Basic information about Italy is covered from: location with maps, landscape and climate with a seasonal temperature inset, wildlife with photos, communities, customs, school, food, and celebrations.

I found Italy, in the COUNTRY PROFILES series, the easiest to understand when it came to the use of local place names and vocabulary in captions. This is most likely because this is the country I am most familiar with in this series. Also, Amy Rechner does a great job of including definitions within the text.

Students will appreciate the two pages of quick facts containing Italy’s flag, money, capital city and other information they most likely will be required to give in a report on Italy.

The www.factsurfer.com links gave more information from at least three other resources. Most of the links were working today.

What disappoints is the Timeline section. The reader must jump up and down from the top to the bottom of the pages to follow the sequence of Italy ‘s history. Only four of the lines are straight directly connecting to their spot on the timeline. The other eight are lines in three segments giving the appearance of a maze.