This book is more important now than ever as our media has lost all creditability, they no longer investigate, they just parot what they hear, they take sides - this is not journalism!

FROM AMAZON: Hold the presses! Here's the sensational story of the birth of investigative journalism in America. At the turn of the 20th century, news reporters and monthly magazines collaborate to create a new kind of journalism—in-depth, serialized exposés of corporate, labor, and political corruption. Many of these stories become instant bestsellers in book format: books like The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's classic account of corruption in the meat-packing industry.

Ann Bausum's dramatic narrative follows a generation of dedicated journalists who force responsible changes in industry and politics as America thrives. Muckrakers is the inside story of public-spirited journalism right through its evolution, with profiles of latter-day practitioners like Woodward and Bernstein and today's Internet bloggers.

Ann Bausum's storytelling savvy will engage and inspire young people to cherish age-old values such as truth and public accountability. Muckrakers is the scoop on American journalism. ( )

Earlier this year, I read Ann Bausum's book about the Freedom Riders and was interested in exploring something else from her catalogue before the semester ended. After browsing through the library, I was excited to discover that she had also written about The Muckrakers. Her book, simply titled “Muckrakers,” examines three prominent investigative journalists from the early 1900’s: Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffans, and Upton Sinclair. I was familiar with all three names, but knew the most about Sinclair, having read “The Jungle” in high school. As it turns out, Steffans (who wrote extensively about civic corruption) and Tarbell (who took Standard Oil head on!) were equally fascinating characters.

The entire time I was reading this book, I was thinking about Gallagher’s “Write Like This” real-world writing purposes -- The Muckrakers were engaged in nearly every single one in their investigative reporting. With a future class, it might be interesting to study The Muckraker’s work (and movement as a whole) and try to identify how they utilized each writing purpose to prompt reform. I know as a high school sophomore, I was handed a copy of “The Jungle” and assumed it would be boring, but when I finished it I remember thinking, “Okay, this Sinclair guy was kind of a badass.” Now, here I am fifteen years later, reading about Ida Tarbell, and thinking the exact same thing -- who doesn’t love a rebel WITH a cause?

I continue to be enthralled by The Muckrakers and hope that I can use their work to functionally demonstrate to my students the power of language. ( )

I would definitely use this book in my classroom. I have never really learned about muckrakers and I am now intrigued after reading this book. I think elementary students would love it and that it would probably spark some of them to consider going into journalism.

VOYA: 4Q, 4P
Only one small thing to give this book a 4Q instead of a 5Q. On page 20, the image cuts off part of the text. This is unfortunate for a book about the importance of printing and is published by National Geographic. 4P because this book is difficult in it's connections, but visually appealing (kind of steam punk).

As I was reading and looking through this book, I thought of so many different ways you could use it. The narrative chapters are easy to read and would make a great addition to any American History textbook. High school and most middle school students could understand the smooth writing in this chapter book. The book would be easy to divide by chapters when needed. A couple of them explain muckrakers and their impact, while the others detail the work of certain muckrakers.

The extras in this book are a great help for readers. The time line is very detailed and includes wonderful paragraphs that detail different muckrakers through history. This section could be used all on its own without the chapters. The author has also included a thorough bibliography and resource source section. The index is easy to use.

I would definitely use this in a classroom with all different levels of readers. ( )