Authors: Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster
ISBN: 978-0-385-73767-8: 978-0-385-73768-5: 978-0-385-73769-2
Publisher: Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers

Why study the past? Who cares what happened fifty or one hundred years ago? How does it concern the present or the future? It is so boring! Unfortunately, this is the attitude of too many individuals, as they don't realize how useful and indispensable is history such as helping us understand people and societies, helping us understand change and how the society we inhabit came into existence, the importance in our own lives, its contribution to understanding our identity. If we don't know the past, how can we understand the present?

Thanks to Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers there is a reissue of a three book series (first published in 1998), The Century For Young People that was authored by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster that is an excellent overview of three periods of the twentieth century, 1901-1936, 1936-1961, and 1961-1999. The books are in pocket book format, very easy to read and extremely inspiring that any young reader and even adults with little or no knowledge of world history will find fascinating.

The authors have presented history through the eyes of people who recount their memories of such events as the Russian Revolution, World Wars I and II, the great depression, fall of Communism, segregation, replacement of the Shah of Iran by Khomeini and the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, the Jim Crow laws in the South, post depression years, the beginning of television, the rise of technology, the women's movement, Reaganomics, the Rodney King affair, the first Iraq war, and many more.

History certainly does come alive and although the information contained in these books barely scratch the surface, they do serve as a catalyst that may prod the reader to seek more information pertaining to particular events. The authors have done a masterful job in providing excellent reading for young and old looking for unique perspectives of some of the most important events of the last century. Information is presented in such a manner that they will not tax young readers but on the other hand, will not exactly leave them feeling cheated. As the introduction to these books mentions, “this is not only your parents' and grandparents' story; it is your story, too.” As we read these personal stories we are left with an important message, the fact that one event or person indeed can make quite a difference on our lives.