THE LAW, IT'S ON YOUR SIDE

Frank Denman has a good list of non-fiction books to his credit and his latest contains a clear elementary picture of our courts and legislative bodies at work. Shaky in his introductory chapters on the origins of law and lawmakers, in which there are hazy references to the balance between freedom and force and the gradual change from primitive rituals to inherited monarchy, the author begins to get a better grip on his subject as he defines the patters of rule as they came to America from Athens and Europe. State legislature operations are sharply focussed when the reader himself is put into a representative seat; and there is excellent material on court sessions when the reader again is made a member of first the Grand and then Trial Juries, and taken through a case. Types of law are touched on briefly and there are final chapters on our prisons and their progression from mere incarcerating agencies to psychological advisers- with a convict's case history to illustrate. Fine for school and adult information too.