I loved the Horrible History books. They’re not always accurate, but they’re entertaining. When I was a kid my parents were pretty laid back about what I read because it was always educational, however that meant 6/7 year old me reading about the Holocaust in an encyclopaedia and seeing photos that I still can’t unsee. Also the atomic bombs and their aftermath… the teacher wasn’t too impressed when I started talking about that in our WW2 history lesson.

It must be tricky getting the balance right, because it’s so easy to gloss over things, oversimplify events to the point where it’s no longer accurate, or kids can be exposed to the absolute horrors of humankind when they’re a little too young.

I quite liked reading encyclopaedias because they contain a lot of factual information, but not too much at once and not too much detail. I think that’s pretty good for kids because they’re learning, but the entrees are quite short so their attention can be kept. The basic detail they give is also just enough to get the interest of a child so they can then learn how to seek further information about something they’re interested in