The Imagination Station series of books comes from Focus on the Family. They feature cousins, Beth and Patrick, and their travels through time on various quests via the Imagination Station. In the first book, they travel back to meet Erik the Red and his son Leif, experiencing a taste of Viking life as they search for the elusive 'sunstone'.
The story links in a bit of real Viking history, together with a Christian theme which is woven through the story, but fairly subtly done. The language and storyline is engaging and there are a few black and white illustrations scattered among the pages.
I have enjoyed reading this first book to my 6-year-old at bedtime. The 14 chapters are not too long, and each one is entertaining in itself, with a little cliffhanger at the end. The typeface is quite large, and a fairly confident independent reader could probably manage to get to the end with little trouble.
At the end of each book is a little section of reflections and activities, and accompanying the book series is a website (which you can find here) with additional resources for each book. These little books would make great additions to a historical study you already have planned, but I think we will use them as starting points, adding activities and day trips to build on what we are reading about.
We bought a pack of the first six books, so now we've finished in the lands of the Vikings, we have the Romans, ancient China, the battle between David and Goliath, medieval England, and the Pilgrim Fathers to look forward to.
I've been looking for a while for some books to read to my son that will be entertaining in themselves and also spark an interest in history, and these fit the bill perfectly.
