Crew Review: King Alfred's English

Usually Crew Review items are for the kids, and that's great, but I have to admit, to being abit excited to get to review something for the Crew all by myself.  Laurie, from The Shorter Word sent me a copy of her book, King Alfred's English -- A History of the Language We Speak and Why We Should Be Glad We Do to review. This would be an awesome study for older students, combining History & English. But since my girls are still pretty young, I just got to read the book for myself. Since I *love* history AND writing, I was excited. And this book absolutely did NOT disappoint! It's a quick (for me) read, in my days when I had uninterrupted reading time, I probably would have read it in a day or two (these days, it took me a week or two, but that was reading a couple pages at a time, then stopping to, you know, be a mom).


I have to admit, this book really made me realize how completely lacking my education (or retention of that education) was when it comes to world/European history. I learned SOOO much history about how Britain/England came to be, including why it's called Britain AND England.


The book moves chronologically through from the early Britons, and their Roman invaders (that happened BEFORE Jesus was born, somehow I just never think about the fact that there were people groups OTHER than those in the "Holy Land" way back then . . . did I mention my education was lacking?) right on through to,well, today  . . . It weaves in history and grammar and makes it all interesting! I was fascinated to learn that standardized spelling and grammar is a rather "new" thing in English, makes me wonder why we bother . . . but doesn't keep me from getting super duper annoyed when people don't know how to use 's appropriately on facebook, or online forums LOL.


Since my girls aren't quite ready for this book, I just read the book, however, if you're using this with older students, be sure to check out all the free learning aids on Laurie's website, here. I should clarify, I think, if we had already been learning about world/ancient history, they would have enjoyed this book as a read-aloud, since they don't really have any understanding of it, we didn't go there. Amazon lists this book as being for 7th-12th grade, I suppose for reading on your own, maybe, I can see it being used as a read-aloud in conjunction with a world history curriculum by 3rd or 4th grade. And of course, I'm a few years past 12th grade and still thoroughly enjoyed it :)

I think this is an interesting read for anyone who speaks English (which is probably all of my readers huh?), and a great resource for anyone whose children are learning world history. It could probably be used as a way to get kids to "appreciate" their grammar lessons too, if you're the type to actually teach grammar lessons as such (I'm not, so what do I know?).

King Alfred's English retails for $16.95 (or $5.95 for Kindle), you can find a list of retailers, here. As a special gift to my readers, the author has offered a 50% discount, good through September, for up to 5 of my readers. So the first 5 people to leave a comment on this post, asking for the discount code (don't forget to give me your e-mail address!!!), I will pass along that information.

Be sure to check out what other Crew members thought of this book, and how some of them used it with their older children, here.

Disclaimer: As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I received the above mentioned product in exchange for writing an honest review. No other compensation was received and all opinions are those of myself or my children, as stated.