The Celts (history off the beaten path)

Halloween week had us reading up on the Celts, coloring, and taking in a couple of interesting videos. It was a short detour form our march through the Story of the World, but temporally it's a legitimate sidestep. Bauer doesn't get to any of the Celts until the Romans do, quite a ways down the line, but they were there and they were building, and I'm glad we spent the time to give that culture it's place on our history timeline.

Stonehenge Decoded is a National Geographic video that looks at some newer theories and speculations about the meaning and history of that famous stone monument. A true documentary, but as usual we really enjoyed it.

Stonehenge, by Cynthia Kennedy Henzel is part of a series titled Troubled Treasures: World Heritage Sites, and part of the book is dedicated to discussing the ways in which this monument is threatened and the reasons why preserving it should be a priority. Calvin enjoyed the pictures and short paragraphs of factoids present with each.

This book, The Mystery of Stonehenge, by Franklyn Branley, is an old one. That's probably why I like it. Written in the 60s, the book is lacking the loud, attention getting images and fonts of newer non-fiction youth books, and it has the enjoyable feel of a book well written and well made. Mostly text, the images that are present are sketches with limited color. There is one particular sketch, a birds-eye-view, that Calvin has studied repeatedly and really enjoyed. Thumbs-up.

Read-Aloud Celtic Myths and Legends, because we can't look at any culture without also looking for all their good stories. We didn't spend any real time looking at these, just reading them, so I don't know how authentic they are, but we'll do that when we return to the Celts at a later date.

I love the Dover coloring books. They make a coloring book for just about every occasion, Stonehenge included.