Child Care Choices. Balancing the Needs of Children, Families, and Society: By Edward F. Zigler and Mary E. Lang. New York: The Free Press, 1991. 271 pp.

Reading this book made me want to live in France, or even better, to live in a Scandinavian country like Finland. No, it is not an elegantly written, seductive travelogue with superlatively drawn word pictures. This book tells all one needs to know about early

childhood care choices and dilemmas in the United States in a mere two hundred and forty pages. Its scholarly authors add an additional twenty pages of excellent references which are, in fact, worth the price of the book. Why did this book stimulate my longing for distant shores? As the subtitle states, there is an effort to present choices in child care by addressing the needs of all parties concerned, children, families, and society. What an effort at juggling! Each of these players in the early childhood care scene requires an entirely different approach and understanding. Each position is ably presented and this is clearly the strength of the authors' work. Their design of the text assists readers in finding their way through the complex labyrinth of child care in the United States. Unfortunately, one quickly realizes how low on the priority list child care is in this country. The authors briefly describe child care circumstances and solutions in the several countries I touch on above. Their terse descriptions of child care in those countries clearly reflect substantial child care programs with legislated support for working parents.

Now let me illustrate how the reader is assisted by the authors, who are both long-term advocates for children and their families, to better understand our problems in the child care arena. In Chapter 1, "The Mixed System of Child Care," the history and development of child care's "mixed-up" status in the United States is unraveled. This is coupled with the multiple reasons for the "mixed-up" systems we have here. Chapter 3, "The Search for Quality in Child Care; Attempts at Definition and Regulation," fleshes out "quality child care" issues. Especially vivid