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Review: This or That?

BooksforTopics Reading for Pleasure Recommendations

 

Today we feature This or That?, a new non-fiction book that will delight KS2 children who grew up enjoying the ‘You Choose’ books as younger readers. Review Panel member Rachael tells us more about what is inside the book…

 

Book Title: This or That? (available here)

Author: Pippa Goodhart

Publisher: Nosy Crow

Publication Date: March 2019

Reviewed By: Rachael, Primary Teacher

 

In this beautifully presented non-fiction book, each page is a compilation of photographed artefacts or artwork currently on display in the British Museum. Each page consists of different items categorised by theme, for example clothes, transport or games, pulling together items from a wide range of exhibitions. Visually, the book is very appealing as each of the themed pages has a different colour scheme. Most of each page is covered with photographs and artwork and very little text (extra information about each of the objects is included in an easy-to-use index, referencing every item in the book).

 

Throughout the book, there is plenty to promote curiosity, discussion and debate. This starts with five photos placed on the title page for children to hunt for within the text. As the words in the title suggest, with each page Pippa Goodhart encourages children to choose between the items and think about which ones they would prefer. To accompany the photographs, there are a few questions per page to encourage children to examine each of the objects more closely – on the theme of buildings, the question prompts children to look for people inside of all the buildings on the page.

 

The way the photographs are grouped means that children are immediately making links between different countries, ways of life and time periods through the artefacts, objects or artwork. This could be used to start a conversation about how similar some of the items are, despite being from completely different periods of history.

‘This or That?’ would be great to explore before a class visit to the British Museum. It would give the children a sense of familiarity and then excitement if they should come across the items in the museum itself. As well as encouraging comparison between different times in history, it could be used to teach how important real artefacts are to infer what life was like in the past.

 

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You can order This or That? online or from your local bookshop or library.

Many thanks to the publisher for sending us a review copy of this book and to Rachael for reviewing the book.

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