From School Library Journal
Gr 8 Up-Campbell utilizes examples of real cases to illustrate tenets of the U.S. Constitution. Black-and-white photos appear throughout. It is unfortunate that in the fourth-amendment discussion the author does not mention one's computer hard drives and files, which are becoming as important targets for searches and seizures as an individual's body, home, and car. Claudine G. Wirths and Mary Bowman-Kruhm's Coping with Confrontations and Encounters with the Police (Rosen, 1997) explains a young person's rights in situations they are likely to encounter. The history and significant points connected to the Bill of Rights are more engagingly presented in Kathleen Krull's A Kid's Guide to America's Bill of Rights (Avon, 1999). Chippendale highlights historical agreements and laws that have sought to restrain barbarism while waging war. The bulk of the discussion focuses on 20th-century efforts to promote international cooperation and peace through alliances like the United Nations. The author admits that, while efforts to prevent genocide and various crimes against humanity have yielded meager results, international tribunals have succeeded in punishing some war criminals such as those connected to the Holocaust and Japanese atrocities during World War II. Genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Turkey is discussed, but government persecution of segments of the citizenry in Argentina and South Africa is not mentioned. Since this was written before the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the author's hope that he will be removed from office is dated. Black-and-white photographs of heaped bodies and skulls and human limbs in a concentration-camp oven tell a vivid story while the text offers some consolation in current efforts to bring perpetrators to justice.-Ann G. Brouse, Steele Memorial Library, Elmira, NY
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