The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History (review)

If patriotic parades benefit from a few clowns and go-carts, why not the cavalcade of American history? Selzer charges through standard (but much abridged) textbook fare, hurling zingers at great names and events wherever comedic possibility arises. He claims, in fact, that this fun factor helps determine which figures make the cut in his text: "[Susan B. Anthony] isn't in this book much, because there's simply nothing very funny you can say about her without taking a swipe at the fact that she always looks really, really sour in her pictures, and even we think that's a cheap shot." End-of-chapter quizzes satirize curricular pedagogy ("Which Civil War historical site has the best gift shop?"; "Assignment. Write a rambling poem about Prescott or Dawes"). It's superficial and overcrowded and predictable but nonetheless appealing: in the end it's difficult to call whether this title will be better received as a U.S. history lesson with doses of humor, or a stand-up routine with stretches of information. Middle-schoolers can mine this for their own amusement, or better still, an enterprising social studies teacher can shake up lesson plans with choice passages. An index is appended, but nary a source note is to be found.