Horrible Histories taking over the world
So it turns out the frighteningly brilliant and popular young adult book series Horrible Histories has steadily taken over the world without me noticing.
From the (not entirely unexpected) audio CD versions of books, to the (entirely unexpectedly) hilarious CBBC sketch show series, to the (apparently amazing) exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, not to mention the recently released game for PC/Wii/DS, Horrible Histories is now everywhere.
Personally I think this is great – Horrible Histories books are certainly the single thing I credit most with my own interest in history. (The Ancient Egyptians used to scoop out dead people’s brains through their noses with long hooks before they mummified them, don’t ya know.)
And, very excitingly, next on the agenda looks to be a virtual world:
Scholastic Children’s Books is developing a virtual world around its “Horrible Histories” line of kids books in partnership with virtual world designer Yomego. Users will be able to explore areas like Rotten Rome, Awesome Egypt, and Terrible Tudor London. The companies are apparently planning a virtual goods store, moderated chat, and live events where users can meet the author. The world is set to go live in Summer 2011.
If they can maintain the perfect mix of humour, grossness and Actual Facts that we all love about HH, this will be incredible. Fingers crossed.
