Please help Heritage History people! I have questions about books.

Okay – I read a few random chapters from each book, trying to match the people/events up to see which I liked best. 

For the Japanese book, I think the Story of Japan by R. Van Bergen is the most readable (probably more comprehensive historically overall) as the stories are more developed and less “textbook” style details (not many details at all, more a summary statement) than it seems to read in Historical Tales. The Peeps book is very much that – a few glimpses of various events or people. Nothing really ties it together…although it would be interesting as an additional reading book alongside Story of Japan as you would make mental connections throughout.

For the Chinese set: I think that I would choose China’s Story by William E. Grffis over Story of China. Both are short enough that they had to pick and choose what bits of history to cover, but China’s Story flows better. I also felt that these books were written with at least a partial intent to help dispel misunderstandings and rascism that were so common in the time that they were written.

A note about Historical Tales – I am sure that they are very good, but they are included in the same book, so again I feel that they would be understood and enjoyed as additional reading after reading the more comprehensive histories so as to keep different people/events/countries straight in my mind.

Anyway, a less wordy response would simply be Story of Japan by R. VanBergen and China’s Story by William E. Griffis. 

Hope this helps. =)

I’ve got to figure out how to incorporate individual country’s histories over the years. I can’t do as much as I’d like each year, so I need to space them out (for example, Russia history sounds tempting, too). I think I’ll just add in China and JApan next year on the side, then keep picking from among the nations from there.

We’re in the same place. =)