Journey of English CL

In her first, tenuous book for children, Brook sets out to track the evolution of today's English from its prehistoric Indo-European roots. Unfortunately, the author leads young readers down a circuitous, rocky road. Her dry and rather choppy chronicle of the ways in which such peoples as the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, French, Greeks and Romans left their mark on the language brims with generalizations and seemingly arbitrary information (""Ronald McDonald is a 100 percent Celtic name""). And some statements, presented as fact, are debatable; noting that the official language in India is English, but only 70 million of this country's 768 million people can ""actually speak English to some degree or other,"" Brook speciously concludes: ""So, as in almost all of the world, in India gaining education, power, and wealth means learning English."" While effectively conveying a wide range of eras, Zallinger's (The Earliest Americans) watercolor and color-pencil art is uneven and occasionally contains some inexplicable images. The artist's depictions of landscapes, animals and sea-going vessels are far more distinct and credible than her human likenesses, some of which feature oddly distorted faces. In plain English: this is a pass. Ages 7-12. (Apr.)