Review of “Our America” Series historical fiction novels by Susan Kilbride

I have just finished reading 3 wonderful new historical fiction novels by Susan Kilbride in the Our America series!  These are definitely going on our History bookshelf, so we can read Living Books while studying American history!

The newest (third) historical chapter book, The Salem Adventure, just came out and to celebrate Amazon is giving away the Kindle version of the second book in the series, The King Philip’s War Adventure, for FREE at this link on July 15, 16, and 17, 2013!   

The second book:  The King Philip’s War Adventure

Let me tell you a bit about the books.  The main characters are twins Finn and Ginny whose uncle has created a time machine.  Their parents accidentally went back in time, but weren’t able to get back home , so Finn and Ginny keep going back in time to try to  find them.  In each book they have gone to a different historical event in America’s history–and in order!:  the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and their first year in America, the time of King Philip’s War (about 50 years after the Pilgrims), and in Salem during the Salem witch trials.

I really enjoyed reading these books!  They’re fairly easy reading and are for ages 10 and up (mostly because the content of war and death is a heavy subject).  One of the most fascinating aspects of the books are that Finn and Ginny meet their “real” relatives–who are actually the author’s real relatives!  (I’d love to find out if I have any ancestors from these time periods!)  The events that the twins interact with in the books are actual events.  Susan even includes copies of documents, like the Mayflower Compact, letters, and arrest warrants.

To see a full description of the series, go here!  And for you homeschoolers, there are also free pdf activities to go along with the books on this page of Susan Kilbride’s website Funtastic Unit Studies so you can make it a full unit study by doing enrichment activites: geneology, science, games, cooking, and crafts.

I’m looking forward to reading more books in the series, so I can continue to explore American history with Finn and Ginny (and Susan Kilbride’s ancestors)!

Be sure to get the free Kindle book today and you might also want to get the other books–at Amazon, CBD, or Rainbow Resource.

By the way, if you don’t have a Kindle, Amazon has free Kindle apps for various devices at this link: Kindle Apps.

Susan has also written a science book called Science Unit Studies for Homeschoolers and Teachers.  See my review of it here.