Review: YWAM Publishing

My eight-year-old, Sidge, reading to his favorite doggie: Ritter (who seemed to prefer belly rubs to Benjamin Franklin :)

Another day -- and another great book to review and share with you on my Blog! This time it is from YWAM Publishing. There were several books available from their Heroes of History series. We chose to review the book entitled: Heroes of History: Benjamin Franklin.

While the book is outstanding, the Study Guide is just as impressive. And honestly, I'd argue even more impressive. It is what truly puts this book over the top for us. This book came with a fantastic study guide that we could use as we worked through it. The Study Guide was a download. You can see the Study Guides listed here. The Study Guide features over 80 pages of additional materials that can help your students enrich their learning.

Features of the Study Guide include:

• Key Quotes
• Reinforcement of other areas of learning including:
• History
• Geography
• Essay writing
• Creative writing
• Reading comprehension
• Public speaking
• Drama
• Art
• Social studies which is divided into five sections:
• Places
• Journey
• Terms/Vocabulary
• Geographical Characteristics
• Timeline
• Conceptual Questions
• Display options: things that they could "collect" to emphasize the era and location that this story originates from.
• Books and resources
• Community links: ideas for contacting people in your community that could help enrich learning of this book.
• Student explorations which include things like: 
• Essay questions
• Creative writing
• Hands-on projects
• Audio/visual projects
• Arts and crafts.
• Related themes to explore
• Six questions related to each chapter which include:
• A vocabulary question
• A factual question
• Two questions to gauge comprehension
• Two open-ended questions seeking opinion or interpretation
• Answers to the questions
• And more!!!!

I decided to read this book out loud to my kids. My boys (ages 8 and 9) were the primary audience. I do think that they would be able to read this book on their own, but it is probably borderline for their age group to read independently. My daughters (ages 3 and almost 6) also listened and often followed along -- although their attention span didn't work quite as well.

The book chronicles Benjamin Franklin from a young boy up to the day of his death. I truly felt like the book was entertaining -- it was funny, it was serious, it was truthful, and it was free from errors. My kids looked forward to listening to me read it to them each afternoon. It is a fun read. It's a soft cover book chocked full of facts. In addition it is written well and in a story format that truly makes it a joy to read. It is not boring and does not feel like a textbook. It reads like a novel!

And a bonus: I am learning as much as the kids!

You can find out more about this awesome company and all the fantastic books in this series on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on their Blog.