OXFORD CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Subtitled “A concise guide to a century of contrast and change,” with “concise” as the key word, this slim survey takes sweeping, single-spread glances at wars, the decline of empires, show business, the battle for racial and sexual equality, the globalization of US culture, and other major themes of this century. Underscoring the text’s generalizations, the many full-color photographs are chosen to create pointed juxtapositions, matching, for instance, Marlene Dietrich to Buzz Lightyear, or impoverished parents and children in 1912 London and in modern Somalia. Selected events are highlighted both in chronologies on every spread and along a timeline that spans the last four pages. Too scanty for basic reference, and employing oversimplification (as well as the same photograph of Mickey Mouse twice) to a fault” “the culture of Hollywood, represented by the smiling face of Mickey Mouse, became the culture of the whole world”—this provides only a slim framework on which to hang some understanding of recent history. (charts, chronology, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)