‘Totally Chaotic History: Ancient Egypt Gets Unruly’ by Greg Jenner

Genre: Children’s Non-Fiction – History

Published: 2024

Format: Paperback

Rating: ★★★★★

This is a brilliant book! I just wish parts had more detail but as it’s a children’s book you can’t have all of the information in it. So, I went and watched a very interesting documentary called ‘Secrets of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings’ and I still want to find out more! Luckily not long to wait until the next in this book series on the Romans, which comes out in October 2024 just in time for my birthday!

I love the interplay between Greg Jenner and Egyptologist Dr Campbell Price, and the illustrations are fabulous by Rikin Parekh. The book is easy to follow along, in a chronological format, but with some interspersed sections like on Egyptian construction, or medicine. The chaos meter is a fun addition, along with the accuracy alarm, which highlights the fact that our understanding of history can change over time.

Choosing to include dates, places, and names throughout means that it isn’t dumbed down too much, which I do sometimes think about the Horrible Histories series which does have a lack of dates in many books. The book respects that children can learn and can get engaged with the history. Ancient Egypt is probably a good place to start for the series because it is something that children will probably at least have some visual images of like mummies, and it has some of the chaos that no doubt draws children in.

It’s reminiscent of a more modern Horrible Histories but I think I prefer Greg Jenner’s writing style to Terry Deary’s, and I love Horrible Histories anyway, but I liked the written interplay between Jenner and Price in this book. It’s a brilliant run-through of Ancient Egyptian history, I’d really recommend it, not just for children, but for anyone who wants a fun introduction to the period.