Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We used this book last year and are now half way through the second volume. I think both books do a phenomenal job of meeting their stated purpose: to INTRODUCE world history in an engaging fashion to early elementary aged students. I think it's very important to purchase the activity book along with the book, as the activity book not only has tons of really fun and reasonably simple activities that help bring history alive, but also contains stellar recommendations for further reading. The fact that many of those recommendations flat out contradict the viewpoints presented by the author in this book is an indication of Bauer's academic integrity, in my opinion. Many of the critiques of this series hinge on the fact that the book is loaded with inaccuracies and mythology. It is. But even stick-to-the-facts-and-only-the-facts history text books (which are BORING) are full of inaccuracies. At least this is interesting. Also, an understanding of the intended purpose of the book is important. It's designed as a read-aloud, NOT to be read independently by the child. It's also designed to serve as an INTRODUCTION to historical topics and parents are encouraged to supplement the stories by doing further investigation. I'd like to see the book that could adequately present all of the complexities and varying historical arguments about a topic in two pages in a child-friendly format. I think there is a Christian bias throughout the book, but as a non-Christian I haven't found that to be particularly problematic. For example, the story of the Exodus is presented in a much more factual format than many of the other mythologies in the book. There are plenty of people who believe in the absolute historical accuracy of that story, so for them that's just fine. If you don't, it's not like it's exactly difficult to point out to your child how extremely similar that story is to so many other religious mythologies of the time period (which are also included in the book). Again, that's why it's designed as a read-aloud, rather than a story to be read independently, so that the stories can inspire a discussion between the parent and the child. In areas that don't touch on sensitive topics for Christians, I've found the stories to be fairly balanced and there's plenty of places where Bauer points out the limitations of historical "knowledge." For us, the books have served their purpose exactly. My 7 year old son thinks history is interesting and fun. He's also able to ask some pretty interesting questions and draw connections. The viewpoints he's acquiring through studying history in this format are thoughtful and he's not inclined to take everything he reads as verbatim truth. A few of his historical observations: 1- reacting to a story on the news about suicide bombers "That's not such a good idea. The Egyptians would have thought that the devourer would eat your heart if you carry around so much hatred in it." 2- reacting to another story about the conflict between modern day Iran and the US. "Why doesn't the Iranian government read their own history? If they'd treat people the way Cyrus the Great did they wouldn't have so many problems." 3- reaction to the story of David and Goliath- "Why was David so sure God would be on his side? Didn't the Jews teach that God created all people? So doesn't that mean that God created Goliath too? Then why is David so sure God will choose him?" 4- after reading about Confucious- "Oh, his teachings were a whole lot like the Buddha's teachings. Maybe they learned from the same place." 5- after reading about the Chinese invasion of Korea and the Frankish King Clovis' forced conversion to Christianity of his people- "These kings didn't pay very much attention to their own religions. How can the Chinese kings claim to be Buddhists and then attack Korea? And I don't know if the French people would really be Christians if they were forced to be but obviously Clovis wasn't a very good Christian. Christ never said you could cut somebody's head off if they didn't believe in Christ!" Now, I contrast that to my own historical perspectives when I was his age and learning history (which was naturally confined to American history) in a 2nd grade public classroom: The pilgrims and the Indians were great friends, as indicated by the story of Thanksgiving. President Lincoln was always completely honest and he loved black people so he freed the slaves. Talk about bias. All in all, I'm not in the least concerned about the inaccuracies in Story of the World.