Scan barcode
hollysue22's review against another edition
5.0
i read this because my special needs son is reading it and i often do that with some of the books he reads. yes, it's for kids, so don't expect anything otherwise. however, i really enjoyed it. i learned some interesting things i didn't already know about the great wall. it was a quick and easy read. my 60 something year old mother saw it sitting on my coffee table and wants to read it as well!
ricksilva's review against another edition
3.0
I read this book aloud to my son (age 7) in preparation for our upcoming trip to China, which will include a day at the Great Wall.
This is a decent history of China for young readers. It strikes a good balance between amount of information and ease of reading. It doesn't gloss over the more harsh details of the story, such as the conditions faced by workers constructing the Wall, and the vast numbers of those workers who died there.
It does, by necessity, simplify a lot of history just to fit the whole narrative in a small number of pages.
Each chapter contains some short articles on topics related to the historical period covered in the chapter. They contained some interesting details, but I did find they disrupted the flow of reading the book aloud somewhat.
My son read along patiently and with interest, although not with the excitement he's had for some of the fiction books we've read together. He really liked the fold-out map in the back, and the book definitely has him looking forward to our upcoming trip.
This is a decent history of China for young readers. It strikes a good balance between amount of information and ease of reading. It doesn't gloss over the more harsh details of the story, such as the conditions faced by workers constructing the Wall, and the vast numbers of those workers who died there.
It does, by necessity, simplify a lot of history just to fit the whole narrative in a small number of pages.
Each chapter contains some short articles on topics related to the historical period covered in the chapter. They contained some interesting details, but I did find they disrupted the flow of reading the book aloud somewhat.
My son read along patiently and with interest, although not with the excitement he's had for some of the fiction books we've read together. He really liked the fold-out map in the back, and the book definitely has him looking forward to our upcoming trip.
More...