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Books Reviewed in the History of Reading News, 1983-1998.
Note: The first issue of any year is the fall issue; the second is the spring issue of the following year.
| American Primers(microform) American Primers(microform). Frederick Md.: University Publications of America, 1990. 842 titles on 1401 microfiches. With an accompanying guide, American Primers: Guide to the Microfiche Collection; Introductory Essay by Richard L. Venezky, by the same publisher, 1990. Pp. 146. $4,375.00. Rev. by A. Garr Cranney, HRN14, no. 1 (Fall, 1990): 3. "In microfiche form...a collection of American primers selected and organized by Richard L. Venezky spanning the period 1711 to 1943...[is] a significant contribution [that] makes primary source materials more accessible to scholars, teachers and students...If you can't afford the collection itself, try to obtain Venezky's 21-page historical review in the guide...Omissions for the collection...lose significance in light of what has been provided." |
| Balmuth, Miriam The Roots of Phonics: A Historical Introduction.New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. Pp. 251. $17.95. Rev. by Enid Pearsons, HRN7, no. 1 (Winter-Spring, 1983-84): 2. "[S]cholarly without being overwhelming...[The author] has woven the various strands of her text together with lucidity and a sound sense of proportion...If [the book]...falls short of total perfection, it remains a unique work of inestimable value. For researchers, it provides a superb framework; for teachers, an important resource; and for teachers of teachers, an essential and eminently palatable grounding in relevant linguistic history." |
| Bartine, David Early English Reading Theory: Origins of Current Debates.Columbia S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. Pp. 155. $24.95. Rev. by Ian Michael, HRN14, no. 1 (Fall, 1990): 4-5. "Bartine...has [taken] us to the ideas behind the methods [of teaching]...He illustrates his discussion principally from the work of fourteen authors...from Isaac Watts (1674-1748)...to Benjamin Humphrey Smart, who died in 1872...Bartine has given a badly need lift to the historical study not only of reading but of linguistic and English teaching...a splendid and necessary book." |
| Bingham, Jane and Grayce Scholt Fifteen Centuries of Children's Literature: An Annotated Chronology of British and American Works in Historical Context. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Pp. 540. Illustrations. $35.00. Rev. by Rosemary Oliphant Ingham, HRN8, no. 2 (Spring, 1985): 2. "Covering fifteen centuries of children's literature in less than 600 pages seems a formidable task but Bingham and Scholt have...completed it very successfully...written in an interesting style that is easy to read...The only sections that are unduly...complicated are the annotated chronologies of the 1800s and 1900s...put this on your 'must read' list." |
| Bingham, Jane M., ed. Writers for Children: Critical Studies of the Major Authors Since the Seventeenth Century. N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. Pp. 661. $90.00. Rev. by Wendy Saul, HRN11, no. 1 (Fall, 1987): 3-4. "[A] collection of original in-depth essays by 63 contemporary scholars...The different critical stances assumed by contributors...detract from the volume's usefulness as a source of general information...While...a valuable book to order for your institution, to reach [a] wider audience...would require a more modest, possibly paperback version." |
| Brooks, Greg, A.K. Pugh and Nigel Hall Further Studies in the History of Reading. Cheshire, UK: United Kingdom Reading Association, 1993. Pp. 96. Paperback. $15.00. Rev. by Janet A. Miller, HRN18, no. 2 (Spring, 1995): 3-4. "[A]n exceptional collection of papers which explores varied aspects of literacy and raises important questions for further study...would be an excellent resource for all reading professionals and should definitely be required reading for graduate students in reading, not only for the content it contains but for the model of historical research it represents." |
| Button, H. Warren and Eugene F. Provenzo. History of Education and Culture in America.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1983. Pp. 379. Illustrations. $20.95. Rev. by Natalie A. Naylor, HRN7, no. 1 (Winter-Spring, 1983-84): 1. "[M]ore successful in fleshing out the lives and experiences of schoolmasters and teachers [than of students]...This attractive textbook is generally quite readable...[and] effectively portray[s] some of the realities of America's educational past." |
| Cavallo, Guglielmo and Roger Chartier, eds. Historie de la Lecture dans le Monde Occidental. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1997. Pp. 522. Bibliography, notes. 185 French francs. Rev. by Sue Waterman, HRN22, no. 1 (Fall, 1998), 5. "The project...is to reconstruct...the various modes of reading that have characterized western society since Antiquity...The viewpoints...are rich and varied, so that the ensemble of texts forms a veritable history of reading in the West, rather than thirteen individual and specialized chapters...The overall picture is one of a certain continuity amidst upheavals, and of repetition even as revolutions occur." |
| Cavanaugh, M.P. A History of Holistic Literacy: Five Major Educators.Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994. Pp. 176. $47.95. Rev. by David W. Moore, HRN19, no 2. (Spring, 1996): 5-6. "The positive feature of this book...is its spotlight on...five prominent educators who believed in child-centered reading instruction[:] John Dewey, Hughes Mearns, Francis Parker, Rudolf Steiner, and Laura Zirbes...Those who already knew that holistic child-centered instruction did not originate with contemporary whole language advocates...will find [the book] to be of marginal value." |
| Chaplin, George Presstime in Paradise: The Life and Times of The Honolulu Advertiser, 1856-1995 by George Chaplin.
Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998. Pp. 395. Illustrations.
$29.95. |
| Chartier, Roger The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe Between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries.Trans. Lydia G. Cochrane. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. Pp. 113. $35.00 cloth; $12.95 paper. Rev. by Sue Waterman, HRN20, no. 2 (Spring, 1997): 2-3. "Chartier's aim...is to explore how people attempted to master the ever-increasing number of texts that were produced between the late Middle Ages and the 18th century...[His concerns are] the nature and formation of 'communities of readers,' the role of an author function in texts, and the quest for a universal library of texts...[A] most important and eminently readable work." |
| Clegg, Luther Bryan, coll. and ed. The Empty Schoolhouse: Memories of One-Room Texas Schools.College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press, 1997. Pp. 224. Photographs and drawings. $24.95. Rev. by Al Tucker, HRN22, no. 1 (Fall, 1998), 3. "This compilation of reminiscences from retired teachers and ex-pupils retains the colloquial language and idioms that characterized the days of the Great Depression and rural life in Texas...This is a book for all, but especially for historians, educators, and sociologists. It contains a wealth of primary sources for further study...The scholarly value is enhanced by the bibliography of published works about rural and one-room schools." |
| Coleman, Joyce Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France, by Joyce Coleman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. 250. Illustrations, biblio. $59.95. |
| Cornelius, Janet Duitsman When I Can Read My Title Clear: Literacy, Slavery and Religion in the Antebellum South.Columbus, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991. Pp. 215. Bibliography. Index. $34.95. Rev. by Cecilia McCall, HRN16, no. 1 (Fall, 1992): 4. "[A] carefully researched and extensively documented addition to the growing body of literature about slave literacy. [Sources include] slave narratives and...interviews conducted for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930's...recounts the struggle of the enslaved to become literate...the act of becoming literate was an act of defiance and resistance." |
| Cressy, David Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Pp. x, 246. $29. 50. Rev. by June Gilstad, HRN7, no. 1 (Winter-Spring, 1983-84): 3. "[W]ell written, many provocative questions are raised, huge quantities of primary sources are cited, and the quantitative analysis of thousands of signatures is of awesome proportions...[But] having been at some pains to define the term 'literacy,' Cressy forsakes it for...'illiteracy'...[and] seems to have overlooked the one factor which was...the greatest danger of literacy--knowledge." |
| Cunningham, Bernadette & Kennedy, Maire The Experience of Reading: Irish Historical Perspectives. Edited by Bernadette Cunningham and Maire Kennedy.
Dublin: Rare Books Group of the Library Association of Ireland and Economic and
Social History Society of Ireland, 1999. Pp 212. Illustrations. |
| Fyfe, Janet Books Behind Bars: The Role of Books, Reading, and Libraries in British Prison Reform, 1701-1911.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992. Pp. 239. $47.95. Rev. by Willie L. Butler, HRN18, no. 1 (Fall, 1994): 4. "[Traces] how religious organizations and men of the cloth pioneered prison reform and prison reading...Reading became viewed as an instrument to transform negative moral behaviors and values of the prisoner...[T]he book is both entertaining and thought-provoking. It is valuable for anyone interested in the fundamental problems...[of] educating prisoners." |
| Galbraith, Gretchen R. Reading Lives: Reconstructing Childhood, Books, and Schools in Britain, 1870-1920 by Gretchen R.
Galbraith. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1997. Pp. 184. Hard cover. $39.95. |
| Gallegos, Bernardo Literacy, Education and Society in New Mexico, 1693-1821.Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. Pp. 119. $29.95 (cloth); $12.95 (paperback). Rev. by Carolyn N. Hedley, HRN19, no. 1 (Fall, 1995): 7. "Literacy was used as an an instrument of colonization: to indoctrinate into the [Catholic] faith, and to carry out the rule of Spanish law...[The book is] a sound, careful work based on solid translation of ancient documents, interpreted in the light of current sociocultural theory. His work...should be read and honored for its original scholarship and its unique contribution to literacy history." |
| Gilmore, William J. Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life: Material and Cultural Life in Rural New England, 1780-1835.Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989. Pp. 512. Illustrations. $49.95. Rev. by Amy C. Thomas, HRN13, no. 1 (Fall, 1989): 4. "a general overview of the Upper Valley subregion of New Hampshire and Vermont...[Gilmore] meticulously reconstructs the material and cultural base which linked readers to print material...while...[his] statistics about family library holdings demonstrate various patterns of access, they do not...testify to literacy rates nor to the way in which or how often texts were read." |
| Gonda, Caroline Reading Daughters' Fictions 1709-1834: Novels and Society from Manley to Edgeworth.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. 287. $54.95. Rev. by Kate Levin, HRN21, no. 2 (Spring, 1998): 4, 6. "[S]eems to promise a book that will focus on the role that eighteenth-century British novels played in turning their female readers into 'virtuous women' (p.35)...But the actual chapters disappoint somewhat...Gonda's book becomes too much about her own (albeit interesting) readings of daughters' fictions and not enough about those reading daughters that the novel allegedly sought to control." |
Ian Michael Literature in School: A Guide to the Early Sources, 1700-1830, by Ian Michael. Swansea, Wales: Textbook Colloquium Series, 1999. Pp. 72. Illustrations.
In a word, this little book is a “must read” for anyone interested in the history of literacy instruction among school-age children.
Lucille M. Schultz, University of Cincinnati, teaches writing and the history of writing instruction at the University of Cincinnati where she is Professor of English. Her book The Young Composers: Composition’s Beginnings in 19th-Century Schools appeared in 1999 from Southern Illinois University Press. |
| Kaestle, Carl F., Helen Damon Moore, Lawrence C. Stedman, Katherine Tinsley and William Vance Trollinger, Jr. Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading Since 1880.New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Rev. by Ralph C. Staiger, HRN15, no. 1 (Fall, 1991): 3. "A rich source of information and references on the history of literacy and the functions of reading in adults' lives...[M]ajor interpretive issues...: Is literacy tied to progress? Is literacy always expanding? Were changes in literacy principally causes, or effects, of other social changes?...[an] excellent collection of historical and research evidence." |
| Keller-Cohen, Deborah, ed. Literacy: Interdisciplinary Conversations.Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1994. Pp. 429. $69.50 cloth; $27.50 paper. Rev. by Susan Needham, HRN20, no. 2 (Spring, 1997): 4-5. "[S]ucceeds in her goal 'to provide an interdisciplinary conversation about literacy'and does so in a way that invites the reader to become a part of this ongoing dialogue...[Contributors discuss] the development of writing in 600 B.C. Mesopotamia...the ideologies informing current pedagogies and writing style in American education...and literacy practices...of the Ottoman Empire." |
| Kelly, R. Gordon, ed. Children's Periodicals of the United States.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. Pp. 591. $49.95. Rev. by Jane M. Bingham, HRN10, no. 1 (Fall, 1986): 1. "Kelly has made a major contribution to the field of children's literature with this gem of a reference book...one hundred profiles of selected American children's periodicals written by fifty contributors...are arranged alphabetically...includes a selected bibliography of 423 American children's periodicals." |
| Lentz, Tony M. Orality and Literacy in Hellenic Greece.Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989. Rev. by John Roberts, HRN15, no. 1 (Fall, 1991): 3-4. "[A] well-meaning account of an important episode in the history of Western civilization...In general, those who know enough not to be misled or puzzled by this book will not learn much from it. Those who wish to know [how the work of earlier scholars] has been refined and developed should read Ancient Literacy (Harvard University Press, 1989) by William V. Harris." |
| Luke, Allan Literacy, Textbooks and Ideology: Postwar Literacy and the Mythology of Dick and Jane.London, New York and Philadelphia: Falmer Press, 1988. Pp. 224. $29.00 (paper edition). Rev. by A. Garr Cranney, HRN16, no. 2 (Spring, 1993): 3. "Presents a detailed slice of Canadian literacy history [from] 1946 to 1960 in British Columbia...[includes] a literature review heavily laced with theory for the study of ideology...the economic political and social issues of the time through an examination of education literature and newpaper accounts...[and] materials of elementary instruction... [A]lthough a commendable piece of scholarship...it is no easy book to read." |
| MacCann, Donnarae White Supremacy in Children's Literature: Characterizations of African Americans, 1830-1900.New York: Garland Publishing, 1998. Pp. 274. $60.00. Rev. by Bena R. Hefflin, HRN22, no 1 (Fall, 1998): 3-4. "[A] rich and comprehensive book...If ever there was a text for cultural, social, and children's literature historians and professors of children's literature to invest time in and give serious attention to the portrayal of African Americans in children's literature, this is it. MacCann's study is replete with examples of race prejudice, bigotry, and literary distortions made of African Americans by white men and women." |
| Machor, James L. Readers in History; Nineteenth Century Reading and the Contexts of Response, ed. James L. Machor. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1993. Pp. 285. $42.50 cloth; $15.95 paper. |
| MacLeod, Anne Scott American Childhood: Essays on Children's Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1994. Pp. 242. $20.00 paperback. Rev. by Gretchen Galbraith, HRN20, no. 1 (Fall, 1996): 4. "MacLeod is particularly skilled at defining and exploring shifts in the tone and content of children's literature...Written over fifteen years, this collection [of fourteen essays] contains both repetition and gaps...On the whole though, MacLeod's linkages of children's literature and cultural history are among the most nuanced and thought-provoking I have ever read." |
| Manguel, Alberto A History of Reading.New York: Viking, 1996. Pp. 372. Photographs, drawings, and woodcuts. $26.95. Rev. by Douglas K. Hartman and Tariq M. Abdulaziz, HRN21, no. 1 (Fall, 1997): 3-4. "[T]he personal journey of a literary writer, insatiable reader, and history enthusiast...[The book] makes no attempt to present a chronological or rational order to 6,000 year of book-reading history...there are a few occasions when he does strong work with primary materials...In the end, the values of historical inquiry that matter most are generally missing in this book." |
| McAleer, Joseph Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain: 1914-1950.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 284. Rev. by Jonathan Rose, HRN17, no. 1 (Fall, 1993): 3. "Robert Darnton sketched out the classic life cycle of the book--from author to publisher to printer to distributor to bookseller to reader...and he urged...'some holistic view of the book'...McAleer has achieved just such a tour de force. His subject is the mass reading public and popular fiction in modern Britain... Anyone working in any aspect of the field would learn much from [this book]...make your students read it as well." |
| McKitterick, Rosamund, ed. The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. 345. Illustrations, index. $54.50. Rev. by Nancy Ann Vighetti, HRN15, no. 1 (Fall, 1991): 4-5. "Rosamund McKitterick merits praise, not only for her scholarly editing, but for taking into account a wider audience than just early medievalists...Two essays are disappointing, two more are excellent, and the remaining seven certainly commendable...[The authors] present a common thread throughout their work: literacy is more than the ability to read and to write." |
| Michael, Ian Early Textbooks of English.Reading, England: Colloquium on Textbooks, Schools and Society, 1993. Pp. 72. Bibliography. ?6.00. Rev. by Richard Robinson, HRN17, no. 2 (Spring, 1994): 3. "[O]ne of the most important works of scholarship in the field of reading history...One hundred representative textbooks published before 1870 are discussed in detail under four general categories...basic reading, spelling, and pronunciation; full reading and literature; expression; and grammar and language...this is a must reference for your library...[and] your university library." |
| Michael, Ian. The Teaching of English: From the Sixteenth Century to 1870.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Pp. 634. $69.50. Rev. by Richard D. Robinson, HRN11, no. 1 (Fall, 1987): 2. "[An] impressive and scholarly review of the historical development of English instruction...For teachers of reading this is a particularly valuable reference...[it includes a] magnificent bibliography running to almost 300 pages...clearly [a book] that needs to be on the shelves of every college or university library with a graduate program in reading or language arts." |
| Monaghan, Charles The Murrays of Murray Hill.Brooklyn, NY: Urban History Press, 1998. Pp. 166. Hardcover. $30.00. Rev. by Peter Fisher, HRN22, no. 2 (Spring, 1999): 3-4. "One part [of the book] explores the history of the Murray family--notable merchants in New York during the revolutionary period. The other part examines Lindley Murray's contribution to the propagation of Enlightenment ideas through his texts for schools...Murray's English Reader... must be considered as a major part of literacy instruction in the early nineteenth century. Monaghan has given us a carefully researched book...which provides a wonderful read." |
| Monaghan, E. Jennifer A Common Heritage: Noah Webster's Blue-Back Speller.Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1983. Pp. 304. $22.50. Rev. by Joseph J. Ellis, HRN8, no. 2 (Spring, 1985): 2-3. "Cultural historians will be somewhat disappointed in the failure to place Webster's life in the context of the shifting attitudes of post-revolutionary America...Education historians should quickly recognize it as the most comprehensive account of the speller yet written...it deepens the debate over Webster's life." |
| Morris, Robert C. Reading, 'Riting, and Reconstruction: The Education of Freedmen in the South, 1861-1870.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Pp. 341. Illustrations. $25.00. Rev. by Edward Stevens, HRN7, no. 1 (Winter-Spring, 1983-84): 2-3. "It is likely that the meticulous research and the copious use of unpublished and manuscript sources will make this book the standard work on the educational efforts of the Freedman's Bureau and missionaries society during Reconstruction...Yet it...does not make the most of its data,...leaves much unsaid and underanalyzed, and omits important contextual references." |
| Petrucci, Armando Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy: Studies in the History of Written Culture.Tr. and ed. by Charles M. Radding. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Pp. 250. Illustrations. $30.00. Rev. by Nancy Ann Vighetti, HRN20, no. 1 (Fall, 1996): 4-5. This "collection of ten essays on medieval Italy...ranges from types of books, the various ways in which books were conceived...to the beginning of a university system...Petrucci outlines how modern reading...began, the levels of reading, the types of reading, and the connection between reading and writing...an excellent text that Radding, through his translation, makes available to the larger audience Petrucci deserves." |
| Richardson, Alan Literature, Education, and Romanticism: Reading as Social Practice 1780-1832.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 327. $57.95. Rev. by Kate Levin, HRN20, no. 2 (Spring, 1997): 3-4. "[U]ses Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish as a framework to analyze how increased literacy and more widespread access to education at the end of the eighteenth century actually served to...continue to subordinate already subordinated groups...Richardson has provided a convincing and at times fascinating account of the relationship between education and literature in a period of 'cultural revolution.'" |
| Robinson, H. Alan, Vincent Faraone, Daniel R. Hittleman, and Elizabeth Unruh; ed. by Jill Fitzgerald. Reading Comprehension Instruction, 1783-1987: A Review of Trends and Research.Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 1990. Pp. 202. Appendixes. $13.50; $9:00 to IRA members. Rev. by E. Jennifer Monaghan, HRN14, no. 1 (Fall, 1990): 5-6. "[Based] on 573 primers, readers and spellers used in classrooms between 1783 and the 1920s...[E]ven imposing order on such a huge quantity of material in a comparatively small space is a creditable achievement indeed...Faraone's work...has taken us many, many steps along a hitherto virtually untraveled road. His bibliography alone [is] worth the cost." |
| Russell, David R. Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990.Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. Pp. 382. Rev. by Neil Daniel, HRN16, no. 2 (Spring, 1993): 2. "[P]rovides a readable overview of the cognitive theory behind writing to learn...[a] stimulating, if narrow, history of American education...three sections: 'The Triumph of Specialization,' 'The Search for Community,' and 'The Post-War Era'...By providing...a clear picture of where the movement [for writing across the curriculum] comes from, Russell shows us where we must go." |
| Schultz, Lucille M. The Young Composers: Composition's Beginnings
in Nineteenth-Century Schools , by Lucille M. Schultz. Carbondale, IL: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1999. pp. xiv, 218. Illustrations. Paper $14.95. |
| Smith, Nila Banton American Reading Instruction, with a prologue by Leonard Courtney, FSC, and an epilogue by H. Alan Robinson.Newark, Del.: International Reading Association, 1986. Pp.522. $23.00 to IRA members; $34.50 to non-members. Rev. by Richard L. Venezky, HRN11, no. 1 (Fall, 1987): 1-2. "Robinson's epilogue attempts to do the near impossible: to summarize in 49 pages the last 20 years in reading research, instruction, teacher training, and national policy...With all of its virtues, Smith's text remains a work of the 1930s, with (by present day standards) an inadequate scholarly apparatus, limited use of primary resources outside of textbooks, and an outdated point of view." |
| State Archives and Records Administration Consider the Source: Historical Records in the Classroom.Albany, NY: University of the State of New York, 1995, reprinted in 1996. Pp. 146. Illustrations, appendices. $10.00. Rev. by Judith Walter, HRN21, no. 1 (Fall, 1997): 4-5. "[O]ffers a 'treasure trove' of assistance to primary and secondary instructors in a variety of disciplines...(1) a clear concise discussion of what constitutes historical records...(2) clear, precise suggestions as to where teachers can find teachable historical records; (3) an eight-step practical guide for bringing historical records into the classroom...(4) over 100 pages [of] reproductions of various samples of historical records along with custom-designed lesson plans and worksheets." |
| Stevens, Edward W., Jr. Literacy, Law, and Social Order.DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1988. Pp. 207. $28.50. Rev. by Richard Sexton, HRN14, no. 1 (Fall, 1990): 3-4. "[An] extensively researched scholarly work...[that] adds to our understanding of how American society has dealt with illterate persons over the last two hundred years...[Stevens] discusses State and Federal decisions dealing with literacy issues in cases involving wills, mortgages, contracts, and voter and juror qualifications. Most of the cases date from 1850 to 1925." |
| Sullivan, Dolores P. William Holmes McGuffey: Schoolmaster to the Nation.Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994. Pp. 244. $39.50. Rev. by Allen Berger, HRN19, no. 2 (Spring, 1996): 4-5. "Sullivan makes excellent use of [a newly-discovered collection of McGuffey memorabilia]...[the book] should be considered the definitive biography...The only regret I have is when Sullivan leaves the data and jumps into explanations of current social and educational problems...It would add to the overall value of the book if the chapter entitled 'A Final Appraisal' were revised or omitted in newer editions." |
| Svenbro, Jesper Phrasikleia: An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece.Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. xiv, 233; Index. $37.95 (cloth), $12.05 (paper). Rev. by James T. Chambers, HRN17, no. 2 (Spring, 1994): 3, 5 "[S]eeks to understand how the ancient Greeks read and what they thought about the reading act. The result is a set of ten insightful essays, several of which do not strictly pertain to reading...a distinctive feature of Greek reading [is that] to read was to read aloud...Despite...reservations...an intelligent and imaginative book that provides important insights into the realities of reading in ancient Greece." |
| Thomas, Rosalind Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp.xii, 201. Illustrations. Index. $54.95 (cloth); $17.95 (paperback). Rev. by James T. Chambers, HRN19, no. 1 (Fall, 1995): 2. "[D]esigned to introduce students and teachers to the state of current research in a particular area of classics...the arrival of writing did not revolutionize Greek life and thought. Instead, the new technique was grafted onto long standing uses in magic, ritual, and memorial...The book is well crafted to fulfill its introductory mission. Practically all Greek passages are translated, and the text is clearly written." |
| Thornton, Tamara Plakins andwriting in America: A Cultural History.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Pp xiv, 248. Illustrations. $30.00. Rev. by Konstantin Dierks, HRN21, no. 2 (Spring, 1998): 3-4. "[A] thoughtful and stimulating cultural study of handwriting in America from the colonial period through the 20th century...At the heart of [the book] are shifting cultural assumptions about the relationship between handwriting and selfhood...captures the dominant pedagogical and popular representation of handwriting, rather than its diverse social practice...[but this does] not obscure the ambitious scope, the broad-ranging usefulness, and the careful nuance of Thornton's impressive study." |
| Travers, Robert W. How Research Has Changed American Schools: A History from 1840 to the Present.Kalamazoo, MI.: Mythos Press, 1983. Pp. 611. Illustrations. $25.00. Rev. by Sam Weintraub, HRN10, no. 1 (Fall, 1986): 2-3. The attempt to review "the impact of research on schools...[follow] the great-man theory of history...[The] section ...devoted to research on reading...[is] probably not the strongest segment of the book. [The author] totally ignore[s] the remarkable body of work emanating from Chicago and Teachers College...the book...has a number of misconceptions." |
| Watson, Benjamin English Schoolboy Stories: An Annotated Bibliography of Hardcover Fiction.Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992. Pp. 229. $25.00. Rev. by Gretchen Galbraith, HRN18, no. 2 (Spring, 1995): 4. "This annotated bibliography will be a gold mine for scholars and fans of English public school stories. Watson...has compiled a comprehensive list of school stories published in hardcover between 1732 and the present... useful for historians of popular culture, reading, and adolescence, and for anyone who has ever enjoyed the genre." |
| Whalley, Joyce Irene The Pen's Excellencie: A Pictorial History of Western Calligraphy.New York: Taplinger, 1982. 1st paper ed. Pp. 400. Illustrations. $20.00. Rev. by Lili Cassel Wronker, HRN8, no. 2 (Spring, 1985): 1. "[G]ives a layperson an idea of the variety of letterforms and their applications ...letters, Bible pages, chronicles, calendars, medieval books of hours, legal documents, writing masters' copysheets, alphabet books, manuals of calligraphy...one of the few works available with so many large, clear examples." |
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