Let’s face it: Unless your child is naturally attracted to the subject, it’s not very easy to get kids interested in history. Hamilton certainly will get them in the spirit, but I hear tickets are not very easy to come by. What kids really need to engage them in the world-before-their-time is something relatable. This is one of the reasons I loved the Laura Ingles Wilder books as a kid. It was so interesting to me to hear how kids MY AGE lived in the pioneer days. I was fascinated by the chores they had to do, the foods they ate, and the cringe-worthy fashions they wore. In fact, reading about Laura’s life in the 1880s made me really appreciate growing up in the 1980s, even if the fashions we wore were a little cringe-worthy in their own right.
COBBLESTONE is one of my (and my kids’) favorite Cricket Media titles for exactly that reason. Each edition helps put our modern kids into the shoes of people in history – or a lack of shoes, depending on how far back in time the story is set. Discovering how children their own age learned, dressed, worked, ate, and even played is so much more interesting to kids than memorizing facts, names, and dates about an era they can barely imagine, let alone bring themselves to care about.
Speaking of a lack of Hamilton tickets, I know Andra Abramson, my Cricket blogger BFF, is currently obsessed with the musical, but since our Cricket blogger BFF relationship apparently only goes one way, she didn’t buy me tickets to go see it. However, she did point out that COBBLESTONE just featured Alexander Hamilton in their October 2016 issue. If your kids are as into Hamilton the Musical as mine are, they will love diving deeper into the story of Hamilton than the musical numbers of the Broadway show allow. If you’ve never considered Cobblestone before, this is definitely the one to start with. I’m guessing once you and your kids gets started discovering American History, none of you will want to miss an issue.
[Editor’s Note: Andra Abramson wants to point out that she hasn’t been able to score tickets to Hamilton herself so there is no way she can get any extras for Cricket Media Mama, no matter how hard she begs in her blogs.]
Cricket Media Mama is thankful for many things but after reading Little House on the Prairie, she was ever thankful that she didn’t have to blow up a pig’s bladder in order to play ball.
