The Minimus books are a series of school textbooks, written by Barbara Bell, illustrated by Helen Forte, and published by the

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, designed to help children of

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

age to learn

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. The books espouse some of the principles of the direct method of language teaching, and feature a mouse of the same name; is (

for "smallest", and also a pun on — Latin for "mouse". Minimus is known by the publisher as "the mouse that made Latin cool". There are two books in the series: ''Minimus: Starting out in Latin'' and ''Minimus Secundus''. The first book is aimed at 7- to 10-year-olds, and the second continues the education for children up to 13 years old. The stories presented in each chapter revolve around a family. The family is based on a real family who lived at the Roman fort of

Vindolanda Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort ('' castrum'') just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near th ...

near Hadrian’s Wall in northern Britain. The books feature many artifacts from Vindolanda, integrating real objects into fictional plot lines. In 2011, it was reported that 125,000 copies had been sold.

Regular characters

*Minimus, a mouse *Vibrissa (

for Whisker), the family cat *Flavius, the father and fort commander of

* Lepidina, the mother *Flavia, the daughter *Iulius, the older son *Rufus, the youngest child of the family *Corinthus, a Greek slave who is excellent at reading and writing *Candidus, a British slave who is very good at cooking *Pandora, a slave girl who is a hairdresser * Trifosa, Pandora’s replacement

Italian version

In 2007, the Minimus books were adapted for Italian pupils. As a single volume, the material is aimed at an older audience. The setting of the stories is altered to several European locations and there is considerably more formal grammar and exercises, in line with Italian teaching methods.

References

External links

Minimus website
Education in the United Kingdom Latin textbooks {{latin-stub

Regular characters

Italian version

See also

References

External links