Because the history textbooks found in American schools today have been so excised of controversial content and so stripped of social conflict as to be rendered values neutral, and utterly useless for promoting meaningful ethics-rich discussion. Conforming to long lists of banned words and the perceived need to provide “equality” to every conceivable group, or event, has led to the creation of enormous encyclopedic tomes, with little or no narrative excitement or recognizable thematic purpose. In the end, this has become a millstone for teachers trying to interest and engage young minds in the study of history. Today, more than ever, it is necessary for teachers to supplement their classes constantly with compelling inputs or risk losing students to the mind-deadening drudgery of bland textbook reading.
We believe historical fiction can add a wonderful dimension to any high school history program. A good historical novel skillfully fuses interesting roles and a powerful plot with an accurately portrayed social and political historical setting. The mood of the time is made clearly central to an understanding of the events, conflicts and struggles that make up the story and this adds color and excitement to the student’s picture of the past, which is, unfortunately, too often deadly dull .
The students begin to see history in real human terms, as the stuff of common people confronted with extraordinary challenges and this helps them sort out the significant from the superficial. A good, pedagogically useful historical novel weaves its fiction around and between the real public figures and events of a past era, but is not directly about them. Its drama is of ordinary individuals whose lives are battered and buffeted by the colossal events of their time. The students identify with these people, who are men and women very much like them, their friends and families, and whose hopes, fears and dreams are no different from their own. In this way, they experience, in understandable everyday terms, the drama of real human dilemmas. Good historical fiction can capture the imagination of students, as no textbook ever can, and motivate them to want to learn more.