Customer Reviews

The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World

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The Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World is a great supplement to other books (we're using Jessie Wise Bauer's The Story of the World). Although we don't homeschool, we do study history as a supplement to what my son is doing at his school and he absolutely loves it. The Kingfisher Illustrated History fascinates him and he often asks me to read from random pages he turns to in addition to those we're studying. The brightly colored illustrations are great in that they are accurate, interesting and accessible for both kids and adults. The book includes a time line and both general and specific coverage of various topics. The reader is able to get a sense of what was happening over in a general span of time worldwide as well as to see what was happening in a specific part of the world. Political history is covered to some degree but the book really shines in its ability to give readers a feeling for what it was like to live in a certain period of history.

The only real drawback of this book is its weight. This is a very thick book and isn't one to take with you on a family vacation or on an outing where you want something to read with your child. But so what! That's not it's purpose. It really does cover world history very well esp. for kids or for the general reader who wants to get a brief overview of world history in an engaging way. I would use it as the only book you have - it simply contains too much and could be overwhelming. I highly recommend it, however, for use with another text that gives a good narration of historical events.

This book came highly recommended to me by another homeschool family. I was very dissappointed in this book. The layout was so boring we never even used it.