Are Children Reading the Wrong Books in School?

Last week my 12 year-old stepdaughter asked me to help her pick out a historical fiction book for a school assignment. I helped her find a few options, but it wasn’t easy. Historical fiction has quite a broad definition. Many novels are set during important moments in history and could be classified as historical fiction, while others are heavily-researched, fictionalized accounts of real events. So The March, by E.L. Doctorow, or Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell—two very different books—are technically both historical fiction about the Civil War.