Childhood of Famous Americans series, bought along with a set of encyclopedia in 1953 or 54.
There were ten about women (blue), and ten about men (red). They certainly are not heavy on history, but give a reasonable flavor of what it was like to be a child in a particular kind of family in a particular time and place. They are at a pretty elementary reading level.
I know I read Sacajawea, Jane Addams, Martha Washington, Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, and Benjamin Franklin many times over.
After I finished the first twenty, I went to the library and borrowed as many others as I could find.
Mother would drop me off at the Wilmington library after dance class, and drive around the block once or twice while I went in and snatched up however many I was allowed to take out at a time.
I suspect that I was reading these long after I could have been taking on more challenging books. However, by third grade or so, I had heard of a lot of people that I wouldn't have otherwise.
Recently, at a 6th grade exhibit where the kids each had to represent someone famous, I was able to impress (or maybe embarrass) a few people by asking the boy who was being Thomas Edison, "Do I need to talk louder? You are hard of hearing, aren't you?" I knew that from reading his biography in this series over 50 years ago!
These books have not been interesting to either my children or my grandchildren. I think they have to be encountered at just the right time or they seem kind of silly.
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