From School Library Journal
Gr 4-8--These slim volumes offer brief histories of each state, starting with the original Native American inhabitants and ending with recent events. Major historical incidents are touched upon along the way, but readers looking for detailed descriptions will have to look elsewhere. While the author covers injustices suffered by many groups of people, he saves the most descriptive language for those suffered by white settlers. For example, in discussing the Fort Dearborn Massacre, in which the whites were victims, Wills describes the Potawatomi warriors as having ``...swept out of the forest with guns blazing.'' A few pages later, when the roles are reversed in the Black Hawk War, Wills shows more restraint, describing the Indians as dying ``...under heavy fire from the soldiers.'' This contrast in language perpetrates the bias that calls one incident a ``massacre'' and the other a ``war.'' Both titles have attractive, full-color and black-and-white reproductions and photographs, facts about the state, important dates, and selected short biographies in gazeteer sections, but all of the information is covered in greater detail in the ``America the Beautiful'' series (Childrens), which is a far more useful alternative.
George Delalis, Chicago Public Library
Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
