I'm impressed with the scope and depth of this book. These are not quick overviews. Every aspect of an ordinary thing is examined.

The Encyclopedia of Ordinary Things, written by Štepánka Sekanivová and illustrated by Eva Chupíková, relates the history of an eclectic group of items, including shoes, umbrellas, glasses, toilets, dolls, and a few others, nearly a dozen in total. The information is interesting enough, nicely bolstered by a large number of stylized illustrations, but overall it’s a bit hit and miss, relies at times a bit too much on speculation, lacks diversity, and is occasionally a few too tethered to gender roles.

As noted, the selection is a bit random and there’s little sense of organization or connection. The text is pretty brief, though it offers up some interesting tidbits, like ancient pacifiers in the shape of animals that dispensed honey as babies sucked on them (that’ll keep ‘em quiet!). They do remain tidbits though, and so the book has a bit of a trivia feel to it, though you do get a sense of progression/evolution through time of some objects given more page space, such as shoes and umbrellas.

The illustrations are numerous and have a throw-back feel to them. Unfortunately, just about all the human figures pictured are white. And while there is some mention of other cultures, it’s relatively scant. In the same vein, women come off as heavily focused on make-up, perfume, and dolls. The doll section, for instance, speaks solely of girls playing with dolls and opens with “When a small girl has a birthday, guess what she gets? A doll most likely, several of them if she’s lucky.” Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a young girl get a doll for her birthday. And it closes with how dolls “show little girls what it’s like to be a mom and take care of a baby.” Which is certainly true, though a bit of balance would have been good, such as how dolls were also used to practice sewing (not just to teach them how to be “good women”) or how boys played with toy soldiers (not really different from dolls).

In the end, I’d say The Encyclopedia of Ordinary Things is a good book to take out of the library for curious kids. But similar books exist out there that do a better job.

Just the sort of thing I would have absolutely loved when I was a curious, knowledge seeking child. Beautiful pictures. Would make a wonderful holiday gift.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

I thought this was a fun, entertaining look at the history of ordinary things. The objects were mostly home, clothing, and toiletries. I agree with other reviewers that sources should have been listed and I also would have liked to see a wider variety of objects represented as well as a broader, less Eurocentric view. Despite these challenges I still think it'd be a good addition to a school or public library. I found the book entertaining and engaging!

"Encyclopedia of the Ordinary Things" is about the history of ten common items and is targeted at ages 6-12 years old. The author covered skates, umbrellas, glasses, dolls, perfume, horse toys, toilets, toothbrushes, beds, and tights. Each item had several pages describing how the item changed throughout history and appeared in different cultures. It's not a lot of information, though, since illustrations took up half of the page space. These illustrations were stylistic rather than highly accurate. Each section concluded with two pages of related items, usually focusing on the inventor of the item (Velcro, zippers, skies, etc.). These were very brief so that several items would fit on each page.

I was disappointed that the author put in speculation when I would have preferred facts. For example, when explaining: "The soles of some prehistoric shoes were made from bear skin....Our ancestors believed that bear skin would give them the strength of the feared animal and protect them." How do we know what they believed? We don't. Prehistory means they didn't leave writing saying this. It's just a guess. I felt like it was misleading to call this book an encyclopedia due to how few items were covered, the speculation included, and the stylistic illustrations. The items weren't even listed in alphabetical order. If you just want a brief overview on these objects, though, it did have some interesting trivia.

While the historical facts about everyday items are interesting, I was disappointed in the lack of any sort of references. In school settings, librarians are constantly trying to teach the concept of attribution of sources, I can't recommend a book that doesn't have at least a basic list of references. I also was disappointed in the lack of a global focus. There were very few mentions of non-European developments related to the different objects described.

The actual list of items included seemed rather random as did their arrangement. For example, shoes and skates were included in the beginning; tights at the end of the book. Obviously no book like this can include all objects, but it would have been helpful to have a note from the author explaining her reason for her choices.

Some young readers will enjoy poring over this title. However, it's not recommended for school libraries nor for use in any sort of research.

Such a beautiful and informative book! I want to purchase a copy to use in our homeschool because I can see my kids pouring over this book for hours!