Manchester Activity Book

This is a sweet thing. And timely too.

Ex-industrial cities have often neglected themselves, shyly thinking that history belongs in twee tourist towns such as York and Chester. Publishers have neglected them too, suffering from the same delusion.

It’s important that we give our kids a sense of place - teach them identity in a manner of speaking. This is more important in the international Babel of the digital age than ever before: kids need to know who they are and where they’re from.

Recently this has been reversed a little with more and more material available about the greater significance of places such as Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds in national and international affairs than those biscuit-tin-lid olde worlde towns.

It’s been worse at the kids level. You can get any number of books on London for nippers but not Manchester.

Hometown World has addressed this with a sticker book and an activity book for £4.99. They’re bright breezy cleverly conceived tomes which should amuse kids – it worked for my youngest.

The activity book has puzzles galore, word squares, mazes, drawing areas and so forth. It covers all the key parts of history including the Romans, medieval, English Civil War, Industrial Revolution, the Blitz. Personally I would have liked more on what Manchester has pioneered but this can be addressed in subsequent editions (click here).

It’s important that we give our kids a sense of place - teach them identity in a manner of speaking. This is more important in the international Babel of the digital age than ever before: kids need to know who they are and where they’re from.

If you’ve got a kid under ten then might would be a good and fun buy.