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It's undeniable, children today have short attention spans. More often than not it's misdiagnosed as some sort of mental disorder, the professionals and parents forgetting that children are just children and naturally have short attention spans. That's because they are constantly curious and constantly learning - whether we are teaching them or not. They learn from their environment as much as they learn from books, and while there are billion lessons for parents in that statement, I'm here to talk about book learning. Fun book learning. Fun and interactive book learning.
Nomad Press has a series of "Build it Yourself" books that are not only highly entertaining, but actually quite informative as well. The books mix learning with crafts and small home projects that provide hours of combined efforts between parent and child. They foster a strong learning environment, and even the most apathetic parent can find themselves enthralled by the enthusiasm their child exhibits towards the books. For this review, I took a look at the most recent release, World Myths and Legends written by GeekDad's own "Queen of Crafts" Kathy Ceceri and deftly illustrated by Shawn Braley.
Myths lays out like a miniature encyclopedia in the sense that it doesn't leave the reader having to resort to other forms of media for immediate research. While there is a resource page that lists many other books and web sites, that page is meant for further research rather than in the course of the book - in my estimation at least. From a time line, map of the world, index and glossary the book is a complete data source on the subject material. All technicalities aside, it covers a lot of information in a little over 100 pages. From the beginning of man, through industrialization the myths and legends hail from areas all over the world. The Middle East, Greece, Rome, Africa and so on provide plenty of fodder for learning and experiments.
Take for example the chapter on Northern Europe focusing on Norse Mythology, King Arthur and Celtic Mythology. With descriptive explanations of the basis of the cultures taking up the gist of the pages, there are also smaller sections with one shot factoids and words to know. Such as the tale of "Finn MacCool and the Giants Causeway," a two paragraph tale about a giant who builds a causeway so his rival can cross a body of water to fight him. My nine year old enjoyed that, as he saw the honor in it. At the end of the chapter, like most of the others there are several crafts for the family to do together. It would be off-putting to leave a child to do the crafts alone, not to mention a bit irresponsible as some call for ingredients such as glue, scissors, knives, potatoes, hair spray and other items a child shouldn't be handling without supervision.
The crafts at the end of this particular chapter were well enjoyed in my house, save for the Beltane Flower hair Wreath, which I could not convince the nine year old to make. He did however construct a Celtic Triskeles armband, which sadly did not last the test of a younger sister. Also in this chapter was a sword in the stone, a neat little project utilizing a block of Styrofoam. The next craft was a runic stone and pouch, he made the stones and neglected the pouch. Not for lack of trying. We just couldn't find any spare leather.
Overall this is a great set of books to get your children started on the path to creative learning. Easy to read and understand for most children reading age and up, the multitude of crafts and interactive education only make the books fun. That's right, books can be fun. I haven't seen my nine year old excited about a book like this for a while. He actually smiled at it, because it wasn't what he would consider "work" (as he has to read books for school.) Braley's illustrations are topical and descriptive in themselves, detailed when they have to be and simple when that's all that is needed. The illustrations never overwhelm the book, and keep each page in movement.
In particular, World Myths and Legends can quickly become a favorite in the series due to it being about some of the most exciting and fantastical stories in existence. I've had this book for several weeks and we're not even 25% into completing the crafts. As I said, it's a book, but It'll be fun completing the rest of it.
Get World Myths and Legends on Amazon.com
Image Credit: Nomad Press
