As you may have surmised, I am a sucker for books that tell you about other books, even as the internet continues to exist. That being said, there is a distinct advantage to reading a book that recommends other books, even as it ages. This advantage is the fact that all of the recommendations in this book are collected and sorted into age groups by professionals. The Mother of All Booklists by William Patrick Martin is just such a book.

As the book mentions, there are 500 recommendations in it. These 500 recommendations are split into 5 age groups with 100 in each group. Considering the fact that I don’t read early reader non-fiction, this is a great resource if you have young children interested in Dinosaurs or Insects or any number of other subjects. This collection touches upon all of non-fiction, the only variety I didn’t see suggested was a cookbook or a Do-it-yourself book.

Once I got into the older reader sections, I did start to recognize some titles. Heck, a lot of those titles are on my shelves or have been reviewed by me. It is interesting seeing how they explain a book without giving too much away. The early reader books were especially interesting to me in how they describe the different types of paper or how they deal with some sort of emotional event. Some of the early reader non-fiction touches upon events and ideas that I simply wouldn’t know how to relate to a four-year-old child. Take the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, for example. I remember where I was, I remember what I was doing at the time I heard of it, but how does one relate that to a child? The strange sensation of not feeling safe in your own home would be the kind of vibe I got from that. Quite a few books talk about the attempted genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of Nazi Germany. When do you tell your child what humanity has been capable of? However, I digress.

This book was very charming and interesting to read. While the little pictures of the book covers are not in color, the book does an admirable job of describing those titles. I couldn’t really find a solid organizational pattern to when something appeared, but I think they were sorted by subject. This book is a great resource if you are an autodidact or if you are homeschooling someone. ( )