THE M&S HOME EMERGENCY HANDBOOK & FIRST-AID GUIDE Fred Kerner Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1990. 206pp, paper, $14.95 ISBN 0-7710-4478-X. CIP Grades 10 and up/Ages 15 and up Reviewed by Barbara Camfield. Volume 18 Number 6 1990 November This book tries to do too much. The description on the cover tells us this is "a complete handbook on protecting your children, yourself and your home against fire and floods, hurricanes and tornadoes, electrical and nuclear accidents, earthquakes and hazards away from home." Kerner also talks about protecting your home against intruders, children and accidents, and such hazards away from home as hotel fires, winter driving and avalanches. All these topics are covered in the space of 194 pages of text followed by a general index and an index of symptoms. These two indexes should have been combined into one to aid the reader seeking information quickly in an emergency. In his haste to cover all these possible hazards, Kerner frequently neglects to give sufficient detail and resorts to brief sentences in the impera­tive mode, which makes this book tedious reading. I had occasion to consult this book and the St. John Ambulance's First Aid Safety Oriented (St. John Ambulance, 1988) when a branch hit a friend in the eye while he was trimming trees at my cottage. The St. John Ambulance guide is vastly superior in its exact description of what to do when an object it located in different parts of the eye. It contains many more diagrams and a clearer pres­entation of major points with effective use of bold lettering and bullets. In short, I would not wish to rely on Kerner's handbook in an emergency requiring first aid. Other topics such as nuclear emergency preparedness and protection from burglary are also more effectively covered in specialized publications on these topics. Not recommended. Barbara Camfield, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa, Ont.