Gabby

University Laboratory High School 1212 W. Springfield Ave. Urbana, IL    September 30, 2008 Marc Aronson Author of __Race: A History of Black and White__ Atheneum Books for Young Readers 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

Dear Mr. Aronson: I truly thought that the depiction of “race” that you gave in your book, __Race__, was very intriguing. The way that you vividly describe historical events, such as the holocaust, and organize your information just makes __Race__ that much more interesting. For example, when you write about lynchings of innocent African Americans during the civil rights movement, I can really picture the gruesome events taking place. Also, when you talk about different nationalities immigrating to the United States, I enjoy how you explained the different prejudices against each group separately- it definitely made it clearer to me as a reader. Another thing that I would like to point out to you about __Race__ is that your choice of topic, information, and writing style were good, but I believe your citing of information (by way of “Notes”) was a bit confusing. Having to flip back and forth from the end of the book was kind of annoying and tiring. It seems to me that using shortened numbered footnotes as a bibliography, and then possibly putting a full reference at the end of your book would have been easier to follow. Yet I understand that your editors may have influenced your method of citing your sources. All in all, I thought __Race__ was a very well-written historical analysis, and is one of the best nonfiction books I have ever read. I hope you will continue to write more books like it in the future! Sincerely, Gabby Kozlowski