Recently I received a copy of Famous Figures of Ancient Times to review for author Cathy Diez-Luckie. I have homeschooled for many years using a time line to help my children remember important people in history, so I thought this would be a new way to introduce famous people from the ancient days.

These timeline figures are so much fun to create and manipulate. I appreciate the thought the author put into this book. Not only did she include color pictures you just cut out and assemble, she also included blackline drawings of the figures, so the children can color them and then assemble them. I like to give my children hands-on activities to work on while I read aloud to them, and the blackline pages, make that so easy. I will say that I enjoyed the simplicity of just cutting out one of the colored figures and assembling it. Some days you just do not have as much time as others to devote to hands-on activities.

We also like the size of the figures once they are assembled. They are large enough for the children to manipulate and handle.

I also liked that it took minimal resources to create the figures. I only needed sharp scissors, small brass fasteners and colored pencils. I used the sharpest point of my scissors to make the holes to attach the brass fasteners. I did not have a small hold punch or awl handy. And it was simple enough to punch a small hole in the paper for my children.

These are available through Figures in Motion (www.figuresinmotion.com), and they retail for $19.95. There are 20 famous figures in this book about the ancient times. And there is a brief paragraph about each person, so you do not have to do a lot of research if you are just doing an introduction to a person. They could be used with many different history programs. I highly recommend them.