Reddit reviews Stephen Biesty's Cross-sections Castle

https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Biestys-Cross-sections-Castle-Biesty/dp/1465408800/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1536159799&sr=8-3&keywords=cross+section+book

(Straight up Amazon/non affiliate link) Get it for your kids!

For some reason the cover reminded me of those old castle cross-section books from years past. Like this one on amazon, but I'm pretty sure there was a series and not just one of them. They went over how castles functioned too, so a good resource for fleshing out functioning castles.

I hope you get some interesting replies to this. You probably need to clarify your meaning though; "castles from kingdoms".

For most of human history, Castles were more like a fortified house at the center of village, often where the villagers could take shelter if there was an attack. The vast majority of castles have very little living space square footage compared to what we see in movies. The walls surround a large interior space that is busy during peace times and haphazardly crammed with villagers during a siege.

There would have been a considerable amount of smaller, wooden structures that sprawled out and around the castle to provide support. Having cooking fires, and slaughter houses, and rodent attracting grain stores, and access to fresh water, and stables for animals, and facilities for disposing of animal waster, and space for hundreds of employees to sleep and live, all would happen outside the castle walls. Think of a castle instead as a center point of a large village and it's more likely to be an effective way of thinking about it.

That said, buy this book, https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Biestys-Cross-sections-Castle-Biesty/dp/1465408800/

Despite it seeming being "for kids" it will probably have more info than any committed amateur might need to suss out what's going on in a castle.

Others that also look interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/Castle-Eyewitness-Books-Christopher-Gravett/dp/0756637694/

https://www.amazon.com/Year-Castle-Time-Goes/dp/1580137962/

https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Biestys-Cross-sections-Castle-14th-Century/dp/1465408800

Wanna buy me it for Christmas?

Hey, this is by Stephen Biesty!
He is a really cool british illustrator and became famous for his cross sections, like this or that, which are seriously awesome!


This is from a book called
"Into the Unknown, How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea and Air" and features apart from this the journeys of Maggellan, Leif Eriksson, Zheng He, the Piccard Brothers and some other cool adventurers.

Credit where credit's due