I found this in Hesy couple of weeks ago and read it straight away.

This cartoon type of book is quick introduction to an ancient Maya culture. Pretty interesting read, especially the rituals and ceremonies, even human sacrifices. Also the Maya gods appeared intriguing, that if the god is good or evil, it's not permanent trait. What is inappropriate during one season might come to pass in another since much of the Maya religious tradition is based on cycles and not permanence.

The Maya area is located in Central America. This will give me plenty of choices which country to use in Tarna's countries-challenge. I will choose Belize.

On a bench near Veromäki school.

NOW AVAILABLE.

HA! I found the booklet at the café at Ahvenisto swimming centre. AF or someone had added a Unicef bookmark with the text "Satakunta - UNICEF-maakunta 2011" - so I wonder if the book has already been roaming here and there...

What a lovely thing this is! Informative but a bit joking in its text, and smart in its illustration, and piquant in its spelling mistakes :). Deserves more readers, so I covered it with plastic and fixed some loose pages.

Enjoy it, on the rocks?

Another day, another surprise pack of two books, this being one of them. Thank you, ruzena.
On the rocks, straight, however...it looks interesting.

There are quite a lot of non-fictional books usually meant for young readers, you know the type like Camus for beginners, or Kafka, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Lyotard, or Nietzsche but always for beginners, those who don't know much about classic literature and authors, philosophy and philosophers or whatever the topic may be. I've tried reading some of those. They aim to be easy introducing lots of facts but also some light stuff, jokes or else, on subject. But they really aren't, not for me, at least. I much prefer reading Camus and his biography, books by Lyotard or Kierkegaard, for example. Those I can understand, not the philosophy-for-beginners type of texts.

The Mayas is packed full of facts. It's so thick with information I find it hard to absorb almost anything from it without holding on to the book for very, very long time. I might do it if nobody wants the book at the local meet-up tonight. We'll see.
Even the first page—The Territory of the Maya—was too difficult for me to understand. I really don't get the map. There are many borders, and still I don't see where's the one between Central and Southern areas. Maybe I'm just a dummy. (On page 20 there's another map mentioning the three areas. It gives me much clearer picture.)
Yet the book is very interesting. I was surprised to learn that the Mayas had such a class-society. The book introduces several topics I'd like to learn, e.g. Maya calendars and their point-bar system for numbers.
I like the drawings even if I missed colors. (Was a bit surprised to realize that, I usually like black-and-white pics.) Or maybe not really missed them, I just felt an urge to find my crayons and start coloring... Didn't do it, though.
The Mayas is an important book. I see the previous readers have learned a lot from it, so the book must also be very useful. Maybe it's just us dummies (if there is anyone else, anywhere) who can't learn the fun way but need to read old-fashioned, dull (to some), non-entertaining non-fiction.
Admittedly, The Mayas brought about something. It made me decide it's time to dig out Popol Vuh that's been waiting to be read for ages. That's enough to make a book like great, don't you think?

Tarna asked if I'd be interested in this book at the local meet-up. I was interested enought to try. Plus I already know the next reader for it: Annimanni.

This book reveals how comics and cartoons can well be used for teaching. I have read other things about Mayas and also Popol Vuh, so there weren't too many new things in this one for me. The book is, however, a good introduction about Mayas, although it's apparently aimed to bit younger readers.
Tarna, the area map didn't make sense to me either...
The book will soon travel to Annimanni.

The Mayas have arrived in Mankkaa, thanks very much!

This was fun, although I found the language a bit distracting :)

Off to the winner of the Finnish forum's August sweepstake. I'm a bit late, I know. My only explanation is that my son had decided it was a children's book and had taken it up to his room and therefore I forgot about it for a while...

Thanks for the book! Looks interesting :) And goes perfectly to the 2011 pages -challenge. Thanks!