Customer Reviews

Adventures in Ancient Greece

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This book, as well as the five others available is the series, is a wonderful introduction to history. My daughter was given the series just as she was going into grade one and she likes them so much that she has given them as birthday gifts to her friends for three years since then.

All books in the series follow the same format: the Binkerton children, twins Josh and Emma and their impish younger sister Libby, find themselves in a strange travel agency, which turns out to be a time-travel agency. On opening a history book handed to them by the owner of the agency, Mr. Julian T. Pettigrew, they are transported to the civilization that the book describes. In this case, they have come to the travel agency of their own accord, because Josh wants to time travel to the future to see the next Olympics. Unfortunately, Mr. Pettigrew is a little hard of hearing and he hands them "Julian T. Pettigrew's Personal Guide to Ancient Greece", and, in the confusion of retrieving the mischievous Libby, they open this book before reading the title and find themselves smack in the middle of an ancient battlefield, about to be skewered by two opposing Greek armies. They survive, and the excitement continues until they have discovered all about ancient Greek society, land and sea battles, politics and democracy, domestic arrangements, societal structures, and, of course, the Olympics. They learn all this through their own very funny experiences and through studying Mr. Pettigrew's guide. In fact, the only way they can get back to their own place and time is by reading this book from cover to cover. And we do too, because it is replicated throughout underneath the comic book illustrations that describe the siblings' adventures. For example, when they arrive in ancient Greece in the middle of a battle, we can read about the city-states and warfare.

There are currently six books in the series but I was very excited to learn that Linda Bailey is working on some more. I hope that Bill Slavin will also be doing the very funny illustrations.

(This format is also useful to the beginner, pre-chapter-book reader: my daughter would read the speech bubbles while I would read the "history book".)

Another homeschooler recommended this book to us as one book to read for our study of Ancient Greece. When my 6 year-old son saw the cover he begged for me to read it immediately. He loved the book and is asking if there are others available (which there are because this is one in a series).

We had just finished "Growing up in Ancient Greece" by Chris Chelipi which I thought was a bit boring. "Adventures in Ancient Greece" duplicated the same information and included additional information. So if you are wondering if this comic book style book (less serious tone) is lacking in content, I can assure you that it is not.

The format of the book is comic book style with sidebars that read more like a regular text. The storyline is that a boy and his two sisters enter a time travel-travel agency and request to go to the next Olympic games in the future. By mistake they are transported to Ancient Greece. A boy gives them a tour of Athens and explains daily life in Ancient Greece. They experience daily living such as the role of women, slaves, and foreign visitors vs. men, voting, worship, parties, and common foods eaten. They also find themselves in the middle of a war that is called to a truce before casualties occur, at the Olympics, and finally on a warship that is engaged in a war before coming back home, magically. There is some sarcasm and some silliness. Some of the sarcasm borders on disrespect, such as when the boy gives them olives to eat, and proclaims they are the best in the world and the boy thinks, "this is a treat?" The girl is annoyed that women lead subservient lives and makes some sarcastic comments. I chose to skip over some of the silly and sarcastic comments. In the end I know my son learned important content from this book, which is the goal!