The Romans

April 1, 2006
Gr 4-6 -These books describe each civilization's location, people, diet, clothing, trade, commerce, architecture, beliefs, and deities. The texts conclude with a chapter on the people of today. Beneficial to the classroom teacher is the fact that each title is basically organized with identical chapters. There are slight variations, but an instructor wishing to have small groups of students work on guided research would have very similar materials for each civilization. Most chapters are concise and fairly easy for beginning researchers to use and understand. Some, however, are more difficult to navigate. The chapters that examine who the people were are particularly confusing. Anywhere from 6 to 20 pages, they seem to combine bits of unrelated information with no subheadings. For example, in "West African Kingdoms", the coverage ranges from 300 C.E. to 1600 C.E., discussing everything from clans and camels to farming and the Koran. All of the books have abundant full-color photos, illustrations, and reproductions. In "Egyptians", "Greeks", and "Romans", the people are represented through illustrations and ancient artifacts, while "African Kingdoms" uses photos of present-day people, which may confuse children. Useful for classroom browsing, these volumes may give motivated students additional information to supplement their social-studies texts." -Anne L. Tormohlen, Deerfield Elementary School, Lawrence, KS"

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