America’s Founding Myths by Christy Mihaly & Marta Sevilla

subtitled …And What REALLY Happened.

Forgive me for saying this in an incredibly brainrotted manner, but I highkenuinely feel that this book should be in every library accessible to American children. Preferably in physical format, for even as an adult, I did not have an easy time navigating the digital version. Regardless, this slender volume is so smart and informative, and vivid in its illustrations and design, that it definitely deserves to be widely available to young readers.

In this book, Christy Mihaly tackles some common myths about the United States of America’s early days. From the idea that the original colonists settled on uninhabited lands to the misconception that the unamended Constitution affirmed that all people should have basic equal rights, Ms Mihaly quietly dismantles all sorts of common fallacies about the USA’s beginnings. Not only does she present the multifaceted truth, she also examines how some of these fables came to be, whether it’s John Smith lying about his relationship to the far more famous Pocahontas for clout or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow taking a lot of poetic license when depicting Paul Revere’s ride (tho admittedly for far more high-minded reasons.) A lot of these untruths aren’t malicious, but the more widespread they become, the more likely their listeners are to believe tales of romance and heroism that are far removed from what actually happened. People love stories and we love mythologies, and many of us especially love black and white, hero vs villain narratives. Ms Mihaly gently corrects the record while acknowledging that her carefully researched and presented book might make a lot of readers uncomfortable in its commitment to the far less romantic truth.

Perhaps even more importantly than debunking some of these pervasive myths is Ms Mihaly’s accessible guide to skepticism and academic rigor, as she teaches young people to ask questions, consult experts and look for sources. She’s not encouraging kids to become recalcitrant truthers who don’t believe in science or expertise and who later go on to insist that the spurious facts they’ve dug up from questionable sources online are being suppressed by some media conspiracy of alien lizard people. On the contrary, she’s giving readers the skills they need to get to the truth. While she can’t instill a bullshit detector in every reader, she can show us how to weigh and research the stories we encounter, in order to see whether we’re being sold a bill of goods and why. Hopefully, this primer on how narrative has reshaped the truth of the USA’s origins will save more than one child from falling for the harmful propaganda that has cooked the brains of too many of their elders.

Marta Sevilla’s design choices and illustrations here are outstanding, melding a range of art styles to complement Ms Mihaly’s words in as impactful a manner as possible. The colors are bright and the lively imagery is sure to keep readers with low attention spans engaged. Highly recommended, if not downright necessary.

America’s Founding Myths by Christy Mihaly & Marta Sevilla was published May 26 2026 by Barefoot Books and is available from all good booksellers, including