Getting Ready to Drive

Gr 7–10—The quality of these titles varies from book to book. Drive includes an outstanding parent-child driving contract and cites pertinent research to emphasize the importance of conscientiousness behind the wheel without resorting to scare tactics. It has solid advice on being a responsible car owner and handling police stops. Thoughtful discussion questions round out this essential volume. The title of the next book is misleading. The first five chapters are devoted to the history of youth fashion and its intersection with marketing, the next one is an incongruous look at sweatshops, and only in the last chapter are dress codes discussed. Streissguth's itemized descriptions of modern styles vacillate between value judgments and plays at hipness. Wroble takes a wordy approach to the biological and social aspects of stress. Balancing Work and Play (Amicus, 2010) covers the same information in half the pages. While Driving excels, explaining in well-organized detail the entire process of becoming a responsible driver, all three volumes have stock photos with dull captions and arbitrarily placed clip art images.—Rebecca Dash Donsky, New York Public Library