Editorials
KLIATT
AGERANGE: Ages 15 to adult.The Opposing Viewpoints series does a great job presenting diverse opinions on current topics in order to promote critical thinking skills. Student debaters and paper writers will benefit from the helpful way in which the selections are organized and introduced. The Presidential Election Process, for instance, presents a total of 22 brief articles excerpted from recent books, journals, and online sources, written by journalists, political science professors, and policy makers, and arranged in four chapters--Does the Nomination Process Produce the Best Candidates?; Should Campaign Spending Be Limited?; Do the Media Unfairly Influence Presidential Campaigns?; and Should the Electoral College Be Abolished or Reformed? Within each chapter each article’s stance is made clear by its title: e.g., “The Media Often Distort Candidates’ Positions,” or “Media Coverage of Candidates is Objective.” The book’s introduction provides an overview of the issues, while chapter prefaces explain what each debate is about. Brief paragraphs preface each article, summarizing the author’s argument and posing questions to consider while reading it. A few political cartoons and sidebars (e.g., a list of “Top 15 PACs in 2004 Election”) dot the text. End materials include a list of supplementary articles, questions for further discussion, and an annotated list of organizations to contact. The other volumes follow a similar format, and all are sure to provoke valuable discussions and debates in and out of classrooms. Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick
March 2008 (Vol. 42, No.2)
School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up- These books cover their topics in pro and con articles written by experts in the field or journalists with relevant experience. Clearly written, well researched, and far reaching, Discrimination explores the problem in its many forms. Individual chapters examine whether discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, and religion exists in the United States, how these prejudices impact American society, the effectiveness of affirmative action, and the impact of the U.S. government on the issue. Questions are asked about the wage gap between men and women, same-sex marriage, racial profiling of Muslim Americans, the Barry Bonds controversy, and the impact of Title IX on women. Human Rights is concerned with the conflict between the concepts of individual rights, as conceived in the West, and that of group human rights as they have been shaped by religion, mores, and tradition in the East. This intriguing approach has about it the implication that the exportation of such Western ideals smacks of cultural imperialism. The first chapter seeks to define these privileges and sets up a debate between the concept of universal and culturally relative human rights. Other chapters explore the current state of affairs, efforts to curb abuses, and the steps the U.S. government should take to address these problems. This well-debated volume contains an extensive bibliography and contact information for organizations in the field. Both books are good choices for libraries needing more material on these topics.-Carol Jones Collins, Columbia High School, Maplewood, NJ