In case you didn’t know, I am a total history buff. I read nonfiction (and fiction) history whenever I get the chance or whenever something particularly exciting comes out. I was asked to review a new series titled “The Thrifty Guide To…” which is a children’s nonfiction series based on history. Currently there are only two set to be published, which focus on Ancient Rome and the American Revolution.
The Thrifty Guide To Ancient Rome
When I first started this book, I came in with no prior knowledge of Ancient Rome (I am more of a US history person), so everything I now know about Rome (which is now quite a lot) is from this book. The cover and the inside pages would entice younger readers to pick it up and want to read it. It isn’t your normal nonfiction book with text and pictures here and there, this book is much different. Instead of old photos, there are no drawings in the book to represent what is going on in the book. There are also many many graphs and maps in the book as well that I found very easy to understand. The book itself and all of the information in it was also very easy to understand. I know many children have a hard time understanding history and this book wasn’t hard to understand in the least, which could help them tremendously.
To me what may have been the best part of this book was the humor the author wrote in. When reading this book you can tell that the author has experience with children. When children read books, they simply want to be entertained. With most nonfiction book, there is no entertainment, it is simply x did this, x happened… but that was not the case with this book. In this book the author writes as if he is teaching a class of children. If you know anything about teaching, you know that if you don’t entertain the kids, they won’t listen to a thing you say. For the kids to actually listen to what you have to say, you need to entertain them. Stokes does just that. He knows how to capture the reader in but still teach along the way, which is not very easy to do in a book. I give this an A ++ and believe that any teacher trying to teach their students anything about Ancient Rome should have this book.
The Thrifty Guide To The American Revolution
This was the one I was most excited about considering I am a civil/revolutionary war buff, and I wasn’t disappointed. If this book was published back when I was first starting to learn U.S. history it most definitely would have been one of my favorites. The book is written just like the Ancient Rome one was, so yet again, this book will be perfect for any teacher who is trying to teach their students about the war. It includes many part’s of the war that not many books do, like little snippets of important members of society at the time, that not many people know about. It includes lot’s of information that history books don’t, but things that kids will care about, like
* A look into individual battles, and their casualties
- Little events that happened during the war
- Humor in general
I found myself laughing to a lot of the parts of this book.
Yet again, like the last book, this book is very easy to understand while still providing a chock full of info about the war. I would recommend it to anyone.
I thank the publisher for providing me with a advanced copy's of the book, though it did not effect my review at all.
Author Bio: Jonathan Stokes
Jonathan Stokes (www.jonathanwstokes.com) is a former teacher who is now a rising star as a Hollywood screenwriter. He has written screenplays on assignment for Warner Brothers, Universal, Fox, Paramount, New Line, and Sony/Columbia. Inspired by a childhood love of The Goonies and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Jonathan wrote his first novel, Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas, published by Philomel in 2016. Born in Manhattan, he currently resides in Los Angeles, where he can be found showing off his incredible taste in dishware and impressive 96% accuracy with high fives.
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