A Medieval Town

School Library Journal

Gr 3-5With large-print texts and numerous captioned illustrations, each entry in this series attempts to cover a topic completely yet simply. Knights presents information on a knight's training, duties, and arsenal of weapons along with medieval warfare and marriage. Medieval Town covers commerce, warfare, aspects of daily life, and concludes with the Black Death. Writing presents the history of alphabets, writing, printing, and computers. Unfortunately, the material is too far-reaching for a such a simplistic presentation and leads to oversimplifications. To say that "religious ceremonies played an important part in town life" (Medieval Town) does not begin to impart the role of the Catholic Church in medieval life. The illustrations are too crowded and often too small to be informative and do not allow readers to distinguish details. Good information on these subjects can be obtained more effectively in many other titles.Susan Pine, New York Public Library