Once Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt and Bible Lands. Anyone have praise or criticism for these DK books? I want to buy them for next year as a supplement. They are on sale right now but the reviews seem mixed for at least one of them. I'd love to hear any opinions on them...good or bad! TIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosy Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 I love those and would love to own many of them! To be honest, I haven't looked at the content with too much depth, but what I've seen is good, and the photography is phenomenal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SW in IL Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 We have 20 or so of the Eyewitness series books. I used to try to buy whatever books in the series that corresponded to what we were studying or to my son's interests. He perused the books quite a bit more from about 8 to 11 years old. The text was just enough to spark his interest or to help him decide that he really wasn't interested in pursing that particular piece of information. We found that the content was factual but there was never enough of it. On the other hand, my son was often distracted by all the pictures/images and felt that the books were too 'busy.' I still do collect the books when I find them cheap at garage sales, but I no longer find that they're worth spending much money on. My son is now almost 14, so I think it depends alot on the ages of your children as to whether they're worth buying or not. Just my 2 cents Sue SW in IL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Once Posted September 3, 2008 Author Share Posted September 3, 2008 Thanks Sue and Rosy! I had heard from the Amazon review that the Bible Lands book was anti-Christian since it presented several OT stories as mere myths that did not actually happen. Does anyone have this book and want to give feed back? We have taken out many Eyewitness books form the library but they do not have the Roman or Egyptian one. I was curious to see if people thought they were twaddle or not. With two young boys they tend to gravitate to the non-fiction and I thought these would be a good picture book of the times. I'm listening. :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 The way the text is kind of scattered around the pages, with long photo captions in small type . . . My son used these as the spine for science one year and really hated them. It was very difficult for him to tell what information was important. And, when all was said and done, there wasn't a lot of content. I thought he would like them because they were so colorful and had such great pictures, but it seemed like they were more of a distraction than anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlotteb Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 DS loves the Eyewitness books. We don't own any ourselves but I think he has checked out everyone that the library has! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paula in PA Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 We'll get ones that match history topics and sometimes science. But we do them as read-alouds, mostly focusing on the pictures and paraphrasing the written content. Dd likes them, especially the history ones, and we find them a good source. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenadina Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 My son has not liked any of the Eyewitness books we've borrowed from the library, and I find them dry myself, so I don't push it. If your kids like other Eyewitness books, I would say go for it...they all seem to follow the same general format and style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reya Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 I prefer the science series to the history ones. The history series tend to really suffer from the thematic layout since it fails to draw connections or provide a logical context. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dayle in Guatemala Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 We own several DK Eyewitness books and we really love them. My ds especially will go to these when he is playing with his friends for information. For example, yesterday his little friend got some army guys and they were playing with them. He came in and got the WW2 book so they could understand what soldiers do! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linders Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 DS8 loves virtually all the Eyewitness books. We have Ancient Greece and Rome, and he just used birthday money to buy WWI and WWII. He loves just picking them up and going through a few pages for fun, and learns a lot of little tidpits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagira Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 The EyeWitness books are wonderful, but I don't know if you want to buy them when you can borrow them from the library. My library owns all of them. Then if you dc are absolutely in love with them, you can always buy them. I personally save buying for things my children will be devouring, like readers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Once Posted September 4, 2008 Author Share Posted September 4, 2008 Unfortunately, this is what I had suspected. Some people really like them and some people do not care for them. My kids like them but the ones that we all want our library does not have. I had not considered a difference btw the science and history ones. It makes sense that the history topics would suffer from a lack of connections. Perhaps if we only used them as a supplement the connections could be drawn from other sources.?. I'm guessing nobody has the Bible Lands one. ????? Still undecided about that one..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcconnellboys Posted September 4, 2008 Share Posted September 4, 2008 I have tons of these books and have used them for years. I love them. My children love them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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