Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111330 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 350 pages

Customer Reviews

An excellent starting point for history
This book is brilliantly written in a direct and child friendly way. It is written in the 'voice' of a story teller, asking the children for their points of view throughout. It assumes you are reading to your child/grandchild and interacting. This book is aimed at children between the ages of five and nine and so don't be put off by the advanced nature of the subject (including Sumerians and other cultures not well served by children's books usually). Although, having studied history of art at university, after only covering sciences at school, I would have loved this book to give me the background in history which I pretended to have.
There is an accompanying activity book which has maps, puzzles, plenty of colouring, some fantastic activities (such as mummyfying a chicken), and some excellent book refernces to take the child's interest further. It is worth buying if you are home educating or have a long summer holiday.
This book would be wonderful as a stand alone book for children who are missing out on the pleasure of history at school. Unlike the 'Horrible Histories' which people give their children to try and make history fun, try this book which gives children a geniuine pleasure in 'real' history.

All the bits that primary schools miss.
I am home educating my children and first learned of this book through 'Well Trained Mind". It is designed for use with children aged about 6 (American first grade). The book is a chronological, narrative account of History from the first nomads through to the last Roman emporer. There are a few black and white line illustrations - so not exactly Dorling Kindersley and there are lots of questions contained in the narrative so that it sounds a bit like a Witness study text but apart from that is very engaging and makes sense of the rather fragmentary history studied in UK primary schools. The book is supposed to be used as the basis for a history curriculum supported by other texts (Kingfisher, Usborne), blackline maps and an activity book. Many of my peers have complained to me that they have an incomplete picture of the chronology of history. With this book you can learn (along with your child) how all the pieces fit together.

History at it's best
I am home schooling and bought this book 6 months ago to teach history to my 6 year old. I have not been disappointed. He has really enjoyed learning about the Egyptians and how much a part the River Nile played in their initial survival. I would recommend buying the activity book that is used alongside this as we have enjoyed making scrolls, writing hieroglyphs, making pyramid models and a makeshift river nile in the garden. I don't think I would have come up with these ideas on my own! The two definitely go hand in hand. The activity book is "The Story of the World: Ancient Times Bk. 1 [Paperback] by Wise, Bauer S". It took me a while to decide from the amazon search results which one it was as it's not labelled as an activity book.