Through Time: Olympics

Teaching notes

SYNOPSIS

Through Time: Olympics tells the story of the Modern Olympics, the greatest sporting show on Earth. The introductory spread has a timeline, which shows you the key moments in the development of the Olympic Games, and a world map showing you the cities that have hosted the Games. On the following pages each spread focuses on a particular Olympic Games from the very first Games in Athens in 1896 through to a preview of London 2012. Stunning double-page artworks bring each of these Olympic Games to life. The artwork depicts famous scenes, such as Jesse Owens’ victory in front of Adolf Hitler in Berlin in 1936 and Usain Bolt celebrating his world record in Beijing in 2008. At the end of the book a spread gives you a quick overview of each Olympics highlighting some of the key events and top performances.

WRITING STYLE

This unique book presents the history of the Olympic Games as a visual narrative. Each double-page artwork gives a snapshot of an Olympic Games with three paragraphs of descriptive text to place the scene in historical context. Extra information about that scene is provided in the form of labels to the artwork. At the edge of every spread smaller illustrations accompanied by captions give details of some of the other key moments from that Olympics. Further information is presented in a statistics panel, which readers can use to compare and contrast different Olympic Games.

AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR BACKGROUND

Richard Platt has been writing for children since 1992. Some of his books have won or been shortlisted for various awards. His book Castle Diary was shortlisted for the Times Education Supplement Award while Pirate Diary won the ‘Best Book With Facts’ prize at the 2003 Blue Peter Book Awards.

Manuela Cappon is a member of the MM Comunicazione illustration studio based in Florence, Italy. Over the past 15 years, Manuela and her colleagues have specialized in high quality non-fiction illustrations.

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Through Time: Olympics has been thoroughly researched by the author and editor and fully checked for factual accuracy. Richard Platt’s narrative journey through the history of the Olympics is a great picture book, a terrific read and a really enjoyable way to learn more about the greatest sporting event in the world.

TEACHER ACTIVITIES/NOTES

  • Imagine you live in a city that may host the Olympic Games. Make a chart showing the arguments for and against hosting the games. Think about issues such as the high costs, transport, tourism and the image of your city.
  • Use the timelines and text to find five big changes that have happened to the Olympics from the first modern Olympics in 1896 to the present day. Show them on a flowchart or a diagram.
  • If you could time travel to one of the great Olympic events in the past, which would you visit? Prepare a live radio report showing what you might experience there.
  • Choose four Olympic events and make a table comparing the skills and equipment needed to compete in each of them. Which would you be best at?
  • Imagine you are making a TV documentary about Olympic heroes and villains. Who would you include? What would you say about them?
  • How has the marathon race changed during its long history? Use the Internet and this book to research and prepare a three-minute presentation showing the key marathon moments in past Olympic Games.
  • Write a report about your school sports day or other sports event in the style of this book, with drawings and facts about the contestants and events.