Lies My Teacher Told Me For Young Readers

Everything American History Textbooks Get Wrong

James W Loewen author Rebecca Stefoff editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:The New Press

Published:25th Apr '19

Should be back in stock very soon

Lies My Teacher Told Me For Young Readers cover

Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the most important and successful American history books of our time. Now Rebecca Stefoff turns Loewen's beloved work into Lies My Teacher Told Me for Young Readers. Beginning with pre-Columbian American history and then covering characters and events as diverse as Helen Keller, the first Thanksgiving, the My Lai massacre, 9/11, and the Iraq War, Loewen's lively, provocative telling of American history is a 'counter-textbook that retells the story of the American past' (The Nation). Readers will welcome and value its honesty, its humour, and its integrity.

Praise for Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition:

Named one of the "Ultimate Guidebooks for LBGTQ+ Youth in 2019" by the Advocate

"LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME: YOUNG READERS' EDITION is the perfect gift to help the young historian enthusiast get woke with the facts rather than a fictitious narrative."—The Advocate

"[The book] not only imparts vital history left out of textbooks, it also prepares the next generation to be critical readers of the media."
Rethinking Schools

"Evocative and thought-provoking, this is what history should be."
Booklist

"Accessible, eye-opening. . . . A cogent argument for studying historical nuances. [Loewen] argues that young people should not be deprived of hearing the incredible truth of American history in service to avoidance of controversy or blinkered, parochial nationalism."
Kirkus Reviews

"Powerful . . . it serves as a crucial counter-textbook to provide a more realistic and critical narrative about the American past."
Truthdig

"Here is a call to action that will have students furiously turning the pages and inspire them to question everything. Young people: Read this book, and then talk back to your history teacher!"
Jesse Hagopian, co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives and high school history teacher

"Lies My Teacher Told Me was a big inspiration to me as a young writer, and I’m excited to see this new young readers’ edition. Loewen’s fascinating book is full of little-known stories, debunked myths, provocative ideas—and, best of all, it challenges readers to think for themselves!"

—Steve Sheinkin, author of Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War


"The young readers' edition of James Loewen's classic text Lies My Teacher Told Me imparts vital history in a thoroughly engaging way. Countless teachers have tossed their textbooks aside after reading Lies My Teacher Told Me and now younger readers will be able to learn the truth about history, including race, land, the climate, foreign policy, political leadership and much, much more."
Deborah Menkart, executive director, Teaching for Change, and co-director, Zinn Education Project

"True stories—otherwise known as history—need to be told transparently, in all their messy, marvelous, multi-faceted glory. Loewen's Lies tells the truth to young readers, creating a new crop of critical thinkers and active citizens."
Tanya Lee Stone, NAACP Image Award winner and Sibert medalist

"James Loewen's book is a lively and trustworthy guide to what's wrong with the way we teach history, starting with the textbooks we ask our students to read in school. That students find him irresistible is not hard to explain. Loewen himself is forever young at heart: energetic, curious, skeptical, irreverent, and yet deeply idealistic. Artfully adapted for young readers by Rebecca Stefoff, the text has not been dumbed down one bit."
James Goodman, professor of history at Rutgers University, Newark, and Pulitzer Prize finalist


ISBN: 9781620974698

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

256 pages

Adapted edition