Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with any of your picks (my first paragraph was more by the way of chagrin at my own severe lack of culture - incidentally, I haven't read Alcott either).

However, I think there's so much misinformation and outright lies in the mainstream about how the United States works (and therefore about its' recent history) that a book which gives a different (and dare I say, truer) perspective on these things is perhaps equally vital to developing young minds as our older cultural foundations.