What if you could learn history the same way the people who lived through it learned about it at the time it was unfolding? While that is not exactly possible, here are two new books designed with that concept in mind.
During World War Two, how did school-aged youth learn about the people, events, and other war-related information? Since the events of wartime America were in-the-making, they could not learn about it in a textbook. Instead, they were getting their news and information from newspapers, radio, magazine articles, newsreels, as well as first-hand accounts from family and friends involved in the war effort. Popular culture played a huge role in informing a young audience about the war through movies, radio programs, books and magazines, and…even comic books.
The Records of History World War Two Series is designed to discover information about the war through the same windows of information and learning that was readily accessible to the contemporary juvenile reader of the early 1940s – especially, the wartime comic books. The first two titles in the series, “Forgotten Heroes” and “The Homefront,” are now available on Amazon. Each book offers puzzles and activities based on source material produced during the war years, vintage story reprints, and in addition, some opportunities for input based on your family’s stories.
Recent movies (e.g., Dunquerque, Midway, Churchill, Wonder Woman, Captain America: The First Avenger) reminded us of some WW2 heroes – both fictional and real. Our personal lists of real heroes include those fathers, grandfathers, and other family members who fought in the war. Most of them never became famous, but their patriotic service and devotion to duty deserves to be remembered – especially, and at least, by their own families! “Forgotten Heroes” reminds us that while many then-famous, fictional heroes were later forgotten in the public arena, it is up to us to make sure that in our own family’s shared memories, our family’s WW2 heroes are not “forgotten heroes.”
“The Homefront” surveys many aspects of life on the home front. For most Americans, life during the war involved sacrifices: shortages, acts of community service, air raid preparations, rationing, and, if nothing else, a variety of inconveniences. Rationing, scrap and salvage collection drives, and victory gardens, are among the topics included in this look at life on the home front during the war years.
If you want a fresh way of learning (or reviewing) America’s wartime experiences, this series offers exactly that. You can check them out at Amazon.com now.
MATTHEW McKENZIE 