I Wonder Why Castles Had Moats: and Other Questions About Long Ago - Softcover

Philip Steele has a passion for writing about history. He is a well-known author of more than one hundred children's books, including Castles, Pirates, Knights, The Best Book of Mummies, The World of Pirates, and The World of Castles. He was a student of medieval French and German literature, and has visited castles in England, France, Germany, Spain, and Poland. He has travelled to the Valley of the Kings and other sites of Ancient Egypt, and has met mummies face to face in the Cairo Museum. Philip now lives near Beaumaris and the other great castles of North Wales.

Grade 2-4-This oversized volume attempts to captivate readers with colorful pictures, humorous cartoons, and tantalizing questions about the medieval world. Child-oriented inqueries include, "What were the Middle Ages in the middle of?," "Did people take baths?," "Who was the first to chew gum?" Unfortunately, the smatterings of information presented are so simplified that they are likely to raise more questions than they answer. The book lacks cohesiveness-entries from various times and places are juxtaposed without ever relating them to one another or to the double-page map that opens up the text. Youngsters interested in this period would do better with a straightforward easy reader, such as Huck Scarry's Looking into the Middle Ages (HarperCollins, 1985; o.p.). Older students will have no trouble finding many more satisfying books on the times. I Wonder Why...may provide amusement for browsers but little else.
Anita Palladino, Finkelstein Memorial Library, Spring Valley, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.