By Tracey Turner and Andrew Donkin, and illustrated by Libby Vander Ploeg
“Cities are full of possibilities.”
We’re always on the look out for fab books we can use to continue our worldschooling while we’re at home, so we were thrilled when Nosy Crow sent us a copy of A History Of The World in 25 Cities! The book starts with Jericho, way back in 8000 BCE, and makes it’s way though interesting points and places in history, ending up with 2010s San Francisco, and modern day Tokyo.
Each of the 25 cities has it’s own adorable, double page spread map, showing illustrations of important landmarks and buildings at a certain point in time, each with a sentence or two about why they were noteworthy. There are also a few other facts about the people who lived there, and why the city itself was important or world-changing thrown in for good measure! The kids really liked the map of ancient Memphis, with all it’s cool Egyptian features, and were amazed that such a famous city could just disappear!
Each map is followed by another double page spread that goes into further detail about things like the region’s gods and goddesses, farming practices at the time, what homes were like for regular people, and a whole lot more. The text is broken up into fab child-friendly chunks, with plenty more charming illustrations! Plus, there’s always a “city in numbers” mini section, detailing things like population count, size in square kilometres, and the like, so you can see how the city has grown (or not!) over time.
Throughout the book there’s a good mix of different continents represented – though there are quite a few European cities in the list, they certainly don’t take over. And if your kids are fans of “spot-it” type books like ours, they’ll love discovering all the tiny details in the maps, and seeing what all the people are up to! There’s a lovely section at the end about the future of cities – how they’re changing today, and what they may well be like in a few years. The kids were super excited to see info on greener cities and renewable energy in this bit! (And it sparked some great conversations about their thoughts on what the future will be like!)
A History of the World in 25 Cities is a beautifully illustrated and informative book, bursting with things to discover. The maps really bring the cities to life, and give a good impression of what life would have been like there! It’s a book we’ll certainly be returning to over and over again!
A History of the World in 25 cities can be bought direct from Nosy Crow, or found on amazon.co.uk or amazon.com
Thank you so much for our copy Nosy Crow! We love it!!!
A Different Way To Go 