CLAUDINE AT SCHOOL (286 pp.)—Coletfe — Farrar, Straus & Cudahy ($3.50). Any group of wide-awake P.T.A. mothers, from Larchmont to Santa Monica, would be appalled by the situation at Montigny.

James Chappel’s useful new social and cultural study, “Golden Years: How Americans Invented ... poverty reduction program.” Later in the book, he quotes criticisms of the program, which ...

Prof. Ada Palmer kept hearing one question: If the Black Plague caused the Renaissance, will COVID cause a golden age? It was “such a bad question,” she said, that the answer required a full blog post ...