The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Beware -- this is not the update to the highly regarded Kingfisher Illustrated History. Instead, it reformats the previous work, departing from the orderly 'accent of western civilization' theme, de-emhasizing Greek and Roman history in favour of lesser known, minor world cultures and in general, adds aggresive PC editing. Using this book as a homeschool reference will result in you needing to spend time explaining the PC biases to your children, and ultimately, needing to purchase an additional reference book.

Rating:
Summary: An eye-catching disappointment
Review: I have recently begun homeschooling my 6th grader, and am using The Well Trained Mind as a curriculum guide. This book was listed as a must-have for a classical education, which is based heavily in literature and history. I must say that when we received the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, it looked very impressive. It is a hefty volume, with colorful pages and a timeline which runs across the top of the pages. However, after only a few weeks of use, my daughter has come to dread the sight of this book whenever it is time for history lessons. It is very dry reading. The one to two-page spreads for each topic/culture/era have so little valuable content, that there is little opportunity for the spark of interest to be ignited. They have so condensed the information, that it is mostly a list of dates, names, etc. And there are boxes every couple of pages listing the same dates over again. The text is written chronologically, so each time you turn the page a different culture is discussed, and what they were doing during that time period. This concept sounds better on paper than in practical use. While the time periods overlap somewhat, it does tend to jump around a quite bit. The continuity of what should be exciting and intriguing becomes very choppy and disjointed and as a result frustrating and boring. What might be interesting stuff becomes distracting and in some cases irritating when it interrupts another story. For example, the rise and fall of Rome, while severely abridged, may have still interested my child, if it had not been broken up by seven other topics. Huge chunks of time (several centuries)are condensed into a paragraph, or even a sentence or two. Other chunks go unmentioned. For example, the Qin Dynasty in China lasted less than 20 years, and got the same attention as the Celts, who were around for 500 years. The first 400 years of Christianity are covered in the same amount of space. So I am seeing my daughter becoming confused about the significance of these subjects, and not really grasping the "chronological order", despite adding new information daily to the 8-foot timeline we keep on the wall. Also,I am constantly amazed at what the makers of this book did not see as important enough for further discussion. For example, in our studies so far, The Great Wall of China has been depicted in a 1/4 page illustration, but only the date it was begun and a sentence or two on why it was built is listed. Julius Caesar is mentioned briefly, and simply that he was assasinated(!?), and I have yet to find any mention of Cleopatra. Overall, this book might be a good addition to your library just to have around for kids to leaf through, or as a springboard for other reading. It does mention cultures I never learned about in school (i.e.,the Guptas )but is not very useful as a reference tool, as there really is not any in-depth information on very many things. In it's effort to cover all bases in a single volume, Kingfisher fails to teach children what history really is -- a really great story.

Rating:
Summary: Complete History foundation
Review: I read this history encyclopedia from beginning to the end; took 2 weeks, an hour a day, in preparation for homeschooling my son. It's about 5th grade level, good descriptions, excellent pictures, covers every corner of the globe. It's a big, thick book and worth the money. I plan on having my son read 2 pages a day and finish it in a year. I can then supplement any information he wishes to know more. Doesn't cover any event in deep detail, but gives excellent overall impression of the history of the whole world. Even I learned a lot!

Highly recommended in addition to other more in depth history studies.

Rating:
Summary: Start your history studies here
Review: Learning Family Book Review

If you could only have one history book in your home library, this should be it. Written like an encyclopedia of historical events, the Illustrated History is an incredibly easy to access work, covering almost any historical even you could imagine. The illustrations and photos are excellent. The text is brief, but enough to get a basic understanding. I've begun using this one as a first source for history subjects, to get myself oriented, then continue into more specialised books as needed. The chronolgy is listed in the outside column of the pages, which makes thumbing through it quite easy. Though it isn't a history course in one volume, all of the more major events in history have several pages devoted to them covering archaeological data, social background, art and more. An outstanding book.

Rating:
Summary: The Homeschooler's Best Friend (besides his mother)
Review: This is *the* best history book to have for all your child's years from first grade through high school. He's not going to grow out of this book. A specific event or narrow time period is presented on each two-page spread in the book along with many, many helpful colorful drawings. Along each left and right side edge all through the book, however, is an extremely helpful world-wide timeline about everything else going on during the time of these two pages.

This is a very informative and riveting "children's" history book. We try and keep it by our reading chair so that with every book we read, the kids and I can find the same time period in this history book. I say "try" to keep it by our reading chair because my kids are always flopping down on the family room floor with it or taking it to the kitchen table to read through it on their own time. It's really that good of a book. It's out of print for now, but make sure to find a used copy so you can have this gem for your kids.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book! Shame on Kingfisher for ending print run.
Review: This is a wonderful book, and I am so disgusted with Kingfisher for letting it go out-of-print, and for replacing it with the much lesser "red book." We homeschool and find this book invaluable! We learned of this book by reading a book I highly recommend: "The Well-Trained Mind, A Guide to a Classical Education at Home" by Wise. We feel badly for all of the parents still searching for this book. Kingfisher told me that they had about 200 in their warehouse, sold me two of them, and told me that other homeschooling parents could contact them to buy copies. Now that source suddenly dried up, and I wonder why. I have stopped buying all Kingfisher books until they reprint this one, and close out the 'red book.'

Rating:
Summary: OK
Review: We homeschool, also, and ordered this 'red book' when we couldnot find the other. We were most disappointed with it...[I was ableto locate] leftover copies of the original... I bought two of those. We are glad and have never missed the red book. I have a copy of the 'red book' in my classroom where I teach and the kids are not drawn to it as I had hoped they would be. I also have the red science encyclopedia, and the kids like that one. I find the red history book is too cluttered, too vague in the sequence of happenings, and we dislike the manner in which the timeline is presented...