The Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party (Graphic History)is another entry in the Graphic history series. For those interested all these books have come from the library and I have no connection with the publisher. I am interested in finding accurate and age appropriate history books to share with others. The publisher of this series has taken on a wide range of topics and I am curious to see if quality is as important as quantity, which is one of the reasons I have chosen to keep previewing the series. I am also interested in locating texts for specific topics.

Matt Doeden takes on the task of creating a graphic history that covers the time period of the Boston Tea Party. Many children's authors gloss over the details that created the conflict over the tea. Doeden does an excellent job in explaining the time line and the political issues involved with why the tea was being taxed, the deadlines for the tea to be unloaded, and the consequences of not unloading the tea. This sets the stage for why the colonists acted when they did, which is something many textbooks I have used with children are rather vague in explaining.

Doeden gives a detailed account of the actions of the colonists during the Boston Tea Party and gives one of the few explanations I have read in children’s books for the Native American costumes. The colonists did not expect to be mistaken for Indians; they only hoped not to be identified later for prosecution.

As with most of the books in this series, there is a hasty summary after the book discusses its main points. This is a weakness of the series. In many respects, the remaining time would be better spent discussing the books main topic leaving readers to visit other books to find out more about what happened next.