History Year by Year: The History of the World, from the Stone Age to the Digital Age

Gr 4–8—Divided into different eras, with various ranges of time ("Before History Began," "Really Ancient History," "Much More Civilized," "The Marvelous Middle Ages," "Exploring and Reforming," "Time for Change," "Empires and World Wars," and "Fast Forward"), this offering follows the publisher's successful pattern of full-color pictures, brief blurbs of text, and highlighted features focusing on particular aspects of the broader subject. Starting with "3 MYA" ("million years ago") and ending with "1945-present," each part of the book gives a brief overview of what was going on in different parts of the world at the same time. A color-coded time line runs across most of the spreads, showing the progression and advancement of civilization. Every few pages, a particular subtopic gets extra attention. For instance, in the "700 BCE-500 CE" section, there is a two-page discussion, replete with a color picture of Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huangdi's terra-cotta army. Features such as these make this an excellent browsing book, but students can still pull information from the text. A brief history of both the United States and Canada is appended. A good addition to most collections, both for the information it offers and for its appealing format.—Carol Fazioli, Barth Elementary School, Pottstown, PA