Decision for 5th grade Social Studies

I have been in a quandry over social studies for C next year. I ordered Abeka's Old World History/Geography. I have all the components for it sitting on the bookshelf. I wanted to look something up, so referred to this text. Nothing was in the book at all about this country. (Afghanistan) Puzzled, I randomly selected other middle eastern, and SW Asian countries in the index. Many were not mentioned, and of the ones that were, the mention was only a tiny blurb, lumping such-and-such a country in with other countries in that region.

I don't care whether you are Christian, Jewish, or secular; I haven't heard of one person that disagrees where civilization began, and it began in the middle eastern regions, and spread to northern Africa, and SW Asia. Out of curiousity I checked out all the maps in the book's atlas. Believe it or not I found at least 3 countries missing on these maps. Right smack-dab in the middle of one map was a big, green space, unlabeled...again...Afghanistan. I wonder if this changed after 9-11-01? Even so, I would think that would make this country even more important to learn about, as opposed to pretending it doesn't exist.

This---in a reputable private and homeschooling curriculum---a company among the tops in hundreds of companies producing schoolbooks! In a book specializing in a continent by continent study comparing Ancient History to Modern history of same regions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that region pretty important both in the past, and currently?

I've read several fictional and nonfiction books that take place in this area. I have a fondness for biographies and "documentary-type" books. I feel, especially with the current world climate, that the middle east, and the SW Asian countries are important to learn about, and educate our children about.

I don't want to bad-mouth this company (as if this blog has so many readers I wcould single-handedly shut it down), but I just feel, after spending $100 on their History alone, that they don't do justice to the time period and areas this text was supposed to cover. (Just so anyone reading this knows...Abeka has the greatest science texts ever. Amazing, meaty, and very accurate.) But their history is another story. I spent much of this year supplementing American History. I realize you can't cover in detail every, single aspect of history in one elementary book, but I felt they could have added much more to the text this year, too. We didn't start U.S. History/Geography until a month after our school year began, and here it is March, and we are almost finished with it. This is WITH all my add-ons of assigned reading, read-alouds, and additional research online, and we still have the book almost finished in a total of less than 6 months. I had to add on extra reading, or my daughter wouldn't have much of an idea about U.S. History. She would have a very basic sketch, but nothing in-depth.

So...considering all of the above, I opted to find something else for 5th grade social studies. Check in at a later time to find out my solution. (Gotcha on the edge of your seats, now, haven't I?)

: )