Gladiators - Level 3

by Minna Lacey, Susanna Davidson, Emmanuel Cerisier (illustrator)

Gladiators were brutal fighters who risked their lives in one of the deadliest sports of all time. They performed to huge crowds in stadiums across the Roman Empire Find out these savage spectacles first began, who took part in them and how men were trained to become fighting machines.

Gladiatoris is in Series Three of Usborne Young Reading, which combines good stories with east reading text. Usborne Young Reading has been developed in consultation with Alison Kelly, Senior Lecturer at Roehampton University. Series One is for readers who have just started reading alone. Series Two is for reading who are growing in confidence. Series Three is for readers who want to tackle longer stories.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

64 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 2006

About the author

Since joining Usborne, Minna has written books on everything from pirates and gladiators to jungles and oceans. She studied Maths and Philosophy at university and previously worked as a journalist and illustrator in London, Bogota and New York. In her spare time, she loves writing stories, drawing and playing the guitar.

Reviews

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A surprisingly accurate and detailed childrens book on gladiators that avoids most of the inaccuracies found in books of this genre. Excellent illustrations.

[Corey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too gruesome for target audience age. Virtually every page is filled with violent realistic cartoons and text. I understand that gladiators are a gruesome subject, but this book is too graphic for the target 8 year old audience. The sample pages on the sites I saw are very misleading.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very interesting, too blah.

[Beth Huddleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read filled with interesting facts about gladiators.

Chapter 1 - Who were the Gladiators?
This section provided information about the different fighting styles of gladiators.

Chapter 2 - The First Games
This chapter covered how the gladiator games began and developed over time. It also has a very good diagram of the equipment a gladiator would use both for weapons and armor.

Chapter 3 - Gladiator School
Basically this covers the recruitment, punishments, training, and politics of newbie gladiators.

Chapter 4 - The Stadium
Not only does this part discuss the Colosseum, but it also goes over the politics of the seating in the stadiums.

Chapter 5 - A Day at the Colosseum
This section has some great similarities to our modern sporting events and differences such as the naval battles.

Chapter 6 - Emperor Gladiators
As many know, there were some good emperors and some truly insane emperors. This chapter delves more into the insane ones with Caligula's cheating ways and Commodus's cosplaying.

Chapter 7 - Fight for Freedom
As probably the most famous gladiator, Spartacus is the star of this chapter.

Chapter 8 - How did it all End?
As the title suggests, this chapter demonstrates how the gladiator games slowly went out of favor over time.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

My students really enjoyed this book!

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gladiators are more interesting to me now. I want to learn more about them because of reading this book. It does have some detail, but I want to know more.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was cool. I learned and it was a really really really long book.