From School Library Journal
A comprehensive guide to over 5,760 people currently listed in collective biographies, this work is a vast undertaking. There are three reasons why a current guide such as this one is essential: the frequency with which young people discover too late that all single monographs about a particular person are gone from the library shelf; the need for students to locate print sources other than encyclopedias for assignments; and, finally, the fact that some individuals are still relatively unknown, even on the Internet. A search on Miriam Pulwer, a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor, will result in little information, but she is a subject in Elaine Landau's
Holocaust Memories: Speaking the Truth. The book has three main sections: an alphabetical listing of all of the titles indexed and their codes; the biographees, with information on their dates, nationality, occupation, or contribution, and the code for the book or books in which they can be found; and a subject guide. Hats off to this resource, which is a must-have for libraries serving grades 4 through 12.
-Teresa Pfeifer, Alfred Zanetti Montessori Magnet School, Springfield, MA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This text indexes 721 titles for children and young adults in order to provide access to 5,760 notable individuals from early to modern times. All of the referenced titles were published between 1988 and 2002. The book is divided into two main sections. In the first, each individual is listed alphabetically with data about his or her birth date, death, nationality, and occupation or other field of activity. This entry concludes with the codes for the books in which one can find information about the person. The second part of the volume consists of a subject guide to the various individuals profiled, listed alphabetically under headings of occupation, nationality, or other distinguishing characteristic. Many people are listed under more that one subject. Some of the headings include
Colonists,
Human Rights Activists,
Inventors (who are subgrouped by nationality), and
Outlaws. This book would be helpful for students doing biography reports and useful for both school and public libraries, as there is little else that provides access to information in collective biographies.
Maren OstergardCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved