There are a lot of history lovers in our house, and while most of the books are great for the older crew, the younger crew still wants to be involved in a good book. Solomon Schmidt did just this when he wrote the U.S. History Bites collection that so far includes U.S. History Bites and U.S. Presidential History Bites. My 8-year-old fell in love instantly, and so did Dad!

We had the chance to look at both books for this review. The author, Solomon Schmidt is a kid, yes, a kid! He wrote these books for kids using words that kids can understand, yet still adding in all the facts that need to be included when it comes to learning about our history and our presidents. This made it easy for the kids to read and understand!

U.S. History Bites covers 30 topics from American History. These start with Christopher Columbus and Exploration and end with The New Millennium, covering everything in-between like The American Revolution, The Trail of Tears, both World Wars and even The Cuban Missile Crisis and Watergate! All the main topics of American History that every American needs to know about!

Each topic is only about two pages in length, so short and sweet, yet informative. Following the pages of information, you will find Review Bites. This section includes the vocabulary from the section, a fun fact and some simple review questions. These questions are easy to answer, and the answers are listed at the bottom of the page. This was the time when I would quiz my son on what he read and having him able to answer these questions made both of us happy.

The U.S. Presidential History Bites in the same setup as the original U.S. History Bites. This one book has all the presidents from Washington to Trump listed in it! This was a surprise to me, but one I loved to see! The difference with this one is that I noticed four pages instead of two full of reading and facts. We also had some good pictures to go with each president.

Each one of the presidents was followed with the same vocabulary, fun fact, and review questions. These were once again easy to answer and yet full of information. I knew that my son had learned something when he was able to answer the questions without hesitation.

Both books were written with a kid in mind, considering they were written by a kid! Solomon was 12 and 13 when he wrote these books. This impresses me. Yet, how better to reach a kid then having a kid write for them. Everything from the style of the words, the font and the pictures, draw the kids in to the books. They are not bored and do not feel like a history lesson, yet I can pull them off as history lessons with no problem.

I am so glad that we found books that appeal to the kids and that deal with history in this way. I am impatiently waiting for Solomon to write more books! If he does, I want to add them all to our shelf and into the hands of my kids! These books need to be on the shelves of every American that has kids in the house. Every kid should have access to these books, and the information they give to us!

-Product review by Amanda Hopkins, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, October, 2017