Rating: 
Summary: What a way to make history interesting!
Review: I'm teaching my 5 and 7 year old girls Ancient History. My kids love this book. It includes sufficient detail without bogging down. It includes stories that keep the children's attention. It includes maps that are simple but enough to teach what needs to be taught. The curriculum guide is tremendous with good questions, coloring pages, craft ideas, etc. I'm new at home-schooling and I found this a pleasure to use. I will definitely go on to vol. 2 when we finish this one. I would add that this book can also be used for children older than mine.
Rating: 
Summary: Let's be honest
Review: If you want your child to grow up to be politically correct, this book will help. To be unable to distinguish between fact and legend is essential; otherwise, when your child is presented with more explicitly political material at a later age, he/she may well question it or even demand proof.
However, if you do not want your child to develop a habit of accepting unquestioningly what she/he is taught, you will want to avoid this book and the many others like it.
Rating: 
Summary: Age Range Should be Specified
Review: In a homeschooling catalog, this book is listed as being appropriate for very young students...grades k-2. Perhaps if that had been noted here, the reader from South Carolina would not have felt compelled to diss the book so scathingly.This is very well done for the younger set.
Rating:
Summary: A good book for children and adults
Review: It seems a bit redudent to write another glowing review, but this is is a very good book. It is written for elementary children, but it is not a simple book. It is full of interesting facts and relevent information. I was very impressed with just how much detail there was in this book.
This book is the first volume, it starts off with wandering nomads and moves to the last Roman Emperor. All along the way the book talks to the reader and asks questions, to get the student thinking about what life might have been like thousands of years ago.
The book covers civilizations around the whole world, with a focus on Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. The author gives a good feel for what life might have been like in ancient Egypt, or other civilizations.
Even though it is written for children, I found it a nice quick summary. There were many things I hadn't known before.
Rating:
Summary: A phenomenal WORLD history for young children!
Review: Most histories for elementary aged children focus on America, America, America. Sure, America is important--but what about the rest of the world? The Story of the World series doesn't cover just one country--it gives an overview of what's happening all over the world. It's engaging, interesting, fact-filled, and written in a great voice for young children. Shallow? Not at all. It makes connections between different countries, rather than doing detailed histories of individual countries. Perfect for independent reading by a third-grade student or above; also great as a read-aloud for first and second graders. I'm learning as much as my children with this great book and its successor, Volume II (The Middle Ages). Can't wait for the last two volumes. (And one quick comment on the critical review below: Do Livy and Josephus with your first-grade student because this book isn't detailed enough? Hello? I can't help wondering whether this reviewer has even SEEN a first grader, let alone tried to TEACH one.)
Rating: 
Summary: A very poor example of history to show young people.
Review: Ms. Bauer should have the courage of her convictions, and call this book what it is - little more than a children's Bible. To call it the story of the world is dishonest. The religions of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians are referred to as myths, Hinduism is trashed as nothing more than an evil caste system, while she treats the parting of the Red Sea, the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus as historical fact. On top of this, the book is not even well written. It is patronizing, judgmental, extremely subjective, and what's with all the exclamation points? This book is going in the garbage where it belongs.
Rating:
Summary: perfect introduction to world history for children/parents
Review: My children (ages 7 and 9) and I just finished Story of the World Vol. 1 and so enjoyed it (we just started Vol.2, Middle Ages and also love it so far). The author did a wonderful job making world history interesting and understandable. This approach to history (chronologically, beginning with the ancients and moving progressively towards modern) creates a really nice, cohesive "big picture" of the flow of history that is sadly missing in our public school system (which for some reason teaches history in an out of order and out of context sort of way). Learning history progressively and in context helps it all to "make sense" (for children and us adults who missed out on a really good education in history ourselves!) and enables us to see connections and common threads between civilizations and time periods. History "unfolds," rather than occurs in isolated pockets of time, so it would makes sense to me to learn about it in the same way. Susan Wise Bauer sprinkled stories, myths, and legends from each civilization throughout the book, which not only brings the ancient peoples "to life," but also provides kids with something engaging and fun to remember the civilizations by. I would highly recommend this book (and the series) for parents who are homeschooling their elementary grade children, and also for parents who are wanting to supplement their publicly or privately schooled children's history education.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Book!
Review: My children and I absolutely loved this book and the activity guide. We homeschool (1st grade and K) and the length of each story and the content kept my kids entranced. Granted, some of the material was beyond their comprehension, but we plan on coming back in a couple of years and doing all the time periods again and more in-depth. Ancient history has become a favorite subject around here. My oldest ran in breathlessly yesterday that he saw a commercial about the Trojan War, and my kindergartener loves to point out all the Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns he sees around town. I loved having a chance to learn all the world history I missed in school (I was an A-student in an excellent school district and got a bachelor's degree) and being able to spark an interest in history for my children. I also enjoyed learning about the other civilizations that don't get very much coverage in the textbooks, like African, Indian, and Central and South American. The activity guide was wonderful in that it had so many creative and fun ideas for each chapter that you were not stuck with just mapwork and a coloring page. My boys loved acting out the stories in the book: making "fur" nomad bags and collecting lizards for lizard stew; creating a living Nile river; building their own giant pyramid; creating a Red Sea diorama with a shoebox, army men, and plastic ocean figures; building a labrinyth and minotaur; hosting the Olympic Games and having a Greek feast; building an aquaduct; having a tiger hunt, and we're still not finished with the book! I feel like I finally have a better grip on the whole picture of ancient history. Bravo, Susan, we can't wait for the next one!
Rating:
Summary: Story of the World, Part 1 on CD
Review: My children couldn't wait for the car to start, and the Story of the World to come on. For my older son, it reminded him of history that he had learned in school. For my younger son, it has developed a sense of curiosity and interest in history. I just ordered "part 2" to be enjoyed during a long car trip this summer. We all appreciated the way that each continent was represented at the same period of time.
Rating:
Summary: A Godsend!
Review: My seven year old daughter has enjoyed this history curriculum tremendously! We included biographical stories in our reading before buying this curriculum, but she never showed as much interest and enthusiasm as she does now. We use the Usborne Book of World History along with Ms. Bauer's materials. The combination of Ms. Bauer's engaging and age appropriate writing and the fascinating illustrations and orderly, appealling arrangement of the Usborne book has my daughter hooked. I believe the coherency of presenting history chronologically from the beginning of time has had a major effect on her interest level as well. She greatly enjoys the activity book as well. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Ms. Bauer, continue the series for the rest of grammar stage history and science! I would like to see a history and science curriculum for the other stages from you as well, eventually.
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