Stephen Biesty's Castles

Stephen Biesty's Cross-Sections

by Meredith Hooper, Stephen Biesty (Illustrator)

Stephen Biesty turns his attention to ten actual castles as they were on ten historic dates.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Medieval, Architecture, Childrens

48 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Meredith Hooper uses the storybook form in Who Built the Pyramid? to make the latest research accessible for a young audience. Meredith Hooper is an historian by training and the author of many books, ranging in subject from Antarctica to aviation, from the history of water to the history of inventions.
Hooper, born in 1939, graduated in history from the University of Adelaide, then studied imperial history at Oxford.

Reviews

[Set · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book holds compressed information about various castles and their history: ownership, construction and siege. The illustrations are very detailed and grandioso.
My favorite one is about Chateau Gaillard which I've read about in the book "Ye Castle Stinketh: Could You Survive Living in a Castle?" but there is so much more information in this book about the siege and the backstory of the feud between Philip Augustus and King Richard the Lion Heart. Both fought side by side in the holy land and signed a peace treaty to seize fighting back at home. Philip left the fighting in the Holy Land early with some excuse and went back to lay siege to Richard's castle. Richard was captured in Germany and Philip connived to keep him captive and for that reason, Richard had to pay thirty-four tons of silver (king's random) to be set free. Philip waited until Richard's death to lay siege to his almost impregnable castle but the castle had a weakness found by the solider Bogis and that was through the garderobe chimney. He made a distraction at the courtyard and the lowered the drawbridge to let the soldiers in.

[Beth (FebruaryFilly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concept is good but execution is poor. I really liked the details to the drawings and the references from the story told to the areas of the castle it was taking part in. But many of the cross sections weren’t necessary; they were redundant or didn’t really reveal anything inside. And there were several marking typos where the numbers were left out of the text (typos) making identification difficult. It was also odd to flip back and forth from the story where the numbers were and the number labeled version to the larger portrait. I wish they’d just have put the numbers ON the actual drawing to begin with.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the uniqueness of this book and the intro to history for kids. It was well researched but simplified The illustrations went a step further to give specific points of history about areas within the castles.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely illustrations, but they are so finely detailed you almost need a magnifying glass to see everything... a bit frustrating when reading to a young child.