ANCIENT GREECE ANCIENT ROME. By Peter Connolly. Oxford University Press pound;9.99 each. TES Direct pound;8.99 each.
ANCIENT EGYPT: Family Life, Food and Feasts. By Stewart Ross. Hodder Wayland pound;10.99 each. TES Direct pound;9.99 each.
CRUSADES, THE STRUGGLE FOR THE HOLY LANDS. By Melanie and Christopher Rice. Illustrated by Peter Dennis. CLEOPATRA, THE QUEEN OF KINGS. By Fiona MacDonald. Illustrated by Chris Molan. Dorling Kindersley pound;9.99 each. TES Direct pound;8.99 each.
Each of these beautifully produced information books has clear text supported by good illustrations: photographs of artefacts, pictures of how they may have been used, plans, cutaway diagrams, maps and excerpts from written sources. Each also has a clear index and table of contents, making them ideal information texts for use in the literacy hour at key stage 2 or for history-focused activities at other times.
Oxford’s Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome titles are organised around traditional topics: homes, the theatre, or religion, for example. Both Ancient Egypt titles from Wayland begin with a narrative to put the information which follows in context - Nakht and Menwi go hunting on the Nile and Peseshet prepares her mistress for a banquet - and both books conclude with a section on how Egyptologists interpret sources.
The rich variety of history activities which such books can generate was clear at a recent Egyptian Day I attended in a primary school. All the children had elaborate eye make-up, with costumes and jewellery they had made at home, based on images in wall-paintings.
They were making an audio tape in groups for a “radio programme” about an Egyptian banquet; creating models to investigate how the Pyramids or a shadoof (irrigation device) could be constructed; writing their names in hieroglyphics and performing an Ancient Egyptian myth with puppets.
The Dorling Kindersley books, Crusades and Cleopatra, are irresistible, with all the hallmarks of the Eyewitness series. Cleopatra would be a favourite with the 11-year-olds at the Egyptian Day I saw. It is a story of the life, loves and intrigues of a powerful teenage queen in a man’s world; of battles won and lost and of her mysterious death. This is depicted almost as a purple passage, although the scholarly Eyewitness text makes it clear throughout what is known, what can be inferred and what remains . . . a mystery.
Hilary Cooper
Hilary Cooper is reader in education at St Martin’s College, Lancaster
