Insider's Look: Life Inside the Military Academy (High ... (ISBN 0516240048)

Just alright:
There are a number of reasons not to buy this book. #1 - Although the front indicates it is one in a series of "high interest" books, do not be fooled into believing it is a "high - low" book, one intended for a person with low level reading skills. The vocabulary is far too difficult. #2 - Two of the pictures are wrong. The picture on page 29 is of a Marine Corps Drill Sergeant yelling at a young recruit. The picture on page 31 above the caption "In the fall, cadets look forward to continuing their classic football rivalry with the Naval Academy." shows Army playing someone OTHER than Navy. #3- There are grammar mistakes. Example from page 28 - "For instance, cadets are allowed to date each other. Yet they are forbidden to kiss or hug on school grounds." The second is not a complete sentence. I realize there are times authors begin sentences with 'but' and 'yet", but putting this in a book meant for young readers is not a good idea. The text is pretty accurate, gives a fair general overview and at least tries to live up to the series title "Insider's Look", but the lack of attention to detail in choosing photographs and vocabulary, puts its usefulness in question.

More research and editing would have helped.:
Maybe this is a decent book for introducing elementary or junior-high school students to the idea of attending the US Military Academy, but I can't imagine they'd find it a very satisfying title. The information is only of the most superficial kind -- for example, that cadets wear uniforms, march on Saturdays, get up early, and have to memorize a lot of things. There's also a focus on minutia like the derivation of "plebe," or why second classmen are called "Cows" (an explanation, by the way, that doesn't match what I've read in most other books about the USMA). Other reviewers have noted several problems with inaccurate or mis-captioned photos. One I found has a caption discussing "summer school for yearlings" beneath a photo showing professional enlisted soldiers (one clearly has SP4 insignia on his helmet, and both soldiers have mustaches, which are forbidden for cadets). Another shows cadets on parade. The caption ends, "This uniform is called Full Dress Gray over White," although that's not the uniform being shown. Similar problems extend into the text itself, with a number of cases where the information is, if not outright wrong, at least misleading. The school is several times referred to as "West Point Military Academy," which is not its name, while copy and an accompanying illustration on page 16 leave the impression that battalions and regiments are subdivisions of cadet companies, and not the other way around. General Patton is described as "commanding general of the U.S. army from 1942 to 1944," and "the Long Gray Line" is given as a nickname for the USMA itself, not the body of current and former West Point cadets. These errors and points of confusion may not matter much to the young student trying to decide if he or she is interested in a military education. But they do suggest that the author and editors should have put a little more time into making sure they got their story right. It's disrespectful to the readers, as well as to the subject, to assume they're not worth the effort.

Nicely done:
Life Inside the Military Academy (Insider's Look) by Aileen Weintraub gives readers a sense of what it's like to live and be educated at one of the most prestigious and famous academies, West Point. Using clear, concise language, Ms. Weintraub takes readers inside West Point and shows how a cadet's life begins at dawn and ends after an intense day of studying and training. Also of note, is the age appropriate language the author uses to engage young readers. A cadet's time is also broken down year by year, thereby showing readers what cadets are expected to have learned and implemented as time goes on. Further, the book includes a brief section on what life is like for cadets after West Point, which can be eye-opening at times. Overall, Weintraub does a nice job of making readers feel as though they have indeed gotten an inside look at life at West Point.