The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (Kingfisher Encyclopedias)

We are using the excellent, chronologically arranged Kingfisher Encyclopedia for my 12 yo for 7th through 9th grade as the key text, or spine. This child loves history and expressed a desire to study from the beginning of history to right now, including all the cultures. Another homeschooling mother whom I respect has raised 5 children who are successful in college on this text (including earlier editions).The book is excellent, well thought out, fairly comprehensive, and uses the layout popularized by the DK Eyewitness books. What is meant by spine is that we read the text and then supplement with other texts and activities for more depth. For example, our first units we call Ancient Civilisations; we will also use the DK Eyewitness Mesapotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, as well as the Memoria Press' Famous Men of Greece, and ... of Rome (which have student workbooks and answer keys as well as myths.) And the appropriate Horrible Histories. And the DK Bible. Henty and Sutcliff historical novels, The Children's Homer, and good translations of Gilgamesh and the Aeneid. And a good visual dictionary of the ancient world.What this book is not is comprehensive. Were it so, it would be in multiple volumes and cost a fortune! Much more than the cost of this single volume and supplementary texts, many of which may be bought used or borrowed from the library. I also would not use this book as a sole source for the early grades, except as a reference for the teacher and a source of illustrations.

This has been one of the best $20 investments we ever made, and we have for sure gotten our moneys worth. This is a great backbone to any history curriculum. I have enjoyed using it to fill in gaps in our history texts. History books, especially for kids, can only cover so much. I use this book to see what was going on between chapters in our curriculum, and then go to the library for books and movies to fill in the blanks. It has enabled us to cover much more history than we would have without it. Also, another plus is the photographs it offers on the topics covered. Kids and adults alike can always benefit from good visuals. The only downside to this wonderful volume is that it does not begin with creation. That was easily remedied by placing our own copy of the creation account in it. Now it can be used correctly for kids in our family for many years. You will not regret this purchase. It will be valuable to your studies, and come in handy again and again.

When I received this I left it on the kitchen table to see if my kids would notice it. I love history, but I don't want to push it. Both of them (14 & 8) took turns pouring over it. It has been gone through so many times and we haven't even had it a year yet. It is not a full text, but truly a brief encyclopedia. It has excellent images and gets right to the point on key subjects. If you want something that provides full chapters on subjects, this is not for you. This book has about 2 pages per subject and covers an incredible number of historical events, people and cultures.

The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia:We use the Kingfisher as part of our Story of the World History text.Many of the reviews posted have mentioned that the book is very, very brief in each of the historical eras that it presents. I would agree that it is very limited, I don't know if I would have purchased it after using it for half the year. It seams that when i want to expand the reading on an era I prefer to reach for the borrowed library books, online resources or an actual encyclopedia than the kingfisher. The illustrations are good and it does give me ideas for online research but its just not something I am going to be using very much.

This is the same, or very nearly the same as the current edition. The slight tear to spine is larger than I hoped, but can be taped against further wear. Getting our own used copy made more sense than carting a large book to and from the Library each month.Thanks

This book is a world history organized by time. So, the page after ancient greek history is the Shang Dynasty in China. THis could have been a very powerful approach, if the selections had been better organized and had better lead-ins to subsequent pages. But instead it is almost confusing and definitely hard to use as a page-turner for an interested kid. It is easier to progress from ancient greek history to classical greek history than from ancient greek history to chinese history.Having said that, the pictures are satisfactory and generate interest in my 6 yr old. So, if you receive this as a gift, don't toss it out. But don't purchase it either.

Great book for elementary through middle school children. Well organized, beautiful illustrations and condensed information so that everything you could possibly want to know about world history is covered. An added bonus is that there is a timeline across the top of many pages so that the reader can just select certain time periods to study. Excellent book for the independent learner and a great book for parents to read with their children.

A good buy for us! We bought this to supplement the series: The Story of the World by Susan Bauer. It is easy to ready, plenty of pictures and TONs of information.

Excellent history resource, well laid out with good graphics, easy for children to use.

Nice book.