The Starving Time

Jamestown, Virginia. 1609.

The My America book The Starving Time incorporates the journal of a girl named Elizabeth, or Lizzie, as she faces the struggles of the colonial time period. Her friend, Jessie, and captain John Smith have just departed to return to England, and she is now facing life without them.

Elizabeth’s journals detail the struggles the settlers went through.
“November 7, 1609

I am very hungry today. All we have eaten for two days is a bit of hardtack and some cornmeal. This morning, the cornmeal was crunchy with bugs. I tried not to notice. But it was hard not to gag.”

Elizabeth’s journals not only detail the starvation that occurred, but the disease that ran rampant through the settlement.

“December 17, 1609

Everyone is sick! And sicker. It is sweeping over the whole fort. Papa brought word from the Dobsons. Mary is as sick as she can be. I wish I could go see her. But I cannot. I cannot even stand.”

The use of journals to tell a story is unique. It provides an opportunity for the author to teach about the history of the Jamestown colony from a first person perspective, and does so while incorporating well-known historical figures like Pocahontas and John Smith.

This form of historical fiction is almost written in autobiographical form. Although it is fictional, it is giving a potentially realistic account from somebody who lived in the era. I particularly like this type of fiction because of its multiple uses. It is essentially a reading and history lesson wrapped into one.

I think students will be much more responsive to texts like this than to social studies textbooks. While a history lesson or textbook reading will pass information to the student, a narrative such as the My America book series presents a story and incorporates the necessary information into the story. It is essentially a form of active learning.

This book, like most, if not all, historical fiction books, takes a historical setting and adds a narrative to create a new form of learning for the reader. It is a nice combination of fiction and nonfiction that makes the learning experience unique.