I just had another nice conversation with a customer who ordered the full set of Chester books. There are many ways to buy Chester the Crab’s history adventures, but buying one of each of the printed titles is a consistent favorite. It does provoke a question: what is the correct order for reading the 30 Chester Comix?
The business of selling Chester books is in its 18th year; the sales were slow in the first years when I had just 10 titles, but things took off once I had published enough books to sell them as a “set” — a large number of books that covered most of American history. The full set feels like a great birthday or holiday gift to a young reader. When the business began in 2003, the book format was set so that each book was affordable and easy to get into the hands of a reluctant reader — so even the full set of 30 books remains very affordable for all the reading time it provides. I haven’t raised my book prices in a decade.
The book format was also set to take advantage of the way I had already created these stories for the Daily Press newspaper in Virginia: as a 5-part story. The books I sell today usually have four chapters, each one a 5-part story. I’ve collected the four chapters around certain themes, but when I originally drew these stories, I was thinking only 5 pages at a time, not 24 pages at a time. So my series of Chester Comix books was never planned from a blank slate to march through each century at the same pace. You can get that in a textbook. Across all the Chester titles, you’ll see some events mentioned in two or three different books if the event is important enough!
So what does a family do with this overlap? If you really want a chronological march, please see my order form on this site. That PDF winds generally from oldest history to newest as you look at it from top to bottom. (And you can see the “gift set” highlighted with the black box and black arrow on the right of the order form.)
But I’d rather have parents and teachers ask the young readers how THEY would order the titles! Make it a puzzle. Lay all the books on a table and see if the young person can notice similarities just from the titles and cover images. . .
Can you group all the Civil War history together? (I’d say there are 5 such titles, and they’re also highlighted on the order form in a little vertical bar on the left side of the order grid: Slavery’s Storm, Honest Abe, Civil War vol. 1, Civil War vol. 2, Civil War Confederate Leaders)
What books are about transportation? (I see 2: Lewis and Clark and Moving and Grooving)
Which books are collections of biographies — the life story of a person? (I’d say 7: Washington Leads the Way, Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, Heroic Folk, Honest Abe, Wonder Women and Vital Virginians)
Which books take place before the American Revolution created a modern nation? (3: The First Americans, Exploring the Americas and Jamestown Journey)
Which books would be good to read during Black History Month? (I suggest 7: Heroic Folk, Slavery’s Storm, Honest Abe, Reconstruction Junction, Wonder Women, Civil Rights Freedom Train and Vital Virginians)
Maybe you can find other pairings with your young person! Pairing the World War I and World War II books should be easy, but there are many other possibilities. It’s a big set of books — and I’m working on another one right now about the Cold War. The good news for me is that I’ll never run out of stories to tell. We make new history every day!
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2021 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Author's Purpose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
