cauldronofevil's Reviews > The Savage Stone Age

The British museum was offering a 3-for-the-price-of-2 deal for “Horrible Histories” and I’ve always like their quick-and-dirty approach to history.

This particular book though was sold (and bought) at the Stonehenge sight which I enjoyed seeing in person a great deal.

They also still sold the Stonehenge model kit that I built a while go and I think traded away recently. They also sold a new version of “Risk” called “The Battle for Medieval England” which was sorely temping but did appear to be just a cash grab.

I’ve always loved the Horrible Histories series. A recent trip to London had me collecting almost all of them for a reading project I’ve always wanted to do.

Savage Stone Age seems a great place to start, both timeline wise and because I’ve always been a huge fan of the stone age, cavemen and dinosaurs. A 180 page paperback.

This series is hard to describe, but basically a history lesson using only the good parts. All factually but interesting and told in an interesting way.

Also wonderfully and generously illustrated in a consistent and cartoonish style, often with ‘dad-joke’ style captions. It breaks up the text nicely, but the text is almost always presented in a three pages or less.

But that’s not a put-down. I laughed out loud while reading this book — in between the whoa!, oh my god, and oh-s***’s.

So many people could be inspired by history had they grown up with these wonderful books.

As a fan of all things caveperson, I’m astonished that there is barely any story or factoid that I’ve heard before. That’s especially impressive in this series and makes me look forward to the rest of the series that I’ve nowhere near as much background.

It’s kind of neat reading a section on Stonehenge when I actually went to Stonehenge on that same trip. Definitely a trip worth making. I’m so glad it’s still relatively intact.

Very had to review a book like this. It’s a bit of a hodge podge of facts interspersed by jokes but that doesn’t make it less entertaining. I’m still enjoying it quite a bit.

And finally, the “Horrible Hominid Habits” Quiz.

The quizzes were fun too. So for being run to read and super informative I’ve got to give this one 5 stars and highly recommend it. And of course keep it.