Educational and FUN Children's Books by Carole P. Roman {Product Review}

The links on this blog and in the posts may be affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for full details and thank you for your support!

We are a literature loving family--especially when it comes to picture books. I love it when I can use picture books to help expand our homeschool studies. I recently reviewed several books by Carole P. Roman including If You Were Me and Lived in... the Middle Ages, If You Were Me and Lived on... Mars, Rocket-Bye, and One to Ten: Squirrel's Bad Day. Each of these is not only very colorful and kid friendly, but they are very informative and teach a lesson about something.

About Carole P. Roman books

The If You Were Me and Lived In...Historical and Cultural Series books are designed to take your family on a travel through time to visit the cultures and civilizations around the world and throughout history. The newest books in her series are designed to introduce students to
civilizations throughout time, and include the following titles:

*If You Were Me and Lived in...
Ancient Greece
Renaissance Italy
Elizabethan England
Colonial America
Ancient China: The Han Dynasty
the Middle Ages
the American West
Viking Europe
Ancient Mali Empire
the Mayan Empire

You can also check out her series If You Were Me and Live In...Cultural Series which includes the following selections:

*If You Were Me and Lived In...
Australia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Kenya, Mars, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, South Korea, Turkey

In these books, you will learn about what kind of food you might eat, the clothes you may wear, what your name could be in the country/civilization, and what kind of work a child might have done. The full color illustrations really give a peak at the culture and customs, occupations, food, clothing, and recreation of each civilization and culture through time.
Carole P. Roman also has authored a line of children's stories including books in her Captain No Beard Series, Bedtime Stories, and Early Chapter Reader Books--Oh Susanna series.
We were given four books to review including: If You Were Me and Lived in... the Middle Ages (Historical Series) If You Were Me and Lived on... Mars (Cultural Series) Rocket-Bye (Bedtime Stories) One to Ten: Squirrel's Bad Day (Bedtime Stories)

Our Thoughts on the Books

When we requested our books to review, I remembered that we had reviewed this author before, so I tried to pick two books that we didn't already have. The author generously sent us two additional selections to review. There was a bit of a mix-up and one of the books I received wasn't what I was originally supposed to review, but I discovered that the book I should have received was one we actually had already reviewed as well.

Of the four books, the two favorites were If You Were Me and Lived On...Mars and One to Ten: Squirrel's Bad Day.

My boys just completed a science curriculum on astronomy, so they have an affinity to all things space related. The book about Mars gave an imaginative look at what life would have been like as a child living on a Earth settlement on Mars. There were science facts worked in (facts about Mars), as well as interesting tidbits about what you could and couldn't do on Mars, and what kind of careers the adults may have. In fact, several aspects of the book reminded me about the movie The Martian that Hollywood recently released. This book basically summed up everything the movie covered in regards to what it would take to live on Mars, but talks about it in a way that is fun and engaging for children.

Squirrel acting out what happened

One to Ten: Squirrel's Bad Day is a darling book where animals in the forest help Squirrel process the feelings she's experiencing after she trips and loses all her acorns into a river. They help her gauge what she is feeling, rating it from one to ten to help put her experience into perspective with other experiences. This in turn helps her to realize that maybe it wasn't as bad as she thought it was. The illustrations are darling and the message was very good in teaching children how to process their emotions when bad things happen to them. We have been able to use the simple principle explained in the book to help my youngest deal with his own "traumatic events." The only con I have with this book is the font used. It is thin font, small, and all caps. My son doesn't read all caps as well as he does "normal" writing.

On this chart, we measure from one to ten, ten being the absolute worst and one, not so bad. What number would you give it? Let's find an example, and I'll show you how it works.

~One to Ten: Squirrel's Bad Day (Carole P. Roman)

If You Were Me and Lived In...the Middle Ages was a book that I received to review the last time we received Carole P. Roman books. This book gives a look back into the realm of knights, ladies, castles, and other key elements of the time period. Your child gets to learn about what kind of food they may have eaten (like the fact they eventually only ate once a day!), the clothes they wore, facts about being a young girl/boy during the time. I especially like the glossary in the back and the section on "Famous People from the Middle Ages".

Rocket-Bye is a simple children's book written about a rocket ship trip into space and introduces the solar system and easily found constellations in a delightful bit of easy to read verse that just rolls off the tongue. My 7 year old didn't have very much difficulty reading the words and enjoyed being reminded of things we had studied in our Astronomy course this past year. The illustrations are very pretty too.

We love the constellations,

the way they fill the skies.

The crazy quilt of a universe

is spread before our eyes.

~Rocket Bye (Carole P. Roman)

We had originally requested If You Were Me and Lived In...Colonial America, but it didn't work out for us to get it. But funny thing is I actually already reviewed it last time! So if you want to see what I think about that book, make sure you visit my previous Carole P. Roman review!

One final thing--there are worksheets that coordinate with most, if not all of the If You Were Me and Lived In...book series! Make sure you check them out for ways to take these books further!

Want to Know More About Carole P. Roman's Books?

Over the last several weeks, we have been reviewing several books by Carole P. Roman including If You Were Me and Lived in... the Middle Ages, If You Were Me and Lived on... Mars, Rocket-Bye, and One to Ten: Squirrel's Bad Day. These are only a handful of the books available the author, and only a few of the ones that our review crew covered! Make sure you visit some other crew members to see their book reviews!

Facebook * Twitter  * Pinterest  * GoodReads  

***

These books are really delightful and very helpful when studying world history. I now have several that I can pull out and use when we need to study a time period more closely!