Question and Answer:

Q: Hi Dell, I have been wondering about your tour of world history: are you using just the timeline figures to guide you, supplemented with your coffee table books, or do you have another world history or curriculum type book you're using? We are not doing much world history this year, but I am eagerly anticipating starting it next year! Thanks, Veronica

A: I'm using Hillyer's Child's History of the World as a light-weight spine.  (I substituted Mystery of History for the first few chapters because Hillyer is too caveman/evolutionary minded for our tastes in the first part of the book.)  When we go back through the ages at a slower pace in later years, I'm thinking I'll use Mystery of History to dig in greater depth. 

Child's History of the World doesn't suggest other books or give activities, so it isn't really a "curriculum" as much as a text, written in a very accessible narrative style that walks us through history chronologically.  The pace is just right for us for our quick blitz through the ages, as it gives a sense of the flow of time and events.  (And it gives ME that little bit of structure so that I don't feel we are drifting.)

I see on the web that there are workbooks and lesson manuals to accompany the Child's History of the World book.  I only use the main text though.