Portugal

Enchantment of the World

by Ettagale Blauer, Jason Laure

This series meets National Curriculum Standard for: Social Studies: Culture Global Connections People, Places, & Environments Production, Distribution, & Consumption Time, Continuity, & Change

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel

144 pages, Library Binding

First published September 1, 2002

Reviews

[Kevin Keating]

This book was published in the last few years by Scholastic for 8-9 graders I presume. I really liked the information they chose to tell the reader. In this case I am taking students to Portugal so I was looking for a little more than a guidebook and this was perfect. Had info on culture and food and history and recent politics. Also some environmental stuff. One glaring error was that the book said that the Portuguese got everything west of the Tordesillas line when in fact they got all east of that line including Brazil and Africa. Big mistake for a book aimed at school-age kids. So it cost them the fifth star. Good read though.

[RaspberryRoses]

read for civ 6 history challenge: João III

[Kathleen]

So I've begun this project in which I read about the various countries of the world: one nonfiction book, one fiction book, and one book written by a person from that country. I started it when I figured out that I had no earthly idea where Myanmar was, at least in comparison to other countries.

Anyway, I've found the Enchantment of the World series to be extremely useful. It's a series of children's nonfiction books that covers various countries of the world in pretty good detail (for children's books, anyway). They're all structured the same way. Ten chapters, starting with a short introductory one, moving through geography, flora and fauna, history (often the longest one), government, economy, population, religion/culture, arts, and daily life.

They're educational, pretty light reads with plenty of pictures, but informative nonetheless. They're also, despite being undeniably US-focused, pretty nonjudgmental regarding religion and/or current world relations. The only one I read that was openly judgmental was the North Korea one, and, uh. It's North Korea. They do talk about various atrocities, but briefly, in children-focused language, and usually only the historical ones.

They can also be, by virtue of the publishing cycle, somewhat dated. I think the latest any of them go is 2015. Still, that's pretty damn recent for a published book, and I'm searching out the second editions where I can, since they're the most up-to-date. I'd definitely recommend these for kids, and also for people who have no earthly idea where, for example, Myanmar is.

[Bernardo Sanchez]

Portugal!
This was the first country that I solo visited and was an amazing place to start. Portugal is a very nice and vibrant place to visit, with many things, foods, and things to do. What makes Portugal stand out is that it is such a small country yet it has such a rich culture. I would love to talk about this book with children and show the beauty of Portugal.

[Jess]

I read the 2019 edition of Portugal Enchantment of the World in preparation for an upcoming trip to Portugal. It was interesting and had a good overview of history, traditions, food, culture, government, topography.

[Claudette Wielechowski]

This book with a copyright date of 2002, is a little bit dated. It gave interesting facts about Portugal’s history, its people and economy products.
We are traveling to Lisbon this fall and wanted to learn a bit about the Portuguese.

[Leslie]

I read this book solely because I am traveling to Portugal in November. This book was an easy read with a good overview albeit 16 years old.

[Thea]

This book is super helpful for people like myself that plan on visiting Portugal in the future.

[Susan]

I read the 2019 edition. Loved this! It was a super quick and informative overview of the country.