Exploring Portions of History With Carole P. Roman Books: Our Review

• If You Were Me And Lived In . . . Viking Europe
• If You Were Me And Lived In . . . Colonial America
• If You Were me And Lived In . . . The American West

If You Were Me And Lived In . . . Viking Europe is written to show your child what life would be like if he or she were born in the year 870 AD. There are very nice, child friendly illustrations throughout, by Mateya Arkova, who is based in Bulgaria.

This lovely book is 76 pages long, and includes five page glossery at the end. We really liked this, as it was very helpful in understanding more clearly some of the terms in the book.

This book describes to your child how he or she would live in Viking Europe, including how they would dress, eat, drink, etc. I was somewhat surprised to find that although women couldn’t be chiefs or vote, but they still were very nrespected and had more freedom than most of the women in Europe.

If You Were Me And Lived in  . . . Colonial America will tell your child what life would be like for them if they were born around the year 1620, in London England. It tells your child what his or her name might have beenb, which gives a pretty good idea of how different names were back then! We learn about the people who did not wish to follow the king’s new religion, and found a way to leave England for America. We learned about the homes that the people built in their new land, how they lived and ate, and dressed. The book also talks about the chores children were expected to do, every day. It was not such an easy life as children have today!

If You Were Me And Lived In   . . . The American West begins by showing the homestead that your parents might have built after the difficult journey on the Oregon Trail, when you, the child, are age 12. We learn about the actual journey, and how and what things were packed for the 2000 mile journey. About half of the book deals with the journey, which I found to be the best thing, and of great interest to me! The remainder of the book has us learning about building their homestead, and learning to live in their new home.

Carole P. Roman’s books are always so well written, and so interesting! I enjoyed these three for myself, although all of her books are written toward a specific range of levels. In this way, children of many ages can learn from them, and if you look at the levels, children will not become bored of their books. My kids (and indeed, me) found these books very interesting, not in the least boring.