If You Were Me and Lived in…Ancient China by Carole P. Roman

A review I did earlier for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

My family loves reading books about history. We get pretty excited with just about any time period of history. Recently, we were introduced to books by Carole P. Roman.

If You Were Me and Lived In...Ancient Greece is a delightful paperback book with 53 pages. I would say that the reading level is around 3^rd to 6^th grade. In my opinion, older children would enjoy reading this book. With younger kids, this could be a read out loud as the story is easy to follow along with.

The illustrations are created by Mateya Arkova who lives in Bulgaria. The illustrations are depicted in a cartoonish and whimsical manner. The pictures look like watercolors in bright pastel colors. They paint a wonderful picture of what life might have looked like in Ancient Greece and what it looks like now in modern day Greece.

The book starts out in Modern day Greece showing the ruins of an Ancient Greece city. Then you step back in time to around 350 B.C. You will learn about the country’s location, architecture, cities, food, customs, religion, military, occupations, education, clothing, Olympics, and about the famous historians born in Greece. You will learn about the many gods and goddesses as religion is part of everyday life. All of this is told from a child’s perspective.

There is an emphasis placed on the Greek gods and goddesses. Each page has a short blurb about how a certain Greek god or goddess played a role in that particular part of the Ancient Greek civilization. At the end of the story you also have a page listing the gods and goddess of Ancient Greece and how they affect every life in the Greek culture.

Five pages of glossary of the vocabulary are included in the back of the book. The glossary also includes pronunciation of the words. There are occasional questions throughout the book to encourage discussion of the topics. On Carole P. Roman’s blog, you will find two worksheets to print off to ask your students comprehensive questions about the book.

This is an excellent tool to introduce your students to Ancient Greece and the culture. This book could easily be used for a school research paper for kids just learning how to do a research paper. It would make a wonderful unit study, lapbook, or be used with notebook pages. The story packs a wealth of information in it without feeling overwhelming.

As a Christian, I don’t care about promoting gods and goddesses. At the same time, I also understand that the impact that the ancient Greek civilization has had throughout history; and that history includes their religious beliefs. The book is very to the point and gives you just the facts of the gods and goddesses.
I tend to not shy away from the topic of gods and goddesses, and even Greek Mythology.  I use them as teaching opportunities to talk about the topic. So much of our modern day culture is entwined with this sort of thing. It is also important because the names and concepts of these ancient Gods and Goddesses appear in much of our literature and art.

I would personally rather have my kids hear about the gods and goddesses from me and not the world. If you don’t like touching on the topic of god and goddess of ancient Greece than this book may not be for you.

We had fun reading this in our homeschool with my 10 year old son and 13 year old daughter. This has been a summer read out loud. We spent a bit more time with this book due to the fact we had a lot of discussion about the religious aspect of the civilization. I appreciated the worksheets provided on the blog that adding some great discussions topics.

This book would make a wonderful addition to any library and are ideal to use in the classroom or homeschooling situation. I have been impressed with the wealth of information Carole P. Roman has put in this story. I look forward to adding more of her book to my library.

-Product review by Renee K., The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, LLC, September, 2016



I received a free copy of this product in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this information accordance with the FTC Regulations.