Customer Reviews

Christopher Columbus (In Their Own Words)

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My daughter's 4th grade history recommended this book, so I was more than happy to read through it before I passed it on to her; however I was less than happy with it after finishing it.

I love the idea of it: to take first and second person accounts and put the story "in their own words". It is very historical and accurate; the problems lies in it being very one-sided and not very fair to the ideas and thoughts of the people of the time. For instance, it mentions the atrocities committed by Columbus' men without clarifying that Columbus himself had some major issues with the way they were treating the Indians... and how he fought for them to be treated fairly. It lumped Columbus into the category of gold mongers that many of the other Spaniards were (and were enslaving the Indians to get the gold), without clarifying that Columbus was very much against the mistreatment of the Indians. It makes Isabella and Ferdinand out to be an uncaring, heartless queen and king that were driven solely by gold and wealth. All of this is blatantly false, as can be seen (ironically) by "their own words" in diaries, writings, etc...

The story really started out well; it was exciting and interesting. With all honesty, by the end of the book I was feeling thoroughly depressed with the whole story and I felt that the whole adventure was a failure and a horrible injustice to the Indians (obviously in some cases it was, but why ONLY focus on those?!). However, from reading many history books I know this is far from the truth. What Columbus did WAS a great thing; he was very much a hero in spite of his faults. I don't see the need to focus only on his faults instead of the positives; especially when it comes to the "founder" of our country. At least be fair; if you are going to focus on faults, also focus on the faults of the Indians, etc... but of course that didn't happen at all (and I MEAN NOT AT ALL, NOT ONCE!!!).

Find a different book that speaks to Columbus' adventures. Better yet, just buy a copy of his diary for the kids to read, it is exciting and interesting!!!