Skipping games

Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales

Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales (1913)

Counting Out Rhymes

Clapping games

A century of children’s games and rhymes

British Library’s Playtimes

The Moor’s Last Stand

The Moor’s Last Stand:
How Seven Centuries of Muslim Rule in Spain Came to an End

by Elizabeth Drayson

I wanted to show why his life matters – and the meanings it now has at this time of extreme tension between the west and the Islamic states.

The last Muslim King in Spain

Summer Birds

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian
By Margarita Engle
Illustrated by Julie Paschkis

In the Middle Ages, people believed that insects were evil, born from mud in a process called spontaneous generation. Maria Merian was only a child, but she disagreed. She watched carefully as caterpillars spun themselves cocoons, which opened to reveal summer birds, or butterflies and moths. Maria studied the whole life cycle of the summer birds, and documented what she learned in vibrant paintings.

This is the story of one young girl who took the time to observe and learn, and in so doing disproved a theory that went all the way back to ancient Greece.

Maria Merian’s Butterflies: The Illustrated Story of How a 17th-Century Woman Forever Changed the Course of Science Through Art