The Ancient Romans

School Library Journal

Gr 2-5Two flawed series entries. The full-color illustrations are attractive, but do not always correspond to the accompanying texts. A more serious problem, however, is the writing. Commas are sprinkled willy-nilly. Appalling mistakes in punctuation, syntax, and grammar appear on every page. In describing foods eaten by Egyptians, Morley writes that sometimes there were more fish and fowl caught than could be eaten and so "...the surplus were gutted, dried in the sun and then stored in jars of salt." It is unfortunate that this basic history series is so fraught with errors.Ann M. Burlingame, North Regional Library, Raleigh, NC

Kirkus Reviews

In the First Facts series, a look at life in ancient Rome, presented in double-page spreads, each of which is centered on one fact, such as "Rich Romans Ate Flamingos and Peacocks" and "Many Roman Soldiers Couldn't Speak Latin." Each spread contains a few paragraphs of information, numerous small captioned pictures, and a box of additional facts. The approach is somewhat scattershot: While each page is loaded with interesting details, they are only loosely related. Further, the pictures are often small for the amount of information they are intended to convey; perhaps because the spreads are crowded, it is sometimes hard to locate the appropriate caption for the picture (and at least in one case, two captions are switched). Finally, it's something of a misrepresentation to state baldly that "conquered peoples resented Roman rule."

Macdonald (A Samurai Castle, 1995, etc.) offers much to intrigue readers, but they will have to work harder to extract the facts than they would in other, better designed books on the subject.