When the National Spelling Bee recommends a book, I take it seriously. They know good vocabulary and plots. Therefore, I want to be right there with my children, learning, learning, learning. So when the Bee people said, “Read these three historical fiction titles,” I paid attention.
Eight of the 13 books we read in this series
Amazingly, my local library actually owned one of the three titles, “See You Later, Gladiator.” We read it, laughed a lot, and realized this is a part of a book series called The Time Warp Trio. Three middle school students, all boys, travel through time and space, encountering different adventures.
They go from Ancient Rome to Ancient Egypt, to Ancient Greece, to the year 2095, to Leonardo da Vinci’s time, to the Wild West, and everywhere in between. We borrowed all the copies from our library, all 13 of them, and read them all. The series has 17 titles, if I am not mistaken.
The books will make you laugh. They serve up a lot of good vocabulary and concepts. The kids are learning social studies and solidifying their knowledge of world history and geography, science and art. I am learning new things, too.
Full Disclosure
For your information, there is a bit of bad language in the books. We talked about why we do not talk that way. Our son has read the books to himself several times. He still sits with us as I read them out loud to his sister. She prefers I read them to her and I don’t mind, as I need to read them anyway. When I read them, I just skip those bad words.
Also, we talked about the dynamics between characters. The three boys in the stories tease each other a lot and their sarcastic remarks go a bit too far at times. We discuss how this is not a helpful attitude or a good way to solve problems. Instead of sheltering our children 100% from everything that is out there, showing them why we do not do what others choose to do will help them make better decisions in the future.
I always appreciate book recommendations for the family or for myself, and especially now, at the beginning of the summer season. We will check these out. Thanks for the heads up on the language. Bonne continuation!
Glad to be of service. Good to hear from you.
These book sound great possibly something I’d like to buy for my children. I’m just curious about the bad language – are they swear words or words like “stupid” and “idiot”?
– Lavinia
Not really bad swear words, but I think “heck” and “dang” or “darn” etc. Also, some play on words, e.g. Leif Ericsson’s minstrel was called Bullshik and another one was called Fullofit. An Aztec high priest is called KakaPoopAhead, another character is OhWottAButt. 🙂 A great opportunity to enlarge your children’s vocabulary and teach them why we do not use those words. Some characters use language more than others because it is part of their personality.