Building a house

The inexhaustible interest in the subject presumably accounts for the endless flow of how-a-house-is-built books--of which this is a serviceable but undistinguished example. The house chosen--a custom-designed, individually built vacation house (in the $200,000 or so class)--may be typical of traditional post-and-beam construction; but it doesn't reflect the type of dwelling, or the degree of prefabrication, characteristic in the US today. The text is generalized, imprecise, very young. ""Every modern house is connected to the outside world in a number of ways. There are wires that bring electricity in and wires that carry telephone messages out."" (The latter, of course, also bring telephone messages in.) ""The frame of a house is made of boards of different sizes and lengths. They hold the house up and give it its shape."" (Studs, rafters, and beams are then identified.) Very little is actually explained--not how the septic tank and cesspool we see installed work; not how ""every board was cut exactly as shown in the architect's plans"" (we don't see such detailing); not how ""all the boxes were connected to the right wires."" Or, typical of the meaningless quasi-information: ""The pieces [of sheetrock] were nailed in place with special nails that will not easily pull out."" Why? There is interest, certainly, in seeing the foundation take shape, seeing the deck laid across it (even though we have almost identical photos on two successive openings), in seeing the roof shingled, and especially seeing some of the interior finishing (which other house-building books make less of). But apart from not providing clear, precise explanations, there is almost nothing imaginative, to catch a child's interest--save the spackler on special stilts. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.