This history tracks a boy's family generation by generation, so that his ancestors are not part of an expanding family tree, but a straight line back through time. Every turn of the page takes readers back, to the childhood of a grandparent, then the childhood of her grandparent, and so on, until 300 years have elapsed. Remphry's friendly full-color illustrations convey as much as the text, capturing the sock hops of the 1950s, a grandfather's surprise at seeing his first car, and a great-great-grandmother's dependence on candlelight to see. The adult speaker appears on one page, and then is seen as a child on the next, conjuring a stepping-stone structure. Computerized family trees and elaborate geneologies can't compete with this simple, accessible means for conveying to readers a sense of history as lived by their own relatives. Dunbar makes the past more personal, and children will be inspired to create similar histories of their own. (Picture book. 6-10) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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