The World’s Last Mammoth and other Missing Marvels
Mike Barfield and Franziska Höllbacher
Templar

If you know a primary age child who thinks history is boring, try offering them this book. Divided into eight chapters, it looks at some of world history’s most mysterious marvels and amazing mysteries. Topics range from ancient civilisations, extinct animals, lost treasures, technologies, missing historical figures, mythical monsters and how people spend their non-working time.
Each chapter features comic strips.

Chapter 1, entitled The Magnificent Seven, revisits the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Only one – the Great Pyramid (on the outskirts of modern-day Cairo) still exists and also presented are other buildings past and present, and several statues.
The second chapter features Lost Leaders and you’ll meet – or perhaps you won’t meet the legendary King Arthur, (actually he reappears in the final chapter), Cleopatra, Genghis Khan, once a mighty Mongolian emperor (his body has never been located) famous for the number of people he killed in medieval times (around 40 million supposedly) and somebody I’d not heard of – Puyi who was made an emperor at just 2 years old – against his wishes I hasten to add. A wacky comic strip spread briefly outlines his story.

Have you ever wondered why the dodos met their demise? Or heard of another flightless bird, the Solitaire; they crop up in the third chapter. No matter which chapter you turn to, you’ll find humour aplenty among the missing marvels featured and it’s possible you’ll end up with aching ribs from laughing.

Add a copy or two to KS2 class collections and wait for the grabbing to begin.