Discover Ancient China

Reviewed by: Jill O'Connor - North Yarmouth Academy, Yarmouth, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: January 8, 2015

Review

Part of the "Discover Ancient Civilizations" series, this book does a passing job at providing the history of Ancient China to elementary-aged readers. The book starts with the terra-cotta army found in the mid-1970s by a Chinese farmer and buried during the Qin Dynasty in 207 BCE (the book uses B.C. and A.D. not the more scholarly BCE and CE) and it does so to explain the origin of the "dynasties" throughout Chinese history (the last ended in 1911). Books like this can be a good jumping off place for kids, but they bother me in their choppiness and lack of depth. I do like that the sources were given for many of the facts so students or teachers can find the original text. The photos are excellent. I like that there are not a lot of boxes and sidebars, just simple text presenting the information.

Overall Book Score: good