Many teenagers and even adults found themselves shocked after encountering Howard Zinn’s incredible work, A People’s History of the United States. In it, we discovered more about our history—its richness, its vastness, its horrors and triumphs—than we’d ever learned in American History class at school.

Though Zinn has sadly passed on, his wonderful works remain. One work that young people may be particularly interested in is A Young People’s History of the United States. The two volumes, now available in a single paperback edition, include a telling of America’s history fit for ages nine through twelve. Any well-rounded historian, teacher of history, and surely student would get rich education from Zinn’s book.

The views from people often excluded from traditional history books—including slaves, women, workers, immigrants, and Native Americans—are all included in this very important book. These people make up the backbone of America but are rarely heard from in most history books. Their stories, experiences, and opinions are important for both young and old people in understanding America’s complete history and formation. Why is America the way it is today? How did American people become who they are? People cannot provide a thorough answer to these questions without taking into account the actual voices and lives of America’s people from both its colonization as well as before.

Christopher Columbus, for example, is traditionally hailed as an American hero; many people, yours truly included, instead think of him as a violent oppressor, the father of slave trade and Native American genocide. Native Americans surely do not view him in the light that most Americans do—just as Jewish people would not view Hitler, who also demanded mass extermination, imprisonment, and land takeovers, in a positive light. Instead of being told the same story over and over again, we hear about Columbus’s arrival through the Arawak Indians rather than white settlers or Western historians.

From then on, we continue to hear about history through the experiences of people we normally have no recollection of—the women’s rights movement activists, the workers’ rights struggle and plight of the early American worker, the Civil Rights Movement and the people who made it happen. Though viewed by some as controversial and radical, Zinn’s educational book is nothing short of absolutely necessary; America’s history isn’t simply the stories of generals, but those of the people who struggled to make a life here for themselves and their families as so many continue to do today.