Lack of experience and knowledge does not hold Samuel Stewart back, aged 9 he might be but he is equal to the task of writing a complete and utter history of the world. Given the short period of time he has to complete this work (a school homework project), the entries are necessarily short but he is quick to get to the heart of the matter and in 96 pages manages to get history in almost the right order and his facts more or less correct. Let’s hope he got an A+ for his magnum opus. ~ Sue Baker
The Complete and Utter History of the World According to Samuel Stewart Aged 9 Synopsis
When his teacher sets the class a History project, Sam cannot choose which bit of History he prefers, so decides to do ALL OF IT. His version of History is a rumbustious collection of half-remembered facts, assembled roughly in the right order, and glued together with alarmingly confident misunderstanding. And yet our endearing narrator somehow inadvertently hits the nail on the head every time - as when he sagely observes that the Suffragettes' hunger strikes paid off 'in the name of Female Emaciation', or that before Shakespeare came along 'everyone had been a bit rubbish at poetry' (notwithstanding Jeffrey Chortler, saviour of the Middle Agers'). Sam takes us from Ancient Egypt right up to Last Week with the flair of a bright-eyed nine-year-old. Rumour has it he is now working on an even more ambitious tome, The Entire World and Everything In It.
