PORTFOOLIO: 1989 IN CANADIAN CARICATURE Edited by Guy Badeaux Toronto, Macmillan, 1989. 224pp, paper, $14.95 ISBN 0-7715-9416-X. CIP Grades 10 and up/Ages 15 and up Reviewed by Fred Leicester. Volume 18 Number 2 1990 March Is a picture worth a thousand words? I suppose it is debatable whether the more than 300 cartoons features in Portfoolio are each worth a thousand words, but there is no denying that these cartoons bring back in sharp focus some of the more significant events of 1989. Can you judge a book by its cover? With this book you can. The full-colour cover cartoon depicts a tiny Canadian athlete who barely reaches the ankles of U.S. and Soviet athletes standing on either side of him. The Canadian is saying, "Boy, do I feel great now that I'm off steroids." This, I think, sets the tone for the 1989 edition of Portfoolio, which contains editorial cartoons of sufficient acerbity, pungency, and acidity for those whose taste lies at the lowest ranges of the pH scale. Fifty of Canada's top cartoonists are represented in this mordant compen­dium, and the work of Aislin, Barren, Peterson, Wicks, Cam and Franklin, among others, is divided into twelve sections under such headings as "Free Trade," "Leadership," 'The World," "The Provinces" and "Sport." Each section begins with an introduction written by Charles Gordon that re­freshes the reader's memory. The issues covered include steroids, the Quebec language law, the budget leak, free trade, the retirements of Ronald Reagan, John Turner, and Ed Broadbent, Elvis sightings, the Ayatollah, Ben Johnson, and the Salman Rushdie affair. The twenty-four-page section at the end of the book gives biographical information and puts a face to the signa­ture scrawled in a corner of a cartoon. Required reading for all those who want to know how Canada and the world really work. Fred Leicester, Golden, B.C.