The Story of Christopher Columbus

by Anita Ganeri

[DK Readers Level 2]

The Story of Christopher Columbus Ideal for children who have started to read on their own, this simple retelling of the story of Christopher Columbus's journey to the Americas is told with more words and longer sentences. Full-color illustrations. Full description

Genres: History, Childrens, Biography, American History

32 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2001

About the author

Anita Ganeri is a highly experienced author of children’s information books, specialising in religion, India/Asia, multiculturalism, geography, biography and natural history. She became a freelance writer after working at Walker Books (as foreign rights manager) and Usborne Publishing (as an editor). Since then, she has written over 300 titles, including the best-selling Horrible Geography series for Scholastic. The series won the Geographical Association Silver Award in 1999 and was cited as being ‘an innovation that all geographers will applaud’. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society where she conducts most of her research for the books.

Reviews

[Jacque]

I read this aloud for school. All 3 kids gave it 4 stars. I give it 3. It could have had more information.

[Kendra]

The book does acknowledge Columbus' cruelty and tells of more than just his "discovery" voyage. It does not hail him as a hero, but is fit for a younger crowd.

[Kirsten Foti]

This book acknowledges that Columbus was not always a kind man. It does recognize his cruelty and is a little more historically accurate than some other children's book about the man.

[Sarah]

I felt this was a good summary of Columbus' voyages without going into severe biases or agendas. It was on a great level for my kindergartner to understand with a little bit of challenge and left room for me to add in my own religious POV that I rather an author not put in for me. The pictures and facts were very interesting and I loved how they briefly tied in explorers that followed after Columbus and the foods that they discovered there. We had a wonderful feast of foods they discovered like chocolate, pineapple, avocados, peppers, pumpkins, and corn! A really great read. We read it several times.

[Shelli]

This is a good early reader historical picture book about Christopher Columbus and his many voyages to the Americas. I appreciated that Columbus was not portrayed as a perfect individual and there were many detailed maps; both of which are often omitted from non-fiction reading for children.