Me: Old Time Stories From the Southern

Mountains - Thomas (re: Oachita Mountains)

 

California:

How Far Felipe?

Smoky Night

Condor's Egg

Striking it Rich

Nine for California

 

Colorado:

Fat Chance Claude

Stones, Bones and Petroglyphs - Goodman

Native Americans and Mesa Verde - Martell

 

Connecticut:

Solomon Grundy

Warm as Wool (or Ohio?)

 

Delaware:

The Legend of the Cranberry

The Light in the Forest (books on tape)

Standing in the Light (video)

 

Florida:

Elizabeth and Larry and Ed

A Visit to Grandma's

St. Augustine (video)

A Kid's Guide to Florida

The Great Pig Search

Freddy Goes to Florida

All Dressed up and Nowhere to Go

My Family Vacation

The Worst Goes South

Beezy

 

Georgia:

Georgia Music

Peach and Blue - Kilborne

A Confederate Girl - Steele

Mama and Me and the Model T

 

Hawaii:

The Last Princess: Ka'Iulani - Guzzetti

Haleakalala National Park - Radlander

Hawaii in Words and Pictures - Fradin

The Last Hawaiian Queen - Stanley

The Island Below the Star

Dear Katie, the Volcano is a Girl - George

Punia and the King of Sharks

Luka's Quilt

 

Idaho:

Mailing May

Wolf: Return of a Legend (video re: Sawtooth Mountains)

One Potato - Porter

Sunday Potatoes, Monday Potatoes - Shiefman

More Potatoes - Belsam

Potato - Watts

The Enormous Potato - Davis

Potato: A Tale From the Great Depression - Leid

 

Illinois:

The Journey

Joshua's Westward Journal

 

Indiana:

The Floating House

Story of Johnny Appleseed - Aliki

True Tale of Johnny Appleseed - Hodges

Johnny Appleseed: A Tall Tale - Steven Kellogg

Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend - Will Moses

A Place Called Freedom

 

Iowa:

Eve and Smithy

Story of Paul Bunyan - Emberly

 

Kansas:

Wagon Wheels

The Loudest, Fastest, Best Drummer in Kansas

Climbing Kansas Mountains

The Van Gogh Cafe

 

Kentucky:

Your Best Friend, Kate

Daniel Boone

Just in Time for Christmas

Kentucky Troll: Mysteries Underground (nat. geo.

video on Mammoth Cave, et al)

'B' is for Bluegrass

Kentucky in Words and Pictures

 

Louisiana:

Why Lapin's Ears are Long

All the "Clovis Crawfish" books

Mimi and Jean Paul's Cajun Mardi Gras

Cajun Through and Through

Feydra Leroux: A Cajun Tall-Tale

 

Maine:

Blueberries for Sal

One Morning in Maine

Miss Rumphius

Grandpappy

Grandmother Bryant's Pocket

Time of Wonder

 

Maryland:

Molly Bannaky

 

Massachusetts:

Make Way for Ducklings

Cranberry Thanksgiving

She's Wearing a Dead Bird on her Head

A Picture Book of Paul Revere

Plimoth Plantation (video)

Across the Wide, Dark Sea

Paul Revere's Midnight Ride

Which Way to the Revolution

Letting Swift River Go

 

Michigan:

Paul Bunyan: How a Terrible Timber Fellar Became a Legend - Rogers

Paul Bunyan Fights the Monster Plants - Blassingame

The Christmas Tree Ship

The Log Cabin Church

Mrs. Mack

 

Minnesota:

Follow the Stars: A Native American Woodlands Tale - Rodanas

Legend of the Lady Slipper - Lunge-Larsen

Sacred Harvest: Wild Rice - Reggiunti

 

Mississippi:

Freedom School, Yes!

Oh Lord, I Wish I was a Buzzard

Grandaddy's Gift

Little Toot on the Mississippi

 

Missouri:

Mark Twain and Huck Finn - Ross

River Boy: The Story of Mark Twain - Anderson

Mark Twain and the Queens of the Mississippi - Harness

Mark Twain? What Kind of Name is That? Quackenbush

(what kind of name is *that*?)

Tom Sawyer, Danger in the Graveyard - Richardson

Tom Sawyer Gives up the Brush (video - 30 minutes)

Wagons West!

Fiddlin' Sam Dengler

There Goes Lowell's Party - Hershenhorn

 

Montana:

Once We Had a Horse

 

Nebraska:

Dandelions

The Huckabuck Family

 

Nevada:

Tulip Sees America (covers several states)

Any books on desert life, particularly the Mojave,

would work for studying this state. Books on red

rock canyonlands would also work.

 

New Hampshire:

Ox Cart Man (or is this Vermont?)

Lucy's Summer

Sara Whitcher's Story

 

New Jersey:

The Colony of New Jersey

The 18 Penny Goose

 

New Mexico:

Josephina books

Spanish and Colonial Santa Fe (video)

Carlos and the Cornfield

Cowboy's Roundup on an American Ranch

Los Posadas: An Hispanic Christmas Celebration

Grandmother's Adobe House

 

New York:

My New York

How Pizza Came to Queens

Anna, Grandpa and the Big Storm

The Inside-Outside Book of New York City

Liberty

The Story of the Statue of Liberty

Joe and the Skyscraper

Under New York

 

North Carolina:

Back Home

My Great Aunt Arizona

Mountain Boy

The Colony of North Carolina

The Jack Tales

Grandfather's Land: We are Mountain People - Fitch

 

North Dakota:

River Friendly, River Wild – Kurtz

Thrashin' Time: Harvest Days in the Dakotas

 

Ohio:

Aurora Means Dawn

Lentil

(Warm as Wool may fit better here than previously stated state)

Flatboats on the Ohio: Westward Bound

 

Oklahoma:

I Have Heard of a Land

Angels in the Dust

They Came From the Bronx: How the Buffalo Were Saved

 

Oregon:

Oregon's Journey

Long Ago in Oregon

Roughing it on the Oregon Trail

 

Pennsylvania:

Just Plain Fancy

A Humble Life: Plain Poems

The Folks in the Valley

The Egg Tree

The Colony of Pennsylvania

Pioneer Church

Bewildered for Three Days

Punxatawney Phil

 

Rhode Island:

Finding Providence: The Story of Roger Williams

The Colony of Rhode Island

Loud and Crowing (Rhode Island Red roosters)

Roger Williams and Rhode Island (video)

 

South Carolina:

Carolina Shout!

The Colony of South Carolina

 

South Dakota:

Mount Rushmore (two titles)

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox - Bleeter

 

Tennessee:

Swamp Angel

Davy Crockett (Rabbit Ears, w/ tape)

Lucky with Potatoes (do they grow these in Tennessee?)

 

Texas:

Legend of the Bluebonnet

Beats Me, Claude

Armadillo Rodeo

Bluebonnet at Dinosaur Valley State Park

Bubba the Cowboy Prince

Susanna of the Alamo

The Inside-Outside Book of Texas

Armadillo from Amarillo

The West Texas Chili Monster

Jalepeno Hal

The Cowboy and the Black-eyed Pea

Fish Fry

Freedom's Gifts: A Juneteenth Story

Ganzy Remembers

Prairie Christmas

A Cowboy Named Ernestine

 

Utah:

Salt Lake City - Doubleday

Grandfather's Gold Watch

 

Vermont:

Least of All

The Wonderful Hay Tumble

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf

Snowflake Bentley

 

Virginia:

The Relatives Came

When the Whipoorwill Calls

One Christmas Dawn

Appalachia: Voices of Sleeping Birds

The Blue Hill Meadows

Night in the Country

This Year's Garden

 

Washington:

Island Time

A Horse's Tale

 

West Virginia:

When I was Young in the Mountains

In November

But I'll be Back Again

Scarecrow

Silver Packages

Waiting to Waltz

 

Wisconsin:

Giant Ball of String

Dance at Grandpa's

Christmas in the Big Woods

Winter Days in the Big Woods

The Deer in the Wood

Going to Town

Summertime in the Big Woods

 

Wyoming:

Tonweya and the Eagles - YellowRobe

Lakota Hoop Dancer - LeftHandBull

Iktomi and the Buzzard - Goble

Jack Creek Cowboy

Washington, D.C.:

Capitol: Washington, D.C. From A to Z

The White House

The Wall

Inside-Outside Book of Washington, D.C.

 

Puerto Rico:

The Outside Dog

Take a Trip to Puerto Rico

Sergio and the Hurricane

Abuelita's Paradise

 

Virgin Islands:

The Day the Hurricane Happened

Izzard

 

Pacific Territories:

U.S. Territories and Possessions

Pacific Islands

[tricia]

My girls love The Book of Marvels. I have to admit I've loved going over them too.

[deballen7]

There are the Holling C. Holling books of course!

[Little Nyssa]

The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder-- an "Okie" family arrives in California to pick fruit in the Depression.

[Twigs]

 

The Moon by Night - Madeleine L'Engle

 

[Guest zealth]

There are a lot of great resources here! I will definitely tap into these sometime in the future. For this particular class, I was hoping for more that integrated the place or region into the text, travelogue-style.

 

Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who has chimed in so far with all these great suggestions!:thumbup:

 

Gina

[6packofun]

First, here is a list of books by state (as the setting): http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/states.html

 

Second, here is a site that lists children's book awards granted by each state: http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/lit_resources/awards/stateawards.html

[EKS]

The Moon by Night - Madeleine L'Engle

 

Just a caution about this one. It is about a 14yo girl and a major part of the plot is about an older boy (at least driving age) chasing after her across the country. Minor teenage angst, a first kiss, and another man are also featured.

 

Anyway, you might want to preread.