Life: Our Century in Pictures for Young People

Adapted by Amy Sklansky from the adult bestseller LIFE: Our Century in Pictures, this superb collection of carefully chosen, powerful images with pithy captions captures the events, people and culture that shaped the last 100 years. The volume overall does not go into the same amount of detail as Jennings and Brewster's recent The Century for Young People; on the other hand, Stolley, a longtime Time-Life journalist, covers events on a global scale. An ideal introduction for young people because of its highly visual focus, the book juxtaposes events close to home with those far away; in one spread, for example, a caption for a photo of Margaret Sanger discusses her 1916 arrest in New York for preaching contraception and appears alongside a picture of Dublin's Easter Monday uprising the same year. Stolley divides the century into nine chapters or ""epochs,"" each briefly introduced by an award-winning children's author, including Lois Lowry, Jerry Spinelli and Katherine Paterson. Patricia and Fredrick McKissack's ""Changes"" (covering 1946-1963), for instance, offers a personal look at postwar America and sets the stage for the burgeoning civil rights and women's movements with all their triumphs and disappointments. Each chapter includes a ""Turning Point"" that describes such pivotal developments as space exploration and such cultural phenomena as the American musical, and concludes with a ""Requiem"" commemorating the deceased who defined the era. A visual treasure trove. Ages 10-up. (Nov.)