To think that Horrible Histories...

[ProcrastinatorGeneral]

...Should damn well release a CD!

My daughter became obsessed with all things Viking without any televisual help. However she does a little happy dance whenever the Viking types appear on HH. Odd child She especially likes the historical paramedics.

I think it's the sort of history that kids love - the gore, the crap, the funny hats which get them hooked on finding out about other, real stuff (my reward of 'Literally' for my Yr5/6's came after a purposeful afternoon of studying local Viking connections).

And it's chock full of fit men. Did I mention that?

Not all kids love it. The gore. The crap. The funny HATS. But it isn't dumb or patronising, of course. How silly I was to think such a thing.

sieglinde - the CBBC channel is aimed at the 6-12year old 'market' - some of its audience with love it, some will prefer something else, so you're bang on "Not all kids love it".

It is primarily a comedy show which is based around historical events. If they can get a gag out of the Repeal of the Corn Laws then fair enough. I actually don't think it's patronising, it's just silly. And well written silly at that.

However if we got onto a lot of adult documentaries then we can talk about 'dumb' and 'patronising'.

I love the songs! Saw one with Richard the third the other day, very funny! Books great too for introducing young kids to history, my 7 yr old asks to read them over anything else which is a great thing I think.

Oh man just read back and saw posts about the proms! Jealous. Hoping they'll do something next year too and I can take dd.

bloody hell I just love HH. The viking song is just brilliant and the bloke who did the dick turpin song and axtec one is bloody fit.
I just love the "remebering all the kings and queen's" song I also think the woman doing the cleo song is sexy.
Christ, there's something wrong with me isn't there.........

buttons There's a queue for Dick Turpin, grab a number and head to't he back of the line

shit

Ooh we love HH. DH and I can often be found "doing the pachacuti"
Agree with theluckiest we watched blackadder in history lessons and the whole class (very unruly comprehensive) got really obsessed with WWI, I reckon it's the same for HH now.
sieglinde most kids only like gore and crap don't they?

It was definitely the lip biting what did it for me, drool......

Sounds as though you have it on Tv whereas here in NZ my ds has to make do with the books, he absolutely loves them. I agree about them stimulating an interest in history - we have just returned from a trip 'home' i.e. to the Uk. He had a list of places he wanted to see including the Tower of London and Tower Bridge as a result of reading the books. We spent ages on the internet before we flew working out what he wanted to see and why. He also spent a day on the beach outside the tower on an 'archaeology and discovery weekend (check out www.hrp.org.uk). If the books are not terribly accurate and are full of gore who cares as long as they are getting him interested in history etc... IMO

Oh SO agree about dumb patronising history for adults, Mavis, and also love Blackadder, which was historically great - 'who's queen?'. [Subtext: I am not a boring person with no sense of humour]. And - going back a bit - my HE daughter had a great time with me retelling More's Utopia - yep, this is the beginning of political thought - and writing about what she thought the ideal world would be, and I also taught a class of boys for the ECW once, divided them into royalists and parliamentarians, and made the former defend the headmaster and the latter come up with reasons to depose him (they were 10ish).

But my own dd isn't keen on shit and gore, and sees this as a tiresome boy-approach, while my ds is genuinely fascinated by how good leaders go bad - Robespierre, especially. So it's not the case that all kids will love the HH approach. Maybe it needs to be offset by some sense of other stuff? I mean, most kids would also like big naval battles....

My two read the books first and then found the TV series (or more accurately the TV series on DVD, which is being rented from LoveFilm and watched non stop this holiday).

I like the fact that they watch an episode then go off and read the book of their favourite bit from the episode, then go and read another book or two about the same period, and maybe one of Terry Deary's historical novels. Then the next time we are in the museum they will go and seek out the section with things from that period. It fires an interest which carries on into what they read and what they choose to do during the school holidays. In isolation yes the TV programme probably would misinform them. But the books go into far more detail, and combined with the school curriculum, other books, visits to museums/castles/reconstructed iron age villages/archeological digs etc etc etc it teaches them a lot.

What's not to like?

The books are crap too, I'm afraid.

And I suppose the museum visits, archaeological digs, castles etc - all crap too?

I love HH & so does DD, think there are plenty of patronising kids programmes and even more adult ones but HH is not one of them.

I love that it is entertaining for both kids & adults, HH makes me feel proud the BBC are making programmes of this quality. Also I want to get down & dirty with Dick Turpin (Adam Ant being my first man on the telly crush) Oh the flashing eyes wide thing

(scuttles off to watch YouTube, to keep DD entertained of course)

Jemima, nobody said that. Just the HH books.

But when the books and TV shows lead onto more in depth investigation of the topics through further reading, visits etc then isn't that a good thing?

Lots of children start with HH and then move onto the rest.

The books are SO not crap they are fab!

I think they are fab too, and have just bought a couple of audiobooks from Amazon for the DC to listen to on a long journey later this month.

I work with primary school aged children, and know a lot of boy reluctant readers who have been switched on to both reading and history through the HH books.

Yes HH books really got ds reading too. I haven't read the whole thread, I am going to go back and read it now and find the people who hate them and make them read them cover to cover in a padded cell!

Which is why we must have a HH web perv chat!