(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
Knowing that my niece is really into ancient peoples (though she’s currently obsessed with the Vikings), I was happy to have the opportunity to share this book with her.
I thought that it was good to see this book was a bit longer and I felt it engaged with my niece a bit more. While I did notice a couple of errors that weren’t caught, I was reading the book out loud, which meant I could edit those errors as I went.
I especially liked the little snippets about the gods and goddesses and my niece chimed in with a couple of bits she did know, in particular about Ares. I also shared extra bits that weren’t included, such as the contradictory Apollo being the god of healing but also of plagues.
The very first picture did a good job of engaging my niece and allowing her to look at what the ancient world might be like in comparison to the modern-day Greece.
I thought it was especially good to learn about the different customs, such as the fire in the hearth not being allowed to go out. There were some really nice illustrations and although I thought it would have been good to include a few more questions, the ones that were used were a good way of encouraging my niece to think and pay attention.
It was also good to see the use of maps, even though I don’t think it was that interesting for my niece to look at. I also liked the way the different city-states were shown in relation to each other and it was good to get some idea of the culture and how people viewed where they were from.
There was a lot in this book that me and my niece already knew, but I think there were some things that she didn’t know and that engaged her attention, particularly in regards of thinking of things like Horrible Histories, which involved many of the same facts. And my niece particularly liked the mention of potentially being called Theodora.
At the end of the book, my niece declared it would be awesome to live in Ancient Greece and I suspect she would like to read more in the series set in the Ancient World.
Ink of Blood 