The books in this series will be helpful to report-writing students. In these revised editions, economic and political information has been brought up to date, the color photographs are well reproduced, and the emphasis on the traditional arts and customs of each country has not changed. The economic and cultural maps, a time line, and a list of websites are useful features. Bib., glos., ind. [Review covers these Cultures of the World titles: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Japan, India.]

Gr 6 Up-- Cramming an enormous amount of information into one- or two-page entries, this series is overly ambitious. The encyclopedic format results in a choppy style, a lack of depth, and can lead to confusion. The vocabulary (words such as entrepot, churl, ethos, and mooted) is likely to be unfamiliar to the intended audience. Convoluted sentence structure also makes reading more difficult. The books are all richly illustrated with glorious, clear, full-color photographs that give a sense of the country, and accompanying captions are well done. The maps, however, are mediocre, as they are too simplified with poor legends and not enough explanations. Srinivasan's explanation of religion and the caste system in India raises more questions than it answers; in Malaysia , no mention is made of the racial problems between the native Malays and the Chinese that have taken place in the last 30 years. The books do give a sense of the culture, detailing lifestyles, leisure activities, the arts, festivals, the economy, and foods, but in a perplexing manner. The history, government, and religion sections in each volume are perhaps the least enlightening as such broad subject areas are reduced to five or six paragraphs. The books end abruptly with no summation attempted. Each volume has a very small glossary, a three- or four-citation bibliography, and a one-page index. The Discovering Our Heritage'' series (Dillon) gives the same type of information in a clearer manner, and theChildren of the World'' series (Gareth Stevens) is for a younger audience but is also intelligible. --Kathryn Havris, Mesa Public Library, AZ