My family was recently given the opportunity to review a wonderful DVD from Essence of History. It is called Filling the Gap: Forgotten Chapter of American History, and can be found at http://essenceofhistory.com, where you will find purchasing options, including a personal use DVD for $20.00. This DVD is filmed in a docudrama style, with actors re-enacting people in the various time periods as they lived through important historical events in the United States. It covers slavery all the way up to the first black man to ever be elected to the office of the President.

This DVD can be used for home schools as we did, but certainly not exclusively. I would highly recommend that it be shown in schools as well. I would not necessarily put any grade level or age range on learning from this product. In our home school, we have special needs children, and though their ages range from sixteen to age twenty-five, their abilities and cognitive skills range considerably lower. My children and I learned a great deal while viewing this production.

We viewed Filling the Gap: Forgotten Chapter of History in the course of our home schooling day. I wanted to have the opportunity to review this DVD because two of my sons are biracial, having been adopted at the age of eight. I felt it was very important for them, and for their brothers, to see and hear this history. I had intended to play perhaps a chapter each day; however it was so interesting that we kept forgetting to stop the DVD at the end of each chapter, and ended up watching the entire thing in one day! The between-chapter narrations by Director Tyrone Young easily moved us from segment to segment, and the portrayals of key historical figures were dead-on, in my opinion. I did pause often so that we could discuss parts of the history. While there was plenty of historical information that I had learned as a girl, there were things I learned while watching as well. While my kids did know some of this history because we have made it a point to include it in their daily life, again there was new information we had not gotten to as yet. We very much enjoyed this production, with the only con being that we were disappointed when it was over, and every single one of us wished it were longer.

I highly recommend this product, and not just for home schools. I would suggest it for schools, and even for parents to have in their homes. This is a wonderful resource for all families to learn about chapters in our history that should be taught and remembered. I would absolutely purchase it, if we did not already own it,

-Product review by Lori Moffit, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, March, 2018