Great Battles for Boys, fabulous non-fiction for ages 8 and up

But what about girls?, I can hear that being asked now. I’m casting a wide net that’ll describe a majority of boys, but not all boys. I’ll cast the same wide net and say that a series of emerging reader books on unicorns or kittens will be a big hit with girl readers in second grade. Whenever I teach ELA and I have to attribute one trait to a group there are always a couple who will say, “But, I….”, and yes, you might be the exception to that. Great Battles for Boys is a series of books that hits the reluctant reader boy on the head in an enjoyable and historical way.

But not all boys are reluctant readers, I can also hear that being asked now. Again, a wide net is being cast. However, if I were to gather a group of 100 middle school students who are reluctant readers, it’s a very safe bet that 90 of them will be boys. That was the author’s premise for the creation of Great Battles for Boys, a series of non-fiction books with a goal that anyone can agree with.

The series was created by Joe Giorello who grew up hearing lots of stories from his relatives about combat in Vietnam and WWII. The result is this series of books that examines history in a way that does not make it boring. Let’s revisit our hypothetical room of 100 students. If we were to query them who reads and enjoys reading non-fiction historical books that positive response rate would plummet to two or three if they were being honest.

In my years of substitute teaching and the hundreds of students that I’ve encountered, I can only remember two of them that enjoyed reading non-fiction books. One of them was a walking military history encyclopedia who was always keen to ask questions about this or that to see if I could add details. Most of the time I couldn’t, but with students like that it’s best to let them be the teacher and tell you, or the class about what they’re passionate about.

Yeah, getting elementary through middle school readers excited about history can be challenging. Great Battles for Boys has several different books that examine different conflicts that have happened in the world, as well as, one book, Ancients to Middle Ages that goes way back in time. The Civil War, Bunker Hill to WWI, WW2 Europe, WWI, and WW2 in the Pacific are just a couple of the ones in this eight-book series.

We’ve read a couple of them and each one of them has been gripping, tautly written, and age-appropriate. WW2 in the Pacific for example details many of the horrific battles or instances that happened. The Bataan Death March is something that I’d heard about, mainly through old movies, but knew nothing about. All I knew about Iwo Jima was that was the place where the famous image of the four United States Marines erected the flag into the ground. Wake Island I had never even heard about, despite it happening on December 8, 1941.

That was the day after Pearl Harbor, and Wake Island is a small island in the South Pacific. It’s an island that was within striking distance of Japan, and the United States had slowly been building up a presence there. The island also had one of the aircraft carriers there. It was delivering supplies there so that the 400 Marines and 1,000 construction personnel could build its infrastructure. All of that changed when the Japanese invaded the island in a battle that drew parallels to The Alamo.

Great Battles for Boys carefully walks the line between historical and entertaining, all the while not being graphic, too real, or delving into sensationalism. That’s very important given that the book’s key audience is intended to be boys aged eight and up. Most boys on the younger side of that scale will not be able to read the chapters without assistance. Our youngest who was 10 when we read two of the books with him was like that. In that instance, we read the chapters with him and then asked him questions so that his comprehension could be checked.

Most boys will be enthralled by the series, as will some girl readers. The common variable is that it’s non-fiction battles and the human drama of war. All of the vignettes in Great Battles for Boys can be read in one seating and the longest ones are eight pages long. The font is bigger than what most audiences are expecting for a non-fiction, historical book. There are also many pictures in each story which help drive home the seriousness of the text. It’s serious, but not dour and firmly on the side of education, which anyone can get behind.

Great Battles For Boys is a book series by Joe Giorello with Sibella Giorello in some books and Wheelhouse Publishing.

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