Maura (maura853) -
I used this beautiful book for homeschooling history lessons with my granddaughter during lockdown. It's very nicely done, and Granddaughter (aged 7) enjoyed it very much.
Strikingly beautiful drawn illustrations, and authentic visual resources.
I really liked the diversity: clearly a lot of thought went into making the 40 children featured as geographically, ethnically and socially diverse as possible. My granddaughter decided to mark a map with the location of each child (history and geography!), and although there was a noticeable cluster in Europe by the end of our lessons, there was a satisfying spread over every continent -- except Antarctica.
There are interesting context-setting chapters on general topics, such as food, toys, clothing, and others on big events, such as the Reformation, The World Wars and the American civil War, that would have affected the lives of some of the featured children. All of the chapters are well written; pitching the content with an appropriate tone for a younger child means that sometimes there are some .... "euphemisms," shall we say. The horrors of history can be a little soft-pedalled. For Teresa, a child living in Barcelona at the time of the Black Death, Wilkinson writes
"... Many of their friends have caught the disease ..." Well, yes, I imagine so ...
Amusingly, while we've been using the book, my granddaughter has discovered the "Horrible Histories" series (book and TV), which take exactly the opposite tack, revelling in the blood, guts and disgustingness -- and she loves it ...
We can always find things to quibble over about the children featured. Less, for me, the fictional ones (although I felt there were a couple of missed opportunities) as the 9 historical individuals -- some of them seem exactly right: Tutankhamen, who became Pharaoh a the age of 9, Pocahontas, whose famous encounter with John Smith might have happened when she was about 12 years old. I can see why Emperor Pedro II of Brazil made the cut, because he inherited his throne at the tragically young age of 5, and seems to have had a horrible childhood, at the mercy of ghastly guardians -- but Marie Antoinette?
But those are quibbles. This is a book that a child with an interest in history will delight to go over again and again, and perhaps even find more detail as their interest in history matures.
Strikingly beautiful drawn illustrations, and authentic visual resources.
I really liked the diversity: clearly a lot of thought went into making the 40 children featured as geographically, ethnically and socially diverse as possible. My granddaughter decided to mark a map with the location of each child (history and geography!), and although there was a noticeable cluster in Europe by the end of our lessons, there was a satisfying spread over every continent -- except Antarctica.
There are interesting context-setting chapters on general topics, such as food, toys, clothing, and others on big events, such as the Reformation, The World Wars and the American civil War, that would have affected the lives of some of the featured children. All of the chapters are well written; pitching the content with an appropriate tone for a younger child means that sometimes there are some .... "euphemisms," shall we say. The horrors of history can be a little soft-pedalled. For Teresa, a child living in Barcelona at the time of the Black Death, Wilkinson writes
"... Many of their friends have caught the disease ..." Well, yes, I imagine so ...
Amusingly, while we've been using the book, my granddaughter has discovered the "Horrible Histories" series (book and TV), which take exactly the opposite tack, revelling in the blood, guts and disgustingness -- and she loves it ...
We can always find things to quibble over about the children featured. Less, for me, the fictional ones (although I felt there were a couple of missed opportunities) as the 9 historical individuals -- some of them seem exactly right: Tutankhamen, who became Pharaoh a the age of 9, Pocahontas, whose famous encounter with John Smith might have happened when she was about 12 years old. I can see why Emperor Pedro II of Brazil made the cut, because he inherited his throne at the tragically young age of 5, and seems to have had a horrible childhood, at the mercy of ghastly guardians -- but Marie Antoinette?
But those are quibbles. This is a book that a child with an interest in history will delight to go over again and again, and perhaps even find more detail as their interest in history matures.
