Peoples of the World

by Renee P on 2011-10-15
I am not going to read this book to my children. We will be exposed to nudity and evolution and differing beliefs without having to read about it over and over again.

by Amber B on 2011-10-14
I was diapoointed that this was our first exposure to history with Sonlight. I have no desire for my 5-year-old to see nude pictures and I wouldn't have dreamed that would be an issue with Christian curriculum. I also do not agree with numerous parts of the book; I don't feel like I should be having the explain what and why we believe differently in the first week of school.

by Julie S on 2011-09-16
My 3 star review isn't because of nudity or evolution either. I am of the camp to tell our children about these things without going into extreme detail at this point. We simply found this book boring, and too much population statistics, charts and graphs that are not interesting to look at for the 1-3 age range. I think there are better choices for people around the world books, maybe Children Just Like Me or the like.

by Cathy G on 2011-01-06
My issue is not with the nudity or evolutionist views of this book. I, personally, feel it is necessary for our children to be exposed to those things so they are aware that other people live differently than we do. My issue with this book is how horribly outdated it is. We are new to Sonlight and are going through the Core 1 program. We have reached the point at the end of the book where we are to "review" 5 or 6 cultures from the graphs at the end of the book. All of the European countries are still showing Francs, Pounds, Deutschmarks, etc. They are, of course, on the EuroDollar now. If this easily identified information is that out of date, what else is outdated? Sonlight needs to update either this particular book, or get a newer one altogether.

by Jennifer M on 2010-11-18
We are returning this book. I was shocked to start into this book on Day 1 only to discover nude and semi-nude pictures. My 6 year old son DOES NOT need to be exposed to nude breasts. We have enough sexuality in our society that we certainly don't need to increase their exposure. As for the evolution taught, I did not have a problem with it. It was in sight, so we could not avoid it, but used it as a talking point to discuss what is correct. I colored in all the pictures that were inappropriate and intended to go ahead and use the book. However, after looking through some of the other books in the set, I decided to set all of the inappropriate books aside and use something else. (The inappropriate books are being returned.)

by ELIZABETH T on 2010-10-04
I agree 100% with Mandy, Jared, Kari, & Rebekah and I'm so glad there are others who see the problem with this kind of book in a "christian" curriculum. If the very first pages of the book are inaccurate, how you trust any of the content? It's the same issue with all the Usborne history books.

by REBEKAH M on 2010-09-21
Too much info on each page. Jumped around too much. And agree with Kari C's review about description of Christians being inaccurate. If that is inaccurate, how accurate is the rest of the book.

by KARI C on 2010-09-18
I was extremely disappointed with this book. Although it had some good information about other cultures overall it was a big let down and not appropriate for first graders. On page 4 it says that money-like creatures are our ancestors! Although that page is not taught in the Sonlight schedule it is still in the book and this is not something that I want in my home library where my children can read at any time. The teachings on Christianity on pages 20-21 are far from accurate. It says Christians "believe that if they lead good lives, they too will go to heaven when they die." Finally, I agree with the other reviews that the curriculum was deceiving when it said "Creation to the Roman Empire". We haven't read anything about creation. I am not agaist reading other viewpoints and being able to discuss them with my children, but monkey ancestors is not a viewpoint, its a flat-out lie.

by GWENDOLYN S on 2010-08-27
We really enjoyed using this book to learn about other cultures. It was helpful to establish a basis of what defines a culture: religion, clothing, food, language, etc. I was surprised, like some of the other parents that they taught evolution, but there was a heads up in the IG, so I knew it was coming, and it has allowed for discussion that has hopefully been helpful. Really, to me, the thing that was more offensive than the evolution was the discussion about different races of people. If all people descended from Adam, there are no races, we are all one race, the human race.

by JARED W on 2010-03-27
I was very disappointed to see that in the very first book (The Usborne book of Peoples of the World) that there was Evolution being taught. They depict pre-historic life with "missing link" type people living very primitively hundreds of thousands of years ago. Not only is this un-scientific, but it flatly contradicts the teachings of the Bible. I am very disappointed that an organization putting out "Christian" literature would condone advancing this viewpoint. The tagline of the curriculum is deceiving as it says from "Creation to the Roman Empire", implying that they use the Bible as the basis for their starting point for history. This simply is not true. The Usborne book Houses and Homes has a few pre-historic scenes as well.