Civil War Generals

School Library Journal

Gr 5-7-The identical opening essays in these books lead readers to expect that the biographical entries found within will discuss the individuals in relationship to the customs, rites, and rituals of the period they represent. That is not the case. What follows these introductions are standard one-page biographical sketches. Civil War Generals has no logical order to the presentation; Confederate and Union generals are interspersed randomly and it is not clear why one appears before or after another. There is little new information here; the most interesting facts are those that mention what the generals did after the war. In Egyptian Kings and Queens, the organization is neither chronological nor in terms of relationship. The author jumps from Egyptian rulers to Greek deities with no clear separation of subject matter. The discussion of each deity combines Greek and Roman terminology. Both titles assume that readers have prior knowledge of the topic. Civil War Generals makes reference to the Creoles and the Mexican Wars without any elaboration. Egyptian Kings makes reference to Kushite rule and lower Nubia with no explanation. In both books, the full-page illustration of each figure is of poor quality. Students will find very little new material here and may even come away confused.-Edith Ching, St. Albans School, Mt. St. Alban, Washington, DC