Miles Kelly

I thought it was a nice way to learn new stories, but my children had heard stories from Grimm's Fairy Tales first and did not like the way these versions were written. I don't consider it a good children's book when the children aren't interested. I attempted reading this with them over the years from ages 3 to 10.

It’s that time of year, school is back in session, things are rolling along well — then suddenly you realize that your child’s hand-me-down atlas is sadly outdated. Perhaps we’re the only family with antiquated student atlases on the shelf with outdated political boundaries, but our latest reference title far surpasses our antiquated student atlas.

The Scholastic Canada Atlas of the World is a beautiful beginner’s reference, perfect for children ready to dig into some more show more substantive geographic and cultural facts than are included in the simplest primer-style atlases. Filled with gorgeous, full colour photography, vivid maps, and a wide range of geographic details, this title brings the study of place and people to life.

Opening with an introduction to the making of maps, using maps, the solar system, time zones, tectonic plates, oceans, climate, the water cycle, natural resources and much more — this wealth of information provides a rich fount to draw general knowledge from in addition to the splendid maps. Like all atlases this information is written from an old-earth perspective.

Divided into seven continental regions: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Antarctica, each region is colour coded. All of the North American pages (Canada and the U.S. receive several two-page spreads each) are backed by a pastel lilac, the South American pages a pastel peach, and so on.

Each included country features a cultural and geographic overview that includes climate, economy and more, with fact boxes including: highest mountains, longest rivers, flags, life facts, trivia, time zones, latitude and longitude, and demographics. A search and find box provides cities of note and their alphanumeric reference (corresponding to a grid surrounding the page border) B5, for example is a “latitude” of B, and a “longitude” of 5 within that specific map. As the maps are all scaled separately, each includes it’s own scale and compass rose.

Pictures of the country’s people and well known places bring the region to life, while the life facts box which compares and contrasts life span and how many people in 100 own cars of the target country with Canada — or the US in the American edition Scholastic Atlas of the World. Smaller countries sharing borders may share a two-page spread, such as North and South Korea, Iraq and Iran, or the Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.

Due to the unique two-page spread design, the country maps are placed dead center with fact boxes, text and photographs ringing the map. In a few cases this results in the obfuscation of parts of the letters making up place names, but they are still readable with a bit of squinting and page pushing.

What has endeared me to this atlas above others is the inherent appeal it holds for my children. It invites browsing, and I’ve seen my six-year-old lying on the floor just taking in the photos, the maps, and the people. I’ve had to pry her away from its pages on more than one occasion. Isn’t this just what we hope for as parents: reference books that will become welcoming friends to our children? The Scholastic Canada Atlas of the World, or its American counterpart, the Scholastic Atlas of the World combine up-to-date maps, comprehensive (but not overwhelming) geographic data, and a warmly appealing format — I highly recommend it.

Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com show less

“Big Book of Princess Stories”

The “Big Book of Princess Stories” is a collection of fairy tale stories about the princesses Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and The Princess and the Pea. I liked this book for two reasons. I liked the illustrations and the style of writing. These two elements make it accessible for early readers.
The illustrations of this book enhance the story in that that the story could be told with just the pictures. It is important for a picture to have show more illustrations that tell the story just as well as the words do. For example, for the Cinderella story, there were pictures of Cinderella being sad while her sister laughed in the background. It had a picture of Cinderella in the pumpkin carriage and her fairy godmother. It also had pictures of Cinderella at the ball dancing with the prince and then the prince trying to find Cinderella. A reader could retell the story just from the information they got from the pictures. The drawings are also simple enough for young readers to understand, yet it is realistic enough to keep them engaged.
The style of writing was also simple and some of the words in the sentences were emphasized by capitalizing the words and by making them a different font. This will also keep young readers interested and will allow them to follow along. For example, in the Sleeping Beauty story, one of the sentences said “The queen collapsed into the king’s arms in shock, but then the last fairy stepped forwards, ‘WAIT!’ she said. Having the capital letters grabs the reader’s attention.
The common theme in all of these stories is kindness because all of the princesses show kindness and therefore have a happy ending. show less

"100 Classic Stories" is helpfully organized by age group. Stories for the four to six year-old's and the seven to nine year-old's are helpfully categorized in the table of contents.

Stories are also categorized by boy or girl protagonists, royal protagonists, animal protagonists, spells, legends, and mythical creatures.

Most of the stories have been censored and sanitized for younger readers, even the villains fates are never too terrible. For instance the story of "The Three Little Pigs" has show more been changed so that all of the pigs live and the big bad wolf only falls into some hot water and then runs away. Even the section for older readers is adapted this way; the mermaid from "The Little Mermaid" is rescued from becoming sea foam by fairies.

Every story has lovely, detailed illustrations in different styles that show exactly what the text describes.

I found the inclusion of different myths from cultures that are usually overlooked in the fairy tale section to be quite refreshing, and interestingly enough these stories escaped the censoring the other fairy tales in this book received. Native American stories, Egyptian stories, Japanese stories, and others are included. show less