You Wouldn't Want to Live In Pompeii by John Malam and David Salariya

This is a great series

I recently stumbled onto the You Wouldn't Want to... series and have found them to be a delightful and painless way to introduce young people to different historical concepts.

You Wouldn't Want to Live In Pompeii is a standout in a standout series of books. It teaches about the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 that destroyed Pompeii, but it also teaches about Roman culture. The readers will learn that the Romans used enslaved Greek men as teachers for their sons, that the Romans made sacrifices to their gods, foods they ate, types of art, the gladiatorial games and the re-discovery of Pompeii in the 1700s and, more importantly, the archaeological work of Guiseppe Fiorelli in the late 1800s.

This would be great for 3rd grade or higher. Even adults can have a good basic understanding of what happened at Pompeii with this little book.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on June 12, 2009.

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