Fly Guy Presents Castles

Fly Guy Presents: Castles (Scholastic Reader, Level 2)covered quite a bit more material than I'd expected. I'd been pleasantly surprised when I reviewed Fly Guy Presents: The White House (Scholastic Reader, Level 2)to find it was a well researched book that despite its short leveled reader format managed to provide a rather detailed description of the White House.

I came to the Castle book hoping for a similar treatment of the topic and wasn't disappointed. Castles is again a Level 2 Reader and it while the narrator is clearly fictional the information is actually quality non-fiction material for early readers. As I said in my previous review of the White House book, while this is a leveled reader, I do think most kids would benefit from either a shared reading or some discussion after the fact to understand all the material being presented. The author covers a wide range of topics.

The book begins with a description of what castles are and why they were built. The author uses photographs through out the book to help students realize that castles aren't just make believe stories but real buildings that had a specific purpose. The author continues with a brief history of the age of castle building and then moves on to the vocabulary and structures of castles. This is where using real pictures I though made a huge difference. Children can see where these places existed on actual castles. Once the author finishes describing the defences of the castle, she then moves on to how castles could be attacked, once again defining terms with pictures where possible.

This was the strongest part of the book. The author continues on to describe Medieval society, knights, servants, animals, and famous castles. These topics were a little more complicated and tough to cover in the two pages each was alloted. Still not a bad introdcution to each topic, just not as strong as the earlier introduction to castles.

I'm hopeful the author continues to explore non-fiction topics as I think they make strong additions to the options for history and science reading for students who need a variety of materials available with accurate information written at varied reading levels.