Books about Medieval Times: Review of AmblesideOnline Year 2

AmblesideOnline provides a great list of reads that I did with my 7 and 9 year old kids this year. I focus on all the wonderful historical fiction reads in this blog post: Best Fiction Books about Medieval Europe. This blog post is a review of the books specific to AmblesideOnline Year 2, which focuses on books about medieval times.

Just in case you’re going down the AmblesideOnline (AO) Year 2 booklist, I’ll mostly follow their order of listings. Check the list of blog posts at the bottom if you’d like to know the titles of all the chapter books we read this past year!

Book stack of Ambleside Online Year 2 books about medieval times

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Books about Medieval History

Our Island Story

Year 2 schedules the chapters of medieval British history. We really enjoyed the stories, and I read a few of them aloud to my older kids who were doing Y7 and reading medieval British history using Churchill’s Birth of Britain. I felt that the chapters in Our Island Story really complemented the deeper reading in Birth of Britain and, at times, gave a better overall summary.

This Country of Ours

We didn’t use This Country of Ours this year. It only has Chapter 1 scheduled at the beginning of the year, and Chapters 2-5 scheduled at the end of the year.

We didn’t bother reading Chapter 1 about VIkings because we spent a month reading a wide variety of books about Vikings. Then we stopped our history reads for the year in June, right before Chapter 2 about Columbus. We focused on Renaissance Italy during the summer months between Y2 and Y3. We plan to pick up This Country of Ours, the Annotated, Expanded, and Updated version, at the beginning of Year 3. I own both versions from the first time I read the book to my oldest twins, and the revised version is much better.

A Child’s History of the World (CHOW)

A friend asked me about this recently and honestly, I like Story of the World Volume 2 better. But the chapters in CHOW are short, so I just read them both. For this portion of history, I don’t think CHOW added very much to the rest of our reads. Of course, Story of the World Volume 2 is not on the AO booklist, I’ve just added that to our family history time. It is a part of My Father’s World: Rome to the Reformation, and we followed that schedule in our readings.

Trial and Triumph

I also skipped the Trial and Triumph medieval section with the exception of Charlemagne. I do intend to read the biographies in the next section along with next year’s historical time period of 1500-1700.

The Little Duke

My 7 and 9 year olds enjoyed this story very much. Richard, the “little duke,” becomes Duke of Normandy when his father is murdered. This is historical fiction with the beautiful themes of forgiveness and second chances. Richard, Duke of Normandy, lived from 943-996

Saladin: Noble Prince of Islam

Diane Stanley brings us to the battlefields of the Crusades. I appreciated the detail and perspective she provides through Saladin’s life. We usually only get the Western perspective, which is the story of King Richard the Lionhearted. Saladin lived from 1137 to 1193 and the story mainly tells of the 2nd and 3rd Crusades.

Robin Hood

This is listed under Literature but fits the historical time period. We began this book when we learned about King John in “Our Island Story,” who lived from 1199 to 1216.

Marco Polo

This is scheduled in AO Year 3, but I started it soon after we began Robin Hood. Marco Polo lived from 1254 to 1324. We followed his journey with “Marco Polo: HIstory’s Great Adventurer,” a large, interactive book with maps. The chapters are fairly short and well written. Genghis and Kublai Khan are included in my “Discover Mongolia” country study, which we also revisited at this time.

Joan of Arc

We enjoy all of Diane Stanley’s wordy, picture book biographies. I started this one when we came to Joan of Arc in “Our Island Story.” She lived from 1412 to 1431. I took about 2-3 weeks to read through this book.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

You might be wondering about this literature connection to history. While mostly a fun and nonsensical story, some of the characters are loosely based on historical figures during the War of the Roses, which took place from 1455 to 1487. This article explains more: “The Truth about Alice.” And when we read about all the chopping off of heads in “Our Island Story,” all the “off with their heads” comments in Alice in Wonderland began to make sense….

Chanticleer and the Fox

Before you buy this because you’re determined to buy all the books on the AO booklist, please note this is a picture book. You’ll likely read it once and then leave it on the shelf. Don’t ask me how I know. Best to find this one at your library, I don’t care if it is a retelling of Chaucer.

The Door in the Wall

This is from the Free Reading list. We did it on audiobook and it was delightful. A plague renders a boy helpless and lame. Attempting to reeunite with his parents, he takes on the trade of a woodworker, comes to terms with his disability, and is able to save the castle during a siege.

Geography

AmblesideOnline focuses on British history (and, later, American history), so I added in books about the Middle Ages in Asia, Pre-Columbian societies in Central and South America, books about Renaissance Italy, and picture books about the middle ages in Mali. We revisited portions of my geography studies that covered the middle ages: Mali, Japan, Mongolia, Korea, and Italy.

I also lean on the world studies spines presented in My Father’s World, which is a family style curriculum for its middle years for 2nd through 8th graders. We completed Creation to the Greeks last year, and this year we worked through Rome to the Reformation at the same time as AO Y2 and AO Y7.