A Living Book About Lapu-Lapu

Finally, we found a living book about Lapu-Lapu! When we started homeschooling two schoolyears ago and began planning our curriculum for Philippine History, we wanted to go through it in chronological order. We figured we’d start with alamat — then go pre-colonial — then the Spanish invasion — then the revolution — and so on.

For Year 1, we focused on Philippine Legends and mga alamat. There are a lot books and resources on these. The Philippines is rich on different stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. There are countless legends with countless versions; stories about fruits, about certain places like mountains and lakes, animals, and many more. For Year 2, we started our journey in pre-colonial Philippines. This is where our challenge of finding good books and resources started. We read books like First Around the Globe, Si Diwayen, Noong Bago Dumating ang mga Espanyol, Enrique El Negro, An Introduction to Philippine History, and Si Ambongan. Yes, all these are great books and the kids really enjoyed reading them, but we felt like we wanted to immerse them more in pre-colonial history. We specifically wanted to learn more about Lapu-Lapu. So, we finished all these books before the schoolyear ended. At the time, we couldn’t find more living books about this era so we decided to jump ahead to the early Spanish era and read books like Mother Ignacia and Si Segunda, Noong Panahon ng mga Espanyol during the latter part of the schoolyear.

Photo posted with daughter’s permission on the condition that we make it clear she is NOT a book.

Fast forward to today, the beginning of Year 3 (SY 2021-2022) — we already have our book list partially planned, still with the intention to focus on Philippine precolonial history. Our list is as follows: Manila My Manila by Nick Joaquin, Prehistoric Philippines by Ambeth R. Ocampo, The Other Philippine History Textbook 1 by Christine L. Diaz, Stories Rarely Told 2 by Augusto V. de Viana, Barangay by William Henry Scott, Filipino Prehistory by F. Landa Jocano, and Readings in Philippine History Honoracio de la Costa, S.J. These are all excellent resources by very well respected authors and historians. Then a book club mate mentions this book — Lapu-Lapu: The Bisayan by Sofronio B.Ursal. It is a historical fiction book that presents an imagined biography of Lapu-Lapu. It is fiction based heavily on historical facts and research by many other historians, very much like Enrique el Negro by Carla M. Pacis. We have it now and after pre-reading it we feel that this is a book the kids are going to enjoy, much like how they enjoyed reading Enrique el Negro and First Around the Globe. On top of that it references many other Philippine history books including some that are on our original book list. We are so happy to come across this book and very much looking forward to reading this with the kids.

List of aforementioned books with links:

Lapu-Lapu: The Bisayan by Sofronio B. Ursal

Philippine Legends

First Around the Globe by Reni Roxas and Marc Singer

Si Diwayen, Noong Bago Dumating ang mga Espanyol

Enrique El Negro by Carla M. Pacis

Si Ambongan

Manila My Manila by Nick Joaquin

Prehistoric Philippines by Ambeth R. Ocampo

The Other Philippine History Textbook 1 by Christine L. Diaz

Stories Rarely Told 2 by Augusto V. de Viana

Barangay by William Henry Scott