Duh! Knights and Castles

One of my favorite blogs is coolmomtech and its sister site coolmompicks.  When they reviewed Duh Books and said, "The growing Duh! collection is full of great information, simple explanations, cool interactive graphics, and links to learn more” I decided to check one of the books out.  I ordered the knights and castles book, because I wanted to show my daughter what real castles are like, as opposed to the Disneyfied versions she sees on TV and in movies.

Author: Jule Lelieveld
Designer: Bas Verhoeven

Publisher: Patsboem! (2013)        

Prices: $3.99
Reading level: Ages 6-10
Interest level: Lower and Medium Grades
Physical Characteristics: Version 1.0, 18 pages
Series: Duh Books
Genres: ebook, non-fiction, textbook
Subjects:
Knights
Castles
Middle Ages

Annotation: A book especially designed for the Ipad with educational information about knights and castles.

Summary:  
Duh! Knights and Castles is an e-book for kids six years and up.  It was created especially for the iPad and contains movies, interactive pictures, sound effects and safe weblinks.  The ebook examines uses and layout of castles, the age of knights, battles and much more in regards to both castles and knights.

Evaluation: 
I really enjoyed this ebook and hope that Patsboem create more books in their Duh! Series.  As my daughter gets further along in elementary school and has to start write reports, doing research projects and creating show and tell type presentations I believe these books will really come in handy.   The best art about Duh! Knights and Castles was that the multi touch aspect makes reading it an interactive and highly engaging learning experience.  There are photos and illustrations to click on with sound effects, and additional pop ups of information specific to those pictures.  Another nice aspect to these books as that it doesn’t provide only information, there are also many questions asked for the reader to answer or research and many prompts to encourage further learning.  A wonderful feature is that harder vocabulary words specific to the time period are highlighted and defined when you click them.  This is a good way to keep younger readers ivolved, even if they do not know much about castles and knights and the relevant vocabulary.  I really liked this book and will be downloading more in the future.

Similar Titles or Authors:
Knights & Castles: 50 Hands-On Activities to Explore the Middle Ages by Avery Hart 
Duh! Horses
 
Castles and Knights by DK Publishing


Websites:
http://www.patsboemeducatief.nl/

http://duhbooks.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/duh!-knights-and-
castles/id743894111?mt=13&ign-mpt=uo%3D4


Professional Reviews:
No peer reviewed reviews.  Only this blog post from coolmomtech.

All images © Poetsboem