Customer Reviews

Roman Record (Newspaper Histories)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Are you an Emperor or a slave? Take the handy questionaire in this book and find the answer, learning lots of Roman history along the way. My kids and I had a blast reading this, and remembered more facts about Rome than we got any from many other books. Great fun!

An educational and very funny read. The facts are all true, but have been presented in a consistely funny and readable tabloid style. Maps, pictures, and fact boxes (and some very funny ads) support the text. Highly recommended.

I am a Lutheran Church librarian and bought this book for our library so that late elementary and middle school kids could learn about the historical period in which Christ lived. It is hilarious. Even the most reluctant readers will learn history painlessly while laughing themselves silly. They'll read the chariot race scores, fashion updates about togas, and study the realty ads for Roman villas. The headlines are very very funny! (Julius Ceasar's death is headlined, "Julius Caesar: A Nation Mourns: Knife-Fight Wipeout Ends Brilliant Career." So funny. Another headline reads, "We're Revolting, says Rebel Rabble." Well, I guess SO! In more ways than one. This is a terrific book. The format is tall and narrow and thin like a real newspaper. Full color. Kind of like a historical Roman "Mad" magazine. Excellent book.

I am Curator of Education at an American anthropology museum. Based on reviews at Amazon I made the mistake of buying this book (over Candlewick Press' "The Roman News") sight unseen to use in a presentation kit (for use in classrooms) featuring Pompeii. The American 6th-graders who will most often be using the kit will probably not understand the British slang that dominates the book. The writing style mimics UK tabloids with a shallow, flippant, sensationalistic approach to the material, which tends to obscure the historical facts beneath all the wink-wink nudge-nudge. Definitely good for a giggle, as they say across the pond, but not ideal for my target audience. The content will make more sense if you already know a fair amount about Roman history and culture. Great satire, if that's what you're looking for, but you need to be a good critical reader to get past the jokes and be sure of the actual, reliable historical content. I'll go back to Candlewick Press for my purposes.

This book is excellent for children who think they dislike history! The style is extremely engaging with a flippant tone that appeals to kids. At first, determining between fact and fiction seems a bit sticky, but after a couple of articles, the style begins to gain a clarity and coherency that allows a reader to know what is real and what isn't even in the most unfamiliar cases. The possible problem with clarity, though, is why I give it 4 stars instead of 5.

I've read THE ROMAN NEWS as well, and interestingly, while that one is certainly less confused about what's real, THE ROMAN RECORD actually contains more information, both historical and social, even though the books are the same length!