“Kublai Khan” by Kim Dramer wrote a biography on a legendary Eastern Emperor who conquered more land than anyone in his life time. The story of this man is complex yet the author is unable to capture or illustrate the content in an attractive manner. The pictures are small and some of the details are unclear. Even though some of the pictures are valuable pieces of art, the reader is unable to appreciate them due to the fact that they are all in black and white and some of the lines are barely visible. However, I must note that most of the pictures in the book are clear and the author provides captions to explain the content of the illustrations. Nevertheless, I felt that the author simply related a lot of facts in chronological order about the main character, but was unable to capture the essence of Kublai Khan. Perhaps it was the detached narrator who writes all the information in a matter of fact tone, and the poor pictures that made this book seem lifeless for a biography.
I noticed the book has a 1990 copyright, it is over twenty years old, and perhaps the publishers did not have the technological advantages or the resources to produce beautiful illustrations. The positive qualities of this book are the factual historical content of the book; there are several documentations of historical facts quoted from different sources. I would recommend the book to any student that was researching detailed historical information on Kublai Khan.
Ages: 4th grade and Up ( )