The History Detective Investigates Local History

Parsons covers many sources in this children's guide: census records and school logbooks, photographs and post cards, the physical fabric and layout of a place and oral reminiscence. A local historian himself, he is unfailingly practical. He sets out what you need to take with you and how to find and interpret your sources. He stresses the need to plan your project, suggests some interesting ones, and urges you to record and present your findings clearly. His examples are good. Oral Reminiscence is about World War II, which gran or granddad should know about; and Village Patterns looks at Welsh mining villages. The book's layout is attractive and allows Parsons enough space to develop his arguments and to display his visual sources. Some of the sources have perhaps too much space, where there is so much that needs explanation in the text. The two pages on the history of buildings are uncharacteristically poor. It would have been good, too, to have seen what a census record or a logbook entry actually looks like alongside the tidied up entries which are shown, but these are small gripes. This is a lively and knowledgeable book that will be useful to secondary school children and to teachers in both junior and secondary schools.