Cay Gibson's "Children's Hour" 12-Month Historical Timeline

Cay Gibson wrote A PICTURE PERFECT CHILDHOOD in 2007, but it just fell into my hands -- 7 years later! I am loving her book about engaging children, teens, and adults with books so much that I'm going to have to buy my own copy. As a veteran children's librarian I know how quickly books go "out-of-print". In this post I want to capture her suggestions for a year-long course of family time travel through picture books.
I like her map, as it were, which embraces
 Art, Music, Poetry,
 Science/Nature,
 Language Arts, Shakespeare,
 Math, Geography,
 Fairy Tale/Myth/Tall Tale.

I may bale out at any point along the way if this begins feeling too tedious or becomes an exercise in futility. The danger of suggesting titles is that they become unavailable. Much better to share skills on how to forage about in the current universe of books for what you can use in the now.

Her list seems to be calendar driven, meaning she selected topics where the subjects were born in January.
Rachel DeMille follows this approach in her "This Week In History" program which is available on-line for a modest monthly fee. Here's a link: http://www.tjed.org/twih/reviews/  The History Channel is a great on-line source: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history  Here's another: http://www.on-this-day.com/  And another: http://www.historyorb.com/today/

Okay, my feeble attempt at cutting and pasting images of the book covers here isn't working out. I'll simply list her topics for January and you can do the footwork. JANUARY

• Louis Braille (born Jan. 4, 1809)
• The Battle of New Orleans (Jan. 8)
• Blizzard of 1888 NYC (Jan.12)
• Jose Limon (born Jan. 12)
• Martin Luther King Jr. (born Jan. 15)
• Ben Franklin (born Jan. 17)
• The Brontes (Ann born Jan. 17)
• Mack Sennet (filmaker, born Jan. 17)
• Lighthouses (event Jan. 1856)
• Julia Morgan (born Jan. 20)
• Mozart (born Jan. 27)
• Jackson Pollock (born Jan. 28)
• FDR (born Jan. 30
• Football (Super Bowl)

Art: Marc Chagall  Music: Mozart  Poetry: Robert Frost  Science/Nature: George Washington Carver  Language Arts: the use of commas  Shakespeare: 12th Night  Math: 100  Geography: Maps  Fairy Tales: Tattercoats & The Little Match Girl  Myth: The Trojan Horse  Tall Tale: Pecos Bill

My father's birthday is in January, so I think I would plug in for J. to learn about some of the historical events my father lived through and learn about places he's visited and learn about his career choice.

The beauty of any course of study is that it can be created around personal interests, experiences, and sense of mission.  This is simply one suggested approach.