The Usborne Official Knight's Handbook

My kids absolutely love this book (they are 5 and 7). We got it from the library, have read it countless times, renewed it to the limit, and so now I am picking up our own copy. In our homeschool study of the middles ages, we've read a lot of books. This is the only one they want to read again and again. A previous viewer found it sarcastic, but honestly, it's just a riot! It's a funny, funny book. The author seems to have channeled child humor perfectly. And although there are more informative books out there, my kids will remember what they learned here because of the humor with which it was told. So, if you don't think humor and kids should mix, or if you think your children can't handle a little obvious sarcasm, or you don't think the study of history should be fun, then this is the wrong book for you. But if you have kids who are into the middle ages, or at least you want them to be, then this book should do the trick.

My mom gave this to me for Christmas because I have been a member of various medieval re-creation groups over the last 18 years. Today I took it with me to our group's combat tournament to share with some of the knights there. The cover has a subtitle "Be a knight overnight." So I told them, "See! It's just THAT EASY!" Many of them have spent years working their way through the training and point-earning system to acheive knighthood. Geez, if only they'd had an overnight handbook. But the people who appreciated it more were the wives and relatives of the knights. They especially liked the section about "courtly love" which instructs the knight-to-be on how he must basically devote his entire existence into doing things in homage to some unreachable noble lady who may never give him more recognition than a slap in the face, if anything at all, and that he must be grateful to receive it. :-) I liked the part that diagrammed various tactics for invading an enemy's castle. It actually showed some strategies I had never heard of before. This is a children's book, but it is pretty thorough in addressing not only the lifestyle of a knight and his role(s) in society, but the various technologies and cultural traditions of those times. I buy most of my books used because I am "thrifty" but even I would proclaim that this book is worth paying full price for!