ABSTRACT
Young readers (and their parents and teachers) now have an increasingly wide range of information books to choose from, many with such unlikely but inviting titles as Dinosaurs Divorce (Brown and Brown 1996) and The Beginner’s Guide to Animal Autopsy (Parker 1997) —rather a disappointment, this last, on closer inspection. There are, however, many information books which promise more familiar contents. Tudor Times (Shuter, Hook and Maguire 1995) is a title which holds no secrets, dealing unsurprisingly with such familiar topics as town and country life, as well as historical events of the period. It has the structure and layout you would expect. The authors present information in the text in a straightforward and unsensational manner; they do not address the reader directly, exaggerate, make jokes or mock other writers, teachers or adults.
