Illustrated Tales King Arthur

Excellent stories, my 7 year old son finished this book in less than 24 hours!!Delivery and quality of the book is top notch.

Usborne's Illustrated Greek Myths and also their Norse Myths books are both superb. Both of those are differently structured - the greek one written and illustrated by multiple people while the norse is much more cohesive - but both are high quality. Sadly, this King Arthur one is rather poor.It is by a single author and artist and I fear neither do a good job. There is so much text and hardly any illustrations. Often when the illustrations appear they are more like sketches and are pushed into the corner of a page dominated by dense, text. The colours are dull and the style miserable. But then that fits with the telling of the tales.There is a definite aspect of melancholy to the Arthurian legends but this book makes them morose. The author has more word count than either of the greek myths or norse myths book but manages to say far less with them. The writing drags on, using unnecessary words and taking an age to get anywhere.The content of the stories also seems more appropriate for an older age group than what I would say 5-9yrs old for the greek and norse books. The sex and death and brutality is less skated around and more just stated outright.It was a slog to get through for child and adult alike and doesn't warrant multiple read-throughs, unlike the other books in this series.

This is a much more accessible text for young readers than some of the more 'traditional' versions of the King Arthur story. The language is much more modern and consequently the book more engaging for young readers. The stories are a comprehensive telling of the Arthur legend, with good colourful illustrations, although I take the point that other have made that some of the stories/chapters appear a bit disconnected (or standalone stories) so the book as a whole lacks a bit of flow.It is simpler to read than R L Green, Puffin Classic, which has some rather archaic language, so unless your 9/10 year old talks like Jacob Rees-Mogg, I would recommend this edition.

I'm an older reader with some background knowledge from when I was a schoolboy, and I loved this particular telling of the tales and the illustrations. I found it to be an easy, entertaining, read. I bought this book as a gift for an eleven year old boy, with a younger sister and an older sister. In that context, this book works as well as any, and better than most.

I was slightly disappointed as I was looking for stories about Kings Arthur being a good king and the concept of a round table to avoid having a "head of the table" etc, for my daughter. This book is more about a lot of people plotting and fighting one another (with some magic) and I find the stories so "condensed" that it feels quite rushed. The Illustrated Greek myths, my daughter and I both thought, was much better - the stories were well paced and just enough detail is given to keep it interesting but not too overwhelming. Having said the above, this King Arthur book might be targeted towards kids who likes intrigues and likes things to happen in rapid succession. So not necessarily a bad book, just not for us.

Along with another reviewer, I thought the stories jumped about, however, 6 year old boy absolutely loved it and couldn’t wait for the next chapter.So pleased he is now interested in King Arthur and his story.