Horrible Histories, by Terry Deary

This is a great series of books for kids from about seven to ten/eleven. They are presented in a part comic book/part text format and so really fun to read. They focus on some gruesome facts and details of history which really appeals to kids and are a great way of encouraging them to take an interest in history. Great gifts and we have bought these books for our kids to coincide with topics they are doing at school. If you ever get chance to see the theatre versions of the books too (think they are touring britain) they're fantastic.

Fantastic book for gore loving children, focusing on the nastier side of history but also really factual, there are a renge of books in this series covering Tudors to the Aztecs, seem to be readily available in the libraries - well worth a read!