Miss Trimble's Trapdoor Children's Book Review

Miss Trimble's Trapdoor Children's Book Review

Since their arrival in the mail, little Queenie One has claimed these books for her own. She immediately snatched them off my desk and said "Mommy read these to me." In fact I have had the books for almost 3 weeks now but getting a timely review up has been slow due to her desire to read them with me. She is 3 and a 1/2 and will sit through about 2-3 chapters worth before I tell her we have to stop. Not because she wants to but because my voice is giving out or because Queenie Two is clamoring for me to read her one of her books.

As a former teacher I had a great interest in reviewing these books, considering they were written by a former teacher. The school system I worked in was more interested in Test Scores and Reading and Literacy then they were in History so this often got pushed to the back burner. When History is taught, so much of it is one sided or wrong because it is someones opinion. A favored book at our house is "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James W. Loewen.  Miss Trimble's Trapdoor series is a refreshing read because it focuses on the facts of the events in history.

The Author of Miss Trimble's Trapdoor Series is Lori Jordan-Rice, a former Elementary School Teacher. "Disappointed by the historical illiteracy rate among American children today, Jordan-Rice was determined to provide a resource to help kids learn the fundamentals of U.S. history in an exciting and engaging way."  In my opinion Mrs. Jordan-Rice does an excellent job in achieving this. She got my three and a half year old interested in History and I can't even get her to follow simple directions most of the time.

In Miss Trimble's Trapdoor, the first book of the series, Mrs Jordan-Rice introduces Tyler Thompson to her readers. Tyler hates school, mainly because he doesn't fit in and always ends up looking stupid in front of his classmates whenever he does anything. One day when sent to his quiet area in the back of the room, Tyler falls through a trapdoor into the basement of the school. There he meets Barnabas Bailey, a talking dog who travels with Tyler into the past to learn about history in a closer and personal way.

The First book introduces the characters and gives a short synopsis on the next four books in the series. Each of the following four books (only one available right now) concentrate on a time period and what Tyler learns from the historical characters in that time period. These characters include Christopher Columbus, The Pilgrim's, The Founding Fathers, and Lewis and Clark.

We received the two books that are currently available: Miss Trimble's Trapdoor and Miss Trimble's Trapdoor: The Perseverance of Christopher Columbus. Little Queenie One was spell bound by the text and illustrations. I myself fell in love with their easy to read style. I was thrilled to see challenging but self explainable vocabulary and how easy it was to remember the historical events that happened along with the year in which they occured.

Miss Trimble's Trapdoor Website is also a great partner to the books with a note to parents and teachers section, links to history sites and a kids activity page. It is no wonder that these books won the Mom's Choice Awards Honor of Excellence and Indie Excellence Finalist and Winner Book Awards.

I encourage you to ask about these books at your local book store or visit Miss Trimbles Trapdoor website to learn more. 

Disclosure: I received a product sample  in order to enable my review. No other compensation has been received. My statements are an honest account of my experience with the brand. The opinions stated here are mine alone