So You Think You’ve Got It Bad? A Kid’s Life in Ancient Greece by Chae Strathie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was fun. ‘So You Think You’ve Got It Bad? A Kid’s Life In Ancient Greece’ isn’t the pithiest of titles (and indeed, a structure paralleled by others in the series such as So You Think You’ve Got It Bad? A Kid’s Life in Ancient Egypt) but it is a rather pithy and well-told piece of non-fiction. What’s really interesting is that this comes from a partnership between Nosy Crow and the British Museum and clearly draws upon some of the themes, objects and knowledge of that institution. It’s easy for books of this nature to become simple ‘let me pay you some money and whack my brand on the front of it’ exercises, but I suspect that this is something that wouldn’t ever happen in the Nosy Crow stable. Their books always have a really nice sense of quality and pride about them, and this is no exception.
And so to content –
Covering topics such as ‘The Home’, ‘Diet’ and ‘Fun And Games’, A Kid’s Life In Ancient Greek works through societal rules and expectations for children. I was pleased to see it include a section on ‘Life As A Spartan’ which quite tactfully introduces the hardship of this experience, and I also loved how each section had colour coded page edges – it’s the little notes like this that bind the experience together.
Tonally, it’s more reminiscent of all the all-devouring Horrible Histories series though it does shy away from full on pastiche (which is a good thing!). Instead Strathie takes a lot of pleasure in exploring history from a contemporary perspective and embracing the humour that comes from this: “In Greek Pictures warriors were sometimes depicted with no clothes on. Nakedness was a symbol of bravery in Greek art. It is not a symbol of bravery nowadays. We repeat, it is NOT a symbol of bravery nowadays.” It’s perhaps not the most historical ‘tone’ one might expect, but he does work a lot of information into this, and neatly too.
I loved discovering Marisa Morea’s illustrations. She’s got a very gentle sense of line and colour, embracing that kind of contemporary, natural edge to her work, and as such makes it all very relateable. There’s a substantial mixture of skin-tones and body shapes represented, which is something very lovely to see.
My only concerns with the volume were that I’d have welcomed more being done with the endpapers (particularly as ancient Greek art is so rich with this sort of thing), and the glossary could have done with a little more relationship to the text itself – it felt a little disjointed. Other than that, this is a smart and solid endeavour.
My thanks to the publisher for a review copy.
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Daisy May Johnson 