In this post, we will take a look at the book History News: The Greek News by Anton Powell and Philip Steele (pp. 32).

The Summary

This book takes actually historical events from Ancient Greece and reduces them into newspaper style articles. The writing style is similar to anything you would see on CNN, NBC, New York Times, etc. Some of the stories in the book include an article on the anger of Greeks on colonists returning to Greece instead of staying overseas The anger was due to the lack of food in Greece and the frustration of having to support the returning colonist.

Another story is the victories of Alexander the Great and his untimely death in his early thirties. There are also several articles on life in Sparta as well as the Olympic Games. There are also advertisements on several pages just as in a real newspaper. My personal the potty training toilet for small children (pg. 18). I am assuming this book is historically accurate

The Good

The authors truly earn an ‘A’ for creativity. Taking the unknown (Greek History) and combining it with the know (modern day news writing) is an excellent pedagogical tool. Like all newspapers, there are many illustrations. Not with photos of course as they were not invented yet but with hand drawings. 

The stories are interesting and give you a picture of everyday life in Greece. There are interviews with housewives, actors, and even architects.

The Bad

Creativity can also be a curse. I love this approach but it may be confusing to people who cannot juxtapose news articles with ancient Greek history. This is probably especially true with young children as they are unfamiliar with both Ancient Greece and news-style writing.

The writing almost assumes that the reader is Greek. Again this requires a lot of background knowledge prior to using this text. Perhaps at the end of a unit on Greece would be an appropriate time to use this text. You may want to try photocopying a few articles and reading them together as a class.

The Recommendation

This book deserves 4.5/5 stars. It is highly engaging with its use of illustration and the clever use of news style writing. The kids will enjoy the pictures and the unique approach to teaching. In addition, for students, they need to be prepared for this type of learning experience through other forms of exposure to Ancient Greece. In other words, this text is excellent supplementary materials, however, a foundation should be laid in advance of the main points of Ancient Greece to avoid confusion due to the writing style of this text.