132,585
edits
Changes
Tony Robinson's Weird World of Wonders: Egyptians by Tony Robinson (view source)
Revision as of 13:18, 28 May 2012
, 13:18, 28 May 2012no edit summary
The book seems to have a switch in style along the way, from covering the obvious superlative of the Pyramids with a chatty approach, to clumping the slightly stuffier history and civilisation's end at the back. But everything you'd expect is covered, and more - the gods, the toys, the hieroglyphs, the building materials, social structure... It's all in here, bar the kitchen sink they never had, and the scarab.
I wasn't too keen on the interjections from the Curiosity Crew that illustrator Del Thorpe (or someone) has come up with. Sometimes they're useful for adding scale to photos of relics, etc, other times they just get in the way by losing their dog, and one of their speech bubbles makes no sense at all (page 81, if you must). It's not as if the booked book needed livening up; the illustrations are plentiful, whether cartoon, photo or useful diagram. Some extra caption competition rejects were not of any benefit.
All in all, though, the book is a success - entertaining enough, all-encompassing, and despite the copious box-outs, interjections and questions as chapter-headings, readable in one easy, informative flow. If the 'humour' had been more successful it could have made a good book very good.