An Ancient World reading list for children aged 5-10

We loosely follow The Well-Trained Mind history schedule, which means studying the Ancients in First Grade/Year 2, and then again four years later. Actually we came to this subject ourselves and the children loved it, so when I discovered we had Susan Wise-Bauer’s approval I ran with it.

The Well-Trained Mind has some super reading lists that I could happily spend all my money on. But my copy of the book is from 1999, and a lot of great stuff has been published since then.

So here is my list of the books we have most loved whilst studying this topic. I’ve said 5-10 but some of the books will be good for children beyond this range and I read some of them aloud to my two when they were younger than 5. This is certainly not everything you could read, and we have focused on Greece, Rome, and a little Egypt, so some parts of the Ancient World have been left pretty neglected. There’s always more to learn…

But here’s what we loved that you might too.

PS Check out the comments for further recommendations from readers. I can’t work out if adding them to the main list makes it too long to be useful, so for now they’ll stay in the comments.

Usborne Young Readers

• Pegasus (Series 1)

• Icarus (Series 1)

• The Wooden Horse (Series 1)

• The Minotaur (Series 2, the book that got my daughter reading)

• Perseus and The Gorgon (Series 2)

• The Story of Rome (Series 2)

• Alexander the Great (Series 3)

• Julius Caesar (Series 3)

• Pompeii (Series 3)

I shared sample pages from Series 1, 2, and 3 in this post, so you can judge what’s best for your child. But of course confident readers love going back to the ‘easy’ books, and when my children were too young I read aloud from the ‘hard’ books, so these can all be enjoyed by a wide age range.

Usborne Lift the Flap books

• Step Inside Ancient Rome (for younger children)

• Look Inside a Roman Town

• See Inside Ancient Greece (there is also a Rome version which we haven’t read)

Myths

If you buy Black Ships Before Troy, be sure to get an illustrated version

• Greek Myths, Jean Menzies

• Myths and Legends, James Riordan (From lots of different cultures. Personally I think the illustrations are a bit scary but my two children seem unfazed.)

• The Orchard Book of Roman Myths

• Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children (nice a short versions, good for younger children)

• A Journey Through Greek Myths (good for older children)

• Daedalus and Icarus, Geraldine McCaughrean

• The Legend of Troy

• Black Ships Before Troy, Rosemary Sutcliffe (Try secondhand. This is for much older children but I read the whole thing aloud to my two—bar the super-gruesome bit with Achilles and Hector—and they loved it.)

• Aesop’s Fables, Michael Morpurgo (I know, not myths but I can’t find a better place to put them!)

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If you know a family embarking on a study of the Ancient World, please feel free to share this reading list with them.

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History

An oldie but a goodie

• Roman Britain (Would be good for older children as there’s lots of detail. We didn’t read it cover to cover and it will still be good in four years’ time.)

• Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar, by L. Du Garde Peach (vintage Ladybird ‘Adventures from History’ books)

• So You Think You’ve Got It Bad? A Kid’s Life in Ancient Greece (not for everyone, as it’s full of toilet humour and jokes about how awful parents are, etc).

• Who Was… Alexander the Great?

• The Humans (we came to this rather late in our Ancient World study but it would be an excellent ‘spine’. An introduction to dozens of early civilisations, by continent. Highly recommended.)

• The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History is always on standby. If I’d been more on-the-ball I’d have used it for a more systematic, chronological study of the Ancient World.

  

  From ‘The Humans: Ancient Civilisations and the Astonishing Things They Taught Us’

Audio

Richard Curtis/Tony Robinson audiobooks (my post here):

• Odysseus, The Greatest Hero of Them All

• Odysseus II: The Journey Through Hell

• Theseus, The King Who Killed the Minotaur

Ladybird Audio Adventures: Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt. Can’t recommend this series enough. So much information packed into one very enjoyable hour. We listen to them over and over again.

And some we didn’t get to, but I might still try to fit in, or save for when Ancient World study comes around again

• Illustrated Stories from the Greek Myths (We really don’t need another collection of Greek myths, but these books are fantastic quality and my children love them. I won’t be buying it but I happily recommend it.)

• See Inside The Ancient World

• Usborne Young Reading Tutankhamun and Cleopatra (both Series 3)

• Sappho: The Lost Poetess (Ancient Greece and Rome are quite male-dominated, goddesses aside, and I wish we’d included Sappho. This book is by Anya Leonard, founder of Classical Wisdom. Anya’s partner

  Joel Bowman
  wrote a guest post for How We Homeschool about how they are ‘away-schooling’ their daughter, travelling around the Classical world. If you’re studying the Classical world, definitely check out Classical Wisdom Kids.)

• Who Was… Julius Caesar?

• Adventures in Time: Alexander the Great and Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile by Dominic Sandbrook (for older children)

• The Wolf-Girl, The Greeks, and The Gods by Tom Holland (also for older children)

• On Ancient China, I am still tempted by Who Was… Confucius?, and If You Were Me and Lived in… Ancient China

  

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  I would love to hear your own recommendations for Ancient World study. I might make this a ‘living list’ and add to it as people suggest other resources. I will also be working on a Medieval World reading list but that won’t be ready for quite a while. Suggestions welcome.

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