What Story Of The World Middle Ages Actually Covers
The curriculum by Susan Wise Bauer is a narrative history textbook aimed at young learners, and it covers roughly the years 476 to 1500 AD. It's organized into chapters that follow a chronological thread from the fall of Rome through the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Golden Age, the Crusades, the Black Death, and into the early Renaissance. The writing style is straightforward prose rather than an academic textbook. You read it aloud to kids or have older students read it themselves. There are maps, timelines, and a small set of activities at the end of each chapter. If you're looking to get the material, the official way is through the publisher's website or Amazon. The book itself is cheap, usually under twenty dollars, and the accompanying activity worksheets and audiobook are available separately. Many people also find the audio version useful because it lets kids absorb the story during car rides or downtime. I don't recommend hunting for free PDFs on random sites. They're often outdated editions, missing pages, or they don't include the answer keys for the worksheets. Stick to legitimate sources unless you have a good reason not to. The setup is simple. Open the book to a chapter, read a section, then do the questions at the back. That's it. Some parents add in extra maps or primary source readings, but the core curriculum works on its own without modification. A full school year usually spans two semesters, and most people pace themselves at one chapter per week or every few days depending on the child's attention span.
How It Actually Works in Practice
The big advantage of this series is that it reads like a story. Kids who struggle with dry textbooks tend to stay engaged because the events are presented as narrative. The problem is that the narrative style can smooth over important nuance. You'll get a clean account of Charlemagne becoming emperor, but the political maneuvering behind it, the role of the Pope at the time, the Frankish military structure, none of that gets the attention it deserves in a proper college-level text. This is fine for a first pass through medieval history. It is not fine if your goal is deep understanding. Here's something most reviewers don't mention. The timeline at the back of the book is decent, but it's not comprehensive. I ran into an issue a few years ago when my kid was doing the chapter on the Hundred Years' War. The timeline didn't include the Battle of Crécy or Agincourt as separate entries, so we missed those entirely. I ended up pulling a quick reference from a different source just to fill in the gaps. It wasn't a huge deal, but it did force me to do extra research for what should have been a self-contained lesson. The audiobook is another consideration. The narrator does a solid job, but some parents find that their kids treat it as background noise rather than actual learning. If you go the audio route, plan to pause and discuss key sections. Don't assume listening alone will give you the same result as reading together.
What It Misses and When to Look Elsewhere
The curriculum skews heavily toward European history. The Islamic world gets coverage, and there are chapters on the Mongols, but sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and the Americas during this period are largely absent. If your family values a more global perspective on the medieval era, you'll need to supplement with additional material. That's not a criticism of the book itself. It's a feature of how the series is designed. The author made a choice to focus on what she considers the major civilizations of that timeframe. The worksheet answers in the back are generally fine for younger kids. For middle schoolers and up, they sometimes feel too simple. A ten-year-old will answer them without thinking. A twelve-year-old might finish the whole page in five minutes and then check out mentally for the rest of the session. In those cases, adding your own discussion questions or switching to a more detailed primary source document makes the difference between a fifteen-minute chore and an actual learning moment. If you're using this with a child who reads well and has strong retention, you might find that the pacing is too slow. One chapter per week feels appropriate for a younger audience. Older students can sometimes work through a chapter in a day. I've seen it happen. The curriculum doesn't mark those adjustments, so you have to make them yourself.
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Who This Is For
It works best for homeschool families or parents who want a gentle, story-based introduction to medieval history. It's also fine for classroom use in upper elementary and middle school settings. The price point is low, which makes it easy to pair with other materials without breaking the budget. The main limitation is depth. If your goal is comprehensive medieval studies, this is a starting point, not the end point. You'll need additional textbooks, documentaries, or primary sources to round out what the narrative leaves behind.
