Kathleen P. Chamberlain

After reviewing Story starters and science notebooking, one comes to this title with anticipation. Two retired educators put together their best efforts over their career to pursue inquiry beyond the textbook. The trouble is, this book needed to be published five years ago and with a teacher librarian. It is fascinating to read about constructivist ideas of inquiry from a non-librarian perspective. We have become used to our sophisticated models of inquiry and while the authors have encountered models not in our central repertoire, they pale in sophistication to those we know. The authors push inquiry by recommending the push into books, media, and technology (not web 2.0) and they make a valiant attempt at pushing the frontiers of inquiry into a richer information environment. What they recommend is from another generation. Somehow, Horatio Alger somehow does not cut it any more and that is just one example of many many recommendations. Somehow, Corwin press editors should have caught this major flaw and encouraged the authors to team up with someone who could really push an excellent concept into the 21st century. Bottom line. Skip this one.… (meer)