Thinking further into the field of educational history for
children, I have looked at the hugely successful and critically acclaimed books
(and recently television series), Horrible Histories, a series I myself grew up reading as a child. These are books designed to teach children about key times in history, while still being fun-to-read and containing a juicy bit of gore and gruesomeness.
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| A collection of some of the Horrible Histories books |
It is important to note however that although I intend my text to be thematically similar with a similar 'horrible history' semantic field, the typology and general formal of my text will be vastly different from the Horrible Histories books. These books are written in a conventional black-and-white, words-printed-on-paper format, whereas my text will be the polar opposite to this. However, in the books there are frequent cartoons with amusing quotation bubbles, as well as some fun diagrams. These break up the text into smaller chunks, giving the reader a light break. The author also draws attention to important names and facts by using bold typography.
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| A look inside the books shows funny cartoons and bold typography... |
Looking at the content and style of Horrible Histories has also helped me to find a way of
incorporating social realism into my text, as Horrible Histories have proven
that gruesomeness is something which can really appeal to children. Therefore, I
have decided to touch on one of the most pervasive aspects of social realism: death.
The Tudors were notorious for their public executions and their high
death-by-execution rate, and therefore my chosen history period will be the Tudor era. I have decided that the ‘adventure’ in my text will be
having to find clues, in order to save an innocent person from getting
beheaded.
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