Horrible Histories: Cut-Throat Celts (Junior Edition) product reviews

I sat down with this book last night for a quiet evening of reading. I enjoy history books in general, so I knew that this book would appeal to me. I have also had a few books in the Horrible Histories set, and despite being pretty anti-gore, I haven't had any issues with these books.

Cut Throat Celts is a book especially about the Celts, through-out their history. I learnt a lot of things about them including the Gauls, and the Druids. The book is cut into sections, and all the text is written in a easy to access way. The facts are laid out in short sentences, with just enough detail for you to understand the details. It also has jokes and tries to link some of the Celt's situations with everyday kids stuff. In my opinion this was excellent, because it helps the reader take in the information more readily.

It is written by an English team, and in some of the jokes this is obvious. It's that kind of "school lunches" humour that NZ Kids will understand through TV shows but the jokes don't always reflect our school situations. Aside from the humour, the book is educational and fun. I could see that I was learning, and as I read it all in one sitting I could also see how the facts were re-introduced several times in different situations as well. This meant that a fact I learnt 20 pages ago was being reinforced several times along the way.

The book includes a few Celtic activities, games and crafts to try. There are even some recipes, though I'm not sure I would try them. It was an interesting way to view the food of medieval Celts. At the end of the book there are several quizzes and I was pleased with how many of the questions I got right. This showed me that I had learnt quite a bit through my reading.

This book would be great for someone who is learning about this period of time or the history of the Celts. It would be great for someone with Celts in their family tree. It would appeal to anyone interested in history, and it definitely has the gross factor. The price is pretty good for this one and it is re-readable. The way the facts are laid out, I can see myself referring to this again and again, and you wouldn't have to start right at the beginning either.

I can remember the Horrible Histories books when I was in High School, and when I saw the junior edition up for grabs to review I thought that it would be perfect to give a read with my six and five year olds.

Opening it up, right away there was enough to grab my six year olds attention as not only was there "a lot of words" there were some fun pictures to go with it and he especially enjoyed spotting the rat as it made its way through the book. The way this is written makes it an easy book for us to read to the kids (my husband doesn't have the best reading level so it is great for him too) and has the pictures throughout and small comic strips to keep their attention.

A key part that I like was the instructions for a few popular games that were played, something that the kids wanted to give a try then and there and was heaps of fun. There are also a couple of quizzes which were a lot of fun, my six year old delighting in going with the most absurd answers, which were sometimes right!! With some recipes to boot there is a great deal of fun facts and information in this book and I know it will keep their attention for years to come.