Sometimes you just need a story to bring you into a particular historical setting. This is especially true for children, who like to have something familiar and relatable as an anchor when studying the past. Louise Vernon's historical novels aren't history, but they present historical figures, events and issues in a way young readers can comprehend.
Her subject is always Church history, and her heroes and heroines are children at the center of fascinating periods like the Reformation or the birth of Methodism in England. The narratives are balanced between traditional elements of fiction (action, character development, etc.) and the lives of famous Christian leaders, missionaries, and Reformers.
It's important that kids understand there's a human element to history, expecially the history of God's people, and these books communicate that truth masterfully. Vernon isn't the finest stylist, but her prose is easy to read, descriptive, and quite a bit better than plenty of the stuff kids are given to read these days. Who could object to fiction that provides examples for kids to imitate drawn from the lives of men like John Wesley, Johann Gutenberg, Martin Luther, and the Pilgrims?
Each book is slim and engaging, and would make an excellent supplement to any study of Church history, especially the period of the Reformation. Don't substitute these in place of a more thorough course or survey, but your kids will likely learn to love the topic quickly if they get a chance to experience some of its more intriguing moments from the perspective of children who might have been there.