Product Description

These are the stories of Britain's past that children in England, Scotland and Wales used to grow up on. Often discredited, in many cases virtually forgotten, they are nonetheless wonderful tales that will give present-day children a sense of the excitement of history. King Canute, Lady Godiva, Guy Fawkes, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Grace Darling and other famous names live again in these 100 tragic, comic, stirring tales of adventure, folly and wickedness. Spanning nearly three thousand years, and including stories as up-to-date as Live Aid and the Braer Oil Tanker disaster, each story includes a note on what really happened, and there is an index and a list of further reading. This is a unique book with a very wide appeal. It is not a history textbook, simply a collection of stories by a consummate children's writer who has retold in her own inimitable way 100 stories that children will enjoy. Richard Brassey's brilliant illustrations on every page bring the characters to life with wit, humour and fascinating period detail.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92919 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 264 pages

Review
BBC HISTORY - top ten books for February 06

From the Author
And if you want to ACT any of the stories in Britannia, there are play scripts of 25 of the stories - in fact everything you need to prepare a play - in BRITANNIA ON STAGE also published by Orion.

About the Author
Richard Brassey is the author and illustrator of a host of colourful and original non-fiction books for children, among them the bestselling Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and The Story of Scotland, which won the TES/Saltire Society Award. He lives in Essex. Geraldine McCaughrean's novels and retellings for children have won her the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Whitbread Award and the Beefeater Award. A prolific author who writes for all ages, she lives in Berkshire with her husband and young daughter Ailsa. Richard Brassey is an extraordinarily versatile author-artist whose bestselling title is NESSIE THE LOCH NESS MONSTER. He lives in London with his American wife and his 10-year-old son George.

Customer Reviews

Excellent for both kids and adults
This is always my first choice book a bedtime story for my 5 year old, if not always hers!
I have learned more than I would care to admit from reading these childrens orientated legends, each with a note on how the story originated.
A lovely book full of facsinating tales from our history. Thorougly recommended; by a dad anyway.....

A bright and fascinating book which sneaks history into children
Wow! This is the book that I wish I'd had as a child. I was never taught history in a sensible sequence, unfortunately, so I didn't built a chronology of events in my head. The result is a hopeless historian.
I am determined therefore to try and give my own children a decent internal time-line and this book is a perfect start (especially paired with Tony Robinsons' chronological `Kings and Queens'). It contains a vast range of short stories from King Leir 800BC through to the present day: King Arthur, King Alfred, The Fire of London, Glencoe, The Titanic, Votes for Women, Dunkirk, etc. Each is told as a tale from history with the more concrete facts briefly boxed to one side.
What's great about this book is that it isn't a turgid historical reference book - it presents the past with real human interest. Many of the earliest stories, McCaughrean notes, are more legend than truth but this folklore is part of our historical legacy. Other stories bring the era to life or cover an incident that gives a flavour of the history of the time. For example, the moving story of the 1914 Christmas Allies v Germany football match makes an appearance as does the tale of Eyam, the village who cordoned itself off to prevent the plague spreading to their neighbouring villages.
Each well-written story is only 3 or 4 pages long with plenty of text and wide-ranging stretching vocabulary. Every single page has a couple of attractive and colourful pictures giving book a very appealing feel. It's an absolute corker which I've just bought for my six-year old daughter. [...]

We read this every night
My son has just turned four and he loves this book. I really like it too. He insists that we read a story or two from it almost every night. What I really like is that these stories provoke lots of thinking and questioning on his part. And some of his questioning has led me to have to go off and find out more about the story in question.

People are astonished when they come round our house and he's re-enacting the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk, or the battle of Agincourt.

The stories are very well written, not too long and with a nice vocabulary. The pictures are great. It would make a great birthday present that will last a long time.