The art of photography /

A few technical developments, a chronology of leading photographers, a smattering of aesthetics: loosely linked, they add up to--or reduce to-- a condensation of the standard history of photography. Without a point of view of its own, without a hook-up to children's experience or interests, the book has nothing to offer but scraps of information, pseudo-knowledge. Nor does the choice of illustrations help. A book of photographs should be, if nothing else, exciting to look at. Some of these are among the great images of all time--Stieglitz' ""Steerage,"" Dorothea Lange's ""Migrant Mother,"" Bourke-White's ""Buchenwald Victims""--but they tend to be static and, in this brief compass, repetitious (a Walker Evans sharecropper family opposite the Lange); often they are the less compelling examples of an oeuvre or genre (Lincoln, McClellan, and their aides lined up at Antietam instead of Richmond in ruins or a Matthew Brady battlefield scene); and some seem downright ill-advised (Muybridge's near-naked ""Athletes Fencing""--while his galloping horse, described in the text, is relegated to the endpapers). Reproduction (not on a glossy stock) is poor by photo book standards, interpretations are arbitrary and frequently insensitive (Julia Cameron's Herschel may be a ""man of great energy and intelligence"" but that's not what one sees in his careworn face). If kids could be turned off photography, this tedious exercise would do it. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.