Time Travel for Kids... Sort Of

Thinking back about how I was exposed to archaeology as a kid, I remembered one of my favorite books, "A Street Through Time". The book showed how the same plot of land progressed from a Stone Age camp to a Roman village to busy modern-day city. The book was fictional but showed progression, the passing of time, and how cities grow and land becomes developed into something familiar to viewers today. "A Street Through Time" made it easy for younger readers to understand how modernization happens.

Though it didn't exactly show an archaeological dig or anything like that, the book made it easily understood that beneath each of the settlements, there were still remnants of the others ones there. A burial mound introduced early on in the book becomes a fixture in the later pages. Ruins from past civilizations that faced destruction are not spoon-fed to readers, but are certainly present for someone looking a little more at each page.

One thing I really remember thinking when I read it as a kid and still think of now is how vastly different many of the settlements are. Putting everything together, the only place it could have been would be England, though it's unspecific enough to really be anywhere with a little creative license taken. Since many kids would not benefit from this type of book if it was text-heavy, "A Street Through Time" is appropriately almost all pictures. Though there are some explanations, much of the education is through looking at the pictures, sometimes hunting for specific elements. Even if they didn't fully understand what they saw, it still provided a good basis for what archaeology is and how time and civilization progresses but leaves records. It targets young audiences to get them interested in archaeology from a young age to produce budding archaeologists. The pictures provide a way to get the story without so much text, helpful for young readers, and emphasize the progress of a street as time passes.