On Expedition with Lewis and Clark Go Greek! Sports Heroes of Ancient Greece Ancient Greek Adventure

Gr 3—5—Two of these volumes are serviceable, providing decent dabs of information. Go Greek! features browsable factoids on Greek life interspersed with interesting activities like making a decorative oil lamp, an actor's mask, and a recipe for pasteli. Lewis and Clark offers more substantial material, including a time line, and will be of greater assistance with reports. The well-spaced layouts in all four volumes are an attractive mix of clear photographs, illustrations, and text. Unfortunately, Sports Heroes and Greek Adventure suffer from bad writing. To convey information about Greek athletes, Mason relies on the clunky gimmick of a mouthy trainer attempting to convince readers to become Olympic champions. The effort is very weak and downright silly in several places. Royston writes her rather mawkish volume from the viewpoint of a slave boy, which distracts considerably from the factual material. Younger readers may struggle with the rampant fictionalization in these latter two volumes, not knowing what or who is real or created. The books by Ganeri and Hawes would make satisfactory purchases. Those by Mason and Royston would not.—Alyson Low, Fayetteville Public Library, AR