SENDING MESSAGES

There are many different ways to send messages, as everyone already knows, and this simply lists and photo-illustrates 27 of them in 27 double pages. First come photo-sequences of people talking, writing, miming, directing traffic, etc., and these are followed by illustrations of plumbers' symbols, a musical score, shorthand notes, semaphor flags, and other forms of signification or notation; but there is no attempt at classification, analysis, comparison, or any other form of organization. Surely dancers' demonstrations of ""high and low,"" ""pulling,"" and ""back and forth"" are not ""messages"" in the same league with Braille writing and hobo signs. But Stewig doesn't stimulate his readers to think about this or any other matter. (And, incidentally, is he sure that cave paintings--represented here with a crouching bison--were messages that ""told what the. . . hunters had been doing so other people could 'read' about it?"")