Wednesday, June 8, 2011

My Inner Geek Stands at Attention

Yesterday Leo came home with a DVD set for Maya.  She has been sick all week and is pretty much home bound.  They both got all excited over these DVDs.  Me in my half listening state was like, "yeah, that's great" and then went back to washing and ironing, straightening up and making lunch.  

Maya asked me to put the third DVD in the series on.  I told her I would put it on just as soon as I was finished straightening up and so she started telling me about the first two discs.  She started talking about dinosaurs, I was still half listening, picking up toys, straightening up but then I heard two words from the hall which stopped me in my tracks.  The first was Cro-Magnon and the second was Mesopotamia.  I turned around and asked her, where did you learn these words?  She said, from the first dics and then she proceeded to tell me about evolution.  I was stunned.  I asked her where the DVDs were and she told me they were in her room.  I ran and got the case and flipped it over.  

The name of the series (in Dutch) is called Er was eens....de mens.  In English:  Once upon a time, Man.  I flipped the box over and damned if it wasn't a history of mankind all in animated stories that children could understand.  26 Chapters chronicling man's history from the earth through the man's first voyage into space.  This is the coolest thing I ever saw.  I don't work in my field of university study but I am still a total history geek through and through.  

I went running downstairs with the box asking Leo if he understood what this was?  He said, of course he did.  He saw it when he was in Israel because my brother in law had it for his kids (in Hebrew of course).  I just spent a half hour trying to find it in English but nothing came up.  Dare I say there isn't an English equivalent or that this was not produced in America?  Check out these chapter names:

1.  Once upon a time, the Earth
2.  The Neanderthals
3.  Cro-Magnon Man
4.  Mesopotamia
5.  The first civilizations
6.  The golden century of Pericles
7.  The Age of Rome
8.  Islam
9.  The Carolinians
10.  The Vikings
11.  The Cathedral Builders
12.  The travels of Marco Polo
13.  The Hundred Years War
14.  The 15th Century
15.  The Golden Age of Spain
16.  Elizabeth I's England
17.  The Golden Age of the Low Countries
18.  Louis XIV
19.  Peter the Great
20.  The Renaissance
21.  America
22.  The French Revolution
23.  The Empowerment of the People
24.  The Belle Epoque
25.  1914-45
26.  And then there was the Earth

And this is all for kids!  It's wonderful.  I know what I will be watching again and again.  Maybe my little girl will be a history buff too!


 

3 comments:

  1. OMG, we just bought the boxed set for Karen! I'm very impressed that you iron, by the way.

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  2. Never mind. Turns out we bought the "Human Body" series by the same producer. Now I need to go out and buy the history one....and you need to buy the human body set for Maya's next gift giving event!

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  3. I will look for those too, Maya will love them! Thanks for the tip Lita!

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