{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02814070351758794, 'fraction_numerical': 0.011055276381909548, 'mean_word_length': 4.757225433526012, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Children in Different and Difficult Times: The History of American Childhood, Part One

Does history look different if viewed from the perspective of the history of children rather than the history of adults? Although the new "Twayne's History of American Childhood" series, co-edited by Joseph M. Hawes and N. Ray Hiner, does not directly pose this historiographical question, the series provides an enormous amount of information upon which one can speculate. One way of thinking about this question is to ask whether chil? dren's lives changed in the same ways that adults' did during the period from 1775 to 1940 covered by the four books under review. Across this sweep of 165 years, children became healthier and more literate, more lived in cities than in rural areas, more had fewer siblings, and more were raised by single parents. But this could also be said for adults, more of whom lived longer and healthier lives, could read, lived in cities, were divorced, and had fewer children.