A Really Short History of Nearly Everything

            Well I definitely did not expect the book to be as long as it was when I checked it out from the library. I was thinking it was going to be more of a picture book with not a lot of words.  While it did have pictures on every page, it had quite a bit of text. It definitely took a few days to read. It was also more difficult to read than a regular novel because it switched topics every few pages.

            I have a hard time trying to picture assigning this book to my Middle School students. Not only is the book really long, it jumps from topic to topic. It would be good if I just assigned a few pages, but I feel it would take away from the overall story line. It would be excellent to use as a backup supplemental text because the book breaks it down so easily and is very informative.  The pictures, both animated and “real” really get the point across. This book definitely is not as boring as a regular textbook. I feel that it would be really interesting for my Middle School students. It kind of reminds me of that book of Guinness World Records. This book has taught me a lot- it breaks it down so easily that even difficult topics are easy to understand.

            The content of this book really did hit on “nearly everything”. It does an excellent job of taking a really important topic and explaining the key points on that topic. They have about a page to carefully explain say the Earth’s orbit, so there is no extraneous information given on the topic. And the pictures just add on to the affect. When I had a hard time processing the information, I would just look down at the pictures, and it helped make more sense. Visual learners will definitely benefit from this book- the pictures are almost as descriptive as the text. Now that I am reflecting back on this book, I will surely have this book on a shelf in my classroom.

Bryson, B. (2003_. A really short history of nearly everything. New York: Random House.