Diary of a Time Traveller by David Long and Nicholas Stevenson
| Diary of a Time Traveller by David Long and Nicholas Stevenson | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A decent book to inspire essays and so on from the school library shelves, but not a guide to our past that would be read often at home. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 64 | Date: October 2015 |
| Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9781847806369 | |
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With the usual complaint that 'History is Boring!', Augustus slumps over his school desk – until his teacher, a certain Professor Tempo, comes to his aid. She gives him a notebook and yellow pencil and says he should imagine himself in a place in the past to see how interesting it actually could be. And lo and behold he's there, seeing the world of the past's effect on the world of the present for his very own eyes. He ends up doing this more than a couple dozen times, filling the notebook with amazing sights he's seen and people he's stood alongside, from Mozart to Einstein, from Chaucer to Lincoln, and what we read is what he comes up with in this brisk and colourful volume.
It's a nicely posh hardback, and a lot more colourful than the simple yellow pencil. It clearly shows Augustus having taken on board a lot of what Professor Tempo was telling him (who knew Professors taught in primary schools?!) and having, most importantly, a fun time. Here he is in the distant past watching Stonehenge being built, here he is in the cab of a Japanese Bullet Train. The writing he gives us – just three or four paragraphs to every scene – is chatty and interesting, and while a little exclamatory it does go to prove the past is peppered with importance.
It doesn't actually make for a coherent story, however, even if Leif Erikson and Christopher Columbus are both shown 'discovering' the Americas. The episodic nature is probably important too for the book's creators to skip over certain things (the calendar in the corner drips from BC to AD with nothing of note causing the change, apparently). Similarly the writing is a little keen to hide the truth – ceremonies for the Mayans are far too bloodless, the Chaucerian characters had spent too much time at the inn – yes, and then some. Some times (Louis XIV's remarriage one instance) Horrible Histories trivia is allowed to come to the page, other times the story is ignored (Mr John Dee and what he did or did not get up to.)
Speaking of getting up to, the designs of the book have a Where's Wally quality to them as we have to find Augustus and Prof Tempo interacting in every large double-page spread. (I'll admit to failing in the task a couple of times.) The dioramas are weirdly-coloured, fantastical spreads where famous people just can't help falling over each other, but the design is just enough to show character in the faces, and what little I know of the people herein does look like them, in a simplified, cartoonish way. I would take umbrage with the way the layout has positioned the caption bubbles across the page – on at least the Mayan spread, if not more, I found them to be best met with in the exact opposite order they would appear to the reader's eye.
Still, to the book's merit are many factors. There's a global approach that is certainly a great remove from the Euro-centric equivalents my schools would have owned. There's a depth that the low page count wouldn't allow you to expect. And while it doesn't have any kind of flow, narrative or historical progression, it does do what the good lady Professor would wish – it proves that you can dip in and out of our history at so many diverse times and find something relevant, cool or interesting to the modern day youth. They won't be reading this book more than a time or two, but I can easily imagine schools wanting a couple of copies on their shelves so that their own Augustuses can be similarly inspired to write empathetic historical essays. There are a lot of Augustuses out there, after all.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
For a similar audience, The Comic Strip History of the World by Sally Kindberg and Tracey Turner has more of that narrative flow I sought.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Diary of a Time Traveller by David Long and Nicholas Stevenson at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Diary of a Time Traveller by David Long and Nicholas Stevenson at Amazon.com.
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