Too many history books romanticize these past societies and pedestal them, forgetting that there is a reason humans are meant to progress forward throughout time/history, and things are indeed better for many people now than they were in Ancient Rome or Greece or even during the Salem Witch trials. For example, the one on Greece does not gloss over the fact that Athenian democracy was far from a true democracy, and that women were treated as mere objects/property of men, and the Greeks owned many slaves who were also unable to participate in politics. I also like that these books really don't gloss over the less than glamorous and idealized details of the past. For example, the book on Egypt has a section on the geographic setting, a brief history of Egypt and how the ancient peoples/land differs from Egypt today, the language and religion of ancient Egyptians, what daily life was like, funerary practices, art, culture, professions, etc. I also like the way these books really break up the event/period into different subjects. The black and white, pencil sketch-like illustrations add some lightness to the density of the text and some humor too usually. The vocabulary is pretty advanced for a YA book, so I would definitely say these books are more for 5th/6th graders and up, just because the vocabulary alone introduces a ton of new words that many don't come across until college even. Overall, I think this series in general does a great job of giving succinct summaries on different events and historical periods in a fairly easy to understand way.
0 kommentar(er)
