Reading My Kids' Books: Caesar's Gallic War by Olivia Coolidge

I loved it!  This book is one of those we are going to read for our study of the Ancients (for history, geography and literature) this year.  Apparently, when Caesar was leading his legions into battle with the Galls (58-51 BC), he wrote down what was going on (Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War).  This is new to me, but what an amazing historical document for historians to have!  This book takes Caesar's writings and retells the stories from the point of view of a young officer in his army and thus is a mix of fiction and facts. It really gives you an appreciation of what it was like to live in those days, from both the Roman and Gallic viewpoint.

 This woman has brought the Gallic wars alive for me. I think young good readers (from about 9 on?) would be able to handle this book.  However, it would probably be more completely understood if I read it to them and we marked a map of Europe where the action was going on. Warning: there are lots of long Roman names that contain -th or end in -us...

Comments

[bookdude]

I'm always on the hunt for great children's books and have recently discovered Bayard and their series of StoryBoxBooks, AdventureBoxBooks and DiscoveryBoxBooks.
There's lots going on too:
This Month Storybox has guest illustrator Helen Oxenbury fetured ( http://storyboxbooks.com/helen-oxenbury.php ).
There's a Readathon happening in the Ireland region - http://discoveryboxbooks.com/readathon.php
There's a Ghost Drawing competition in AdventureBoxBooks assiciated with the Polka Theatre ( http://www.adventureboxbooks.com/competition.php )

[Aussie Kim]

Dear Bookdude,

Thanks for your comments. It looks suspisciously like an advertisement though...