Centuries of Stories by Wendy Cooling

Centuries of Stories Reviews

• 
  Andrea

  3.5 stars. As with any short story anthology, it's a mixed bag, with some great ones, a lot of okay ones, and one or two I really didn't like. I love the idea of this collection - one story set in each century of the common era. As another reviewer noted, it's not a very diverse mix of authors - there are more women than men, but as far as I'm aware, all but one of the authors is white.
  
  It's hard to choose favourite stories, but if think these (in chronological order) are probably the ones I enjoyed the most:
  * A Taste of Freedom - Mary Hoffman
  * Brother Aelred's Feet - Gillian Cross
  * The Death of a Prince - Jenny Nimmo
  * "Why Would I Lie?" - Geraldine McCaughrean
  * North - Malorie Blackman
  
• 
  Helen Pugh

  Some stories are outstanding and memorable (North, the 1st century story and the one about China); others are more mediocre. It's a shame that almost all the stories have a white able-bodied boy as its protagonist. More diversity would've been good.
• 
  Beccy Swanson

  An exciting and eclectic introduction to some brilliant authors and genres - and it does history too!
• 
  Sally

  I love the idea behind this collection! Twenty short stories, one for each century :) So of course it's a very mixed bag but depending on where your interests lie, there's definitely something for everyone! A few I didn't care so much for, but the majority were loads of fun. My top five were, in order:
  
  The 9th Century's Brother Aelred's Feet by Gillian Cross.
  The 4th Century's The Valley of the Crocuses by Jean Ure.
  The 3rd Century's The Wall by Vivian French.
  The 16th Century's The Daughter by Jacqueline Wilson.
  The 18th Century's Toinette by Adèle Geras.
  
  I also really enjoyed the 20th Century's Swimming in Time by Margaret Mahy, which was like a quick recap of the century's biggest events. (Lots of wars! Too many wars, that some forgot everything else that had happened because all that good and progress was so overshadowed by war after war after war...) And the 19th Century's North by Malorie Blackman, about a young slave girl, was quite interesting and shocking.
  
  I was very interested to see that the 7th Century's Angel to Angel by Annie Dalton featured Mel Beeby once more, and was excited to have this little "fill-in" short story after I'd loved reading all of the Angels Unlimited series. But in the end, it was about 90% Mel and 10% 7th Century Ireland - there just wasn't enough historical detail in there. The 15th Century's The Mystery of the Invisible Friends by Pete Johnson was another that I really liked, but would have liked even more had it been a tiny bit longer. And the 17th Century's London Rises From the Ashes by Jeremy Strong (wherein Christopher Thrush is mistaken for Christopher Wren) was quite funny :D
• 
  Kathy Crow

  I loved the theme of choosing a story for each century, and I loved reading children's authors I had never heard of before. I now have to find out more about them, and red some of their longer stories.
• 
  Kerry

  This was a terrific anthology of stories. Lots of history involved and most of the stories were very interesting as well.
• 
  Catsalive

  
  http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/3...
  
  Nice stories - adventure stories most of them - , one for each century, 1st-20th.