The Reformation

School Library Journal

Gr 8 UpSolid but unexciting series entries. While all three authors write clearly and provide detailed coverage of their topics, these are the type of history books that most students hate-thick with facts, causes and effects, background information, and names and more names. Each volume opens with a double-page list of dates followed by seven or eight chapters of double-columned text, plentifully illustrated with black-and-white prints, portraits, and paintings. Liberal quotations from primary documents and standard histories are supported by a list of citations, impressive bibliographies, and a lengthy index. Libraries lacking material on the Reformation or the Wars of the Roses may want purchase these titles. However, Paul Robert Walker's The Italian Renaissance (Facts on File, 1995) and John Clare's Italian Renaissance (Gulliver, 1995) are more colorful in their appearances and approach, offering some social history and glimpses of dramatic personal stories along with the conventional political and art history.-Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ