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Halo-Halo Histories #1
A Lolong Time Ago: A Prehistory of the Philippines
Who doesn’t love a good story? That’s what HIS-story means — the story of us! Our prehistoric lolos and lolas were cool, interesting, and clever folks. Meet them and our country’s first families up close in this fascinating book about how our islands were formed, how our earliest ancestors lived, and the beginnings of our nation.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
4 people are currently reading
74 people want to read
About the author
Michelline Suarez
3 books1 followerMichelline Espiritu Suarez is a wife to her college sweetheart, mother to five kids, and mistress to three lazy dogs. She is also a serial entrepreneur. A Liberal Arts graduate, she is fascinated by history, philosophy, sociology, and literature. Halo-Halo Histories is her midlife crisis in book form. She hopes the series will spark an interest in and love for our common heritage, for children and adults alike.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 7, 2019
I’ve wondered what the Philippines was like before colonialization as our history books really don’t tell much. This informative book does not present the almost neat recorded history timeline starting 1521, but the way of life of the Filipinos, from clues left by artefacts. I mean, what happened during year 1200?
Reading about history, or rather prehistory, is made supposedly more fun with cartoons and illustrations. It’s a short book with “fun facts”, though some jokes are a bit off. I appreciate the effort though, of having a fun history book as this, and I’d highly recommend it to the youngsters.
After finishing this, I’ve also wondered, how would life be had the Philippines wasn’t colonized.
Reading about history, or rather prehistory, is made supposedly more fun with cartoons and illustrations. It’s a short book with “fun facts”, though some jokes are a bit off. I appreciate the effort though, of having a fun history book as this, and I’d highly recommend it to the youngsters.
After finishing this, I’ve also wondered, how would life be had the Philippines wasn’t colonized.
February 12, 2021
A fun, creative, and interesting book to learn about our rich and colorful history precolonization. It's good to appreciate who and how we were before our colonizers' cultures confused our then existing national and regional cultural identities. We need more books and efforts like this one. It's great to pass on to kids and the future generations.
August 27, 2020
More please!! 🙏 If history textbooks were written this way when I was a student, history would not have been my least favorite subject. This was really fun to read! 👍
August 13, 2022
This is my commute book because it’s easy to read anywhere and entertaining on top of being informative. I’m looking forward to gifting Filipino kids this book because it’s for all ages!
June 21, 2017
Great concept, but needs better editing - from typos to fact checking. Because it is intended for children, it needs more clarity. The modernization and jokes are not quite enough to make it more engaging for kids. I felt that it generalized some things (expected) and went into specifics on others, giving the book an unbalanced feel. I also thought there were particular focus on things that are currently trending/popular, making me wonder about self-exoticism.
May 23, 2022
It's meant to be short, as well as easy, and fun to read, but I like how they packed it with as much detail as possible. As I read through I initially doubted that they would mention the "penis rings" used by pre-colonial communities. These instruments were called "sagra", and were used by men to pleasure their lovers. These were deemed "abominable and bestial" customs by the Spanish, as noted in the Boxer Codex.
I wouldn't have blamed the writers of Lolong Time Ago for not adding it, knowing the young audience the book targets. But they do mention it. I appreciated that they didn't elaborate for younger audiences, but that they still mentioned it albeit in passing.
The book helps young readers know that a lot more was going on than initially taught or suggested in today's curricula, schools, or even the Spanish observations themselves. The authors take information from a wide variety of sources and have consulted with experts in different fields.
It is a nice consolidated snapshot of pre-colonial history, a lolong time ago, making it a nice entry point for people young and old to explore further.
I wouldn't have blamed the writers of Lolong Time Ago for not adding it, knowing the young audience the book targets. But they do mention it. I appreciated that they didn't elaborate for younger audiences, but that they still mentioned it albeit in passing.
The book helps young readers know that a lot more was going on than initially taught or suggested in today's curricula, schools, or even the Spanish observations themselves. The authors take information from a wide variety of sources and have consulted with experts in different fields.
It is a nice consolidated snapshot of pre-colonial history, a lolong time ago, making it a nice entry point for people young and old to explore further.
October 14, 2022
When it comes to Philippine history I was more attracted to the stories of Bonifacio, Jacinto, and the Katipunan. But when I saw this book (with that seal from the National Children's Book Awards), I decided to give it a whirl. I was really entertained by the illustrations. It was so helpful! The book was meant for kids but i say that it's suitable for all ages. The way the authors discussed everything in detail without using words "too deep" for the average person is truly impressive. Reading it felt like just having a normal conversation with a person over a cup of coffee. Nice!
June 14, 2021
This is one of my favorite books. I loved reading about our country's past and the way people lived here in prehistoric times. Kind of reminds me of the Horrible Histories books, except the topics are less horrible, and it's very Filipino. I think that this book is part of what got me interested in Filipino history.
March 8, 2021
Napaka gandang libro hindi lang para sa mga bata kung hindi para narin sa mga kabataang curious about sa mga events of the past. Bukod pa doon, madaming mga facts ang pwedeng matutunan mula sa libro. The book really quenched my thirst for learning about history and fill the gaps that I wasn't able to learn inside the school classroom.
June 13, 2023
This was such an entertaining take on Philippine Pre-History that I wasn't able to put it down once I started reading it. Took just a few hours to finish because it was really funny and engaging! Looking forward to reading this to my daughter for our homeschool.
September 23, 2018
this was so fun to read like a refresher course on the history of the Philippines but not in the way that schools usually taught us
November 15, 2020
I read this book in 2018 I guess? And I read it again and my curiosity didn't change! It is a good book there are illustration and funny things in there! I really love it!
Want to read
February 25, 2022I heard good things about this book. It's a shame that it isn't in our library (not a publisher that we buy from...)
August 9, 2025
A super fun way to introduce yourself to pre-colonial Filipino history
September 8, 2025
Great children’s book, learned a lot. Cute illustrations.
As inclusive as they tried to be, I feel like some info was missed out on that is related to the visayas region.
Read it in one sitting.
As inclusive as they tried to be, I feel like some info was missed out on that is related to the visayas region.
Read it in one sitting.
July 1, 2017
From the title alone, the book reminded of a similarly-themed series called "Horrible Histories" which takes a jab at established facts of a certain culture. In this line, the pre-colonial period of the Philippines is given light through archaeological materials, parcels of history that treads on the economic and social relations of various peoples in the islands. And while the work intends to be more inclusive of the younger demographic, the humor is quite off at times and there are instances where the historical information seems to have remained in the standard text instead of a new point of view.
March 5, 2017
Introduction to Philippine history before Spanish colonialisation. Is read very quickly. Style of book displays Filipino humor - i.e. as a European you will likely think that their jokes are not funny. A few things are in Tagalog and not translated to English.
March 20, 2017
It is a very interesting and informative book. A Filipino attempt on the Biritish's Horrible History TV series. Though non Filipino readers may need to be aware of a few Filipino words. For example in the title the word Lolong is not only a play on the word long but also on the Filipino word for grandfather.
Another thing that readers need to remember is that despite the many artifacts and accounts brought up by the authors, not much is really known about life in the Philippines before colonization. We may speculate, but without documents and written accounts, they only remain as speculation.
Another thing that readers need to remember is that despite the many artifacts and accounts brought up by the authors, not much is really known about life in the Philippines before colonization. We may speculate, but without documents and written accounts, they only remain as speculation.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews