Many feel that textbooks dominate what students learn. They set the curriculum and often the facts learned in most subjects. For many students, textbooks are their first and sometimes only early exposure to books and to reading. The public regards textbooks as authoritative, accurate and necessary and many teachers rely on them to organize lessons and structure subject matter. The purpose of this book is to provide necessary illumination regarding textbooks in relation to schools, teachers, students, and the national textbook market. Among the discussions included are: What is the American Textbook System?; Why Textbook Reform Matters; What is a Good Textbook?; The Condition of Today's Textbooks; What Scholars Say about Textbooks; The "Bad Writing" Problem; Readability Formulas and Elementary Textbooks; How the Preoccupation with Testable Skills Causes Bad Writing in Textbooks; the "Mentioning" Problem: Too Many Topics in Too Little Space; The Making of a Textbook: A Fictionalized Account; Reforming Textbooks; Recommendations to Policymakers in Adoption States; Recommendations for National Academic Organizations; Recommendations for Foundations; Recommendations for School Districts in Non-Adoption States; Recommendations to Teacher Unions; Recommendations to Publishers; and An Ideal Textbook Adoption Process. Included are statistical tables and a list of typical textbook policies. (CW)