Customer Rating: 
Summary: Fusion of Two Great Books
Comment: Apparently the publisher joined two out of print titles, Step Into... Ancient Japan (The Step Into Series) by Fiona Macdonald with Step into the Chinese Empire Chinese Empire (Step Into Series) by Philip Steele to forge this book. I've ordered it and hopefully my information is accurate! The remainder of this review is actually my review for "Step into Ancient Japan" and hence would only apply to the Japan half of the book. I have other books from the Step Into series and they are organized in the same manner.
This book is part of an excellent series of non-fiction books for children on cultures from the past. While the title of this edition states "ancient", the focus seems to be on the period of the bushido and samurai (it does briefly cover the Jomon period). Fiona Macdonald did a great job, as usual.
There is an abundance of beautiful, full-color pictures (mostly photographs, but a few illustrations) of famous art, buildings, and maps on every page. Each two page spread covers a specific topic and is organized with a paragraph or so of text surrounded by the photographs with interesting facts or expanations. It does not appear too cluttered and again, these pictures are almost entirely real examples of the culture, not just illustrations. A descriptive timeline is also included on the preliminary pages. The glossary and index are useful too.
Fifteen do-able activities/crafts/recipes are found throughout the book: samurai helmet, shell game, rice balls, carp streamer, screen painting, homemade paper, Noh mask, votive dolls, ikebana flower arrangement, fan, fox netsuke, origami box, calligraphy, kite, and clay tea bowl.
I also highly recommend Exploration into Japan (Exploration Into) for a more in-depth, yet still interesting history of Japan for kids. If you're looking for more crafts and some info, try Japan (Make it Work! History). Also, The Japanese (Ancient World) has some good information about the culture of Japan as well.
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