Carlos Menendez

Hey, fellow history nerds and reluctant parents/teachers — if you’ve ever wished your kid (or student… or spouse) would care about the past as much as they care about TikTok, I’ve got the ultimate hack: stop forcing dry textbooks on them and start sneaking history in through heart-wrenching, page-turning historical Continue Reading

**I wasn’t ready for Maus. Honestly, no one ever is.** A couple of months ago, I picked up Art Spiegelman’s Maus for the first time. I thought I knew what I was in for: “Oh, the famous Holocaust graphic novel with the mice and cats, right?” Yeah… I had no Continue Reading

Hey, I’m Carlos Menendez, still chasing that magic moment when a kid who “hates reading” suddenly can’t stop turning pages. That moment almost always happens with a graphic novel. Early on, I discovered something wild: give a reluctant reader a great graphic novel, and they’ll often circle back and tackle Continue Reading

Posted by Carlos Menendez November 25, 2025   I still remember the smell: old popcorn, cracked vinyl seats, and the faint cigarette smoke that drifted in from the lobby of the Orpheum Theater on Seventh and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. It was a Saturday in the fall of 1961, and Continue Reading

Emotional Engagement & Real Empathy   Facts alone don’t make us feel. Stories do, and historical fiction is the key. When a twelve-year-old reads about a child their age hiding in an attic in Amsterdam or deciding whether to run north on the Underground Railroad, something shifts inside them. They don’t Continue Reading

Fifteen years in Title I classrooms later, here are the historical fiction novels that never once let me down—five from the Revolution, five from the Civil War. These are the ones that shut up a room full of 5th and 6th graders who swore “history is boring” faster than Superman Continue Reading

Tired of your kids (or yourself) yawning through history lessons?   What if I told you there’s a cheat code that turns dusty dates and battles into heart-pounding, cry-on-the-last-page, stay-up-all-night stories?   Historical fiction is pure magic in the homeschool world. It sneaks real history into your brain through unforgettable characters you’ll Continue Reading

In a world drowning in screens, standardized tests, and bite-sized facts, most kids (and adults) are bored stiff by traditional history lessons. Dates, treaties, and “great men” march across the page like zombies—lifeless and quickly forgotten. But what if learning about the past felt more like binge-watching your favorite series Continue Reading

Imagine your child—or your student—closing a book with tears in their eyes because they just watched the fall of the Berlin Wall through the eyes of a teenage girl smuggling letters across Checkpoint Charlie. That emotional earthquake? That’s what historical fiction does better than any textbook ever could. For too Continue Reading