School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-These titles take readers back in time to experience life in Israel during King Solomon's reign and Rome during Pax Romana. The authors describe clothing, foods, housing, notable personalities, local customs, safety tips, and give other interesting information. Students will particularly enjoy the quirky facts about "foods to try at your own risk," such as roasted locust, and the lack of private toilets. Written in a lively conversational style, each book contains boxed trivia and informative photos, reproductions, drawings, and maps. Useful for reports or just browsing, these books are fun as well as informative.-Doris Losey, Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library, Tampa, FL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Horn Book (Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2004)

With a contemporary tourist-guide tone, these books on ancient civilizations are generally amusing and informative. Accompanying sometimes humorous boxed trivia are cartoon figures dressed in ancient garb and wearing sunglasses, which detract from the useful photos of artifacts. Pronunciation guide, reading list, timeline, websites. Bib., glos., ind. [Review covers these Passport to History titles: Your Travel Guide to Ancient Rome and Your Travel Guide to Ancient Israel.]

ALA Booklist (Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2004)

Reviewed with Markel's Your Travel Guide to America's Old West. Gr. 4-6. Markel takes on the role of armchair guide, dispatching kids on self-directed tours of the past, using a mix of historical snippets and jaunty observations on typical dress, diet, hazards, and accepted behavior. Cribbing rubrics from modern travel guides, she discusses Money Matters, Where to Stay, How to Stay Safe and Healthy, and more. Despite the light tone, she is frank about such issues as race relations and slavery in both cultures. Each volume includes lively side comments, a recipe (Brain and Bacon Stew in Ancient Rome ), biographical notes on a handful of prominent individuals, and a generous list of further resources. America's Old West is illustrated on nearly every page with a telling, sometimes hilarious, old photo, painting, or print; in Ancient Rome , a mix of modern color photos, reconstructed scenes, and close-ups of artifacts impart a clear sense of public and private life. Though these entries in the Passport to History series are neither detailed nor systematic enough to be sole sources of report information, they are sufficiently rich in facts and images to be popular choices for both assignment-driven reading and private inquiry.