Through Time: New York City
The word Manhattan is the Dutch corruption of the Delaware people’s (the first settlers) name for the island, “Manahatouh.” How about that! Facts like these could easily be lost in a traditional history text, but in this magnificently illustrated work, historical happenings and intriguing offshoots are showcased like stars on Broadway. This volume of the Through Time series does what the other volumes have done so well: present historical events and daily life in painstakingly illustrated double-page spreads, each one devoted to one year or one signal event (as in Henry Hudson’s landing in 1609, the World’s Fair of 1939, or Ground Zero). The illustrations, many of them from far overhead, do a great job detailing what people of the time did, along with illustrated insets of further information. The collaborators use the Cotton Club in 1930s Harlem especially well, showing both the inequities of the Depression and the segregation still rampant. A wealth of information in an engaging format. Grades 4-7. --Connie Fletcher