I do think young readers are naturally attuned to the processes you describe here, especially when they are engaged with a subject. I guess I should have been prepared, but as soon as I started telling kids at school visits I was writing a book about the Titanic, I realized a third of them already knew more than I ever will about the topic. They can cite statistics (and sources); they’re totally prepared to challenge an interpretation, debate a fact, and argue exactly about what someone said or didn’t say. Quote someone wrong and you’ll hear about it. They definitely want to know, “How do you know that?” (And this seems to be true for girls as well as boys.) They are thinking like historians. And I would guess many are doing this quite on their own, outside of class, following their own interests.

My son recently got instructions for a college paper which reminded students, “Wikipedia is not an academic source.” I think maybe young readers who have a passionate interest in something, whether it’s a disaster, baseball, airplanes, trains, dinosaurs, Civil War, WWII, or whatever) come to understand that instinctively, because they’ve gained practice weighing sources and thinking like historians. But they may not realize how to apply the same skills to other readings, just as Sam Wineburg demonstrates in his analysis of how a historian and an AP high school student approach a new text. That takes practice and encouragement — and the kind of books you describe here. But I think the rewards go beyond high school or college, and make learning and discovery a lifelong joy,