Ancient Greece

Gr 6-9-Large and glossy, Ancient Greece begins with a solid overview that places the era in context, but the following chapters, while entertaining, sometimes fail to relay the whole story in enough depth for the intended age group. A prime example is found in the section on Alexander the Great. Readers are first told that ``no matter where they were from, the soldiers admired him and willingly called him Alexander the Great,'' Three paragraphs later ``the troops refuse to go any farther, and the army turned back.'' The intervening years-thousands of miles of marching and hardship-are neither mentioned nor shown on a map. Clare also alludes to the fact that slaves could save and buy their freedom, but never explains how they were able to get the money to accomplish this. While the information is attractively laid out, with many striking full-color illustrations, some photographs of costumed actors are so artificially posed that they resemble a low-budget mail-order catalog. This book falls short when compared to existing material, especially Don Nardo's Ancient Greece (Lucent, 1994) which never skimps on details. Olivia Coolidge's Golden Days of Greece (HarperCollins, 1968) and Christopher Fagg's Ancient Greece (Watts, 1979; o.p.) need not be replaced by this entry.-Anita Palladino, Finkelstein Memorial Library, Spring Valley, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Each double-page spread covers a different aspect of Greek civilization, including the theatre and Olympics, the roles of women and the elderly, and famous leaders and battles. The dark color photographs of modern-day models re-creating moments from ancient Greek life sometimes look artificial. Ind. From HORN BOOK 1994, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.