This entertaining history of household objects provides the inventors, the ideas or needs behind the innovations and the dates they were invented. Separate chapter address bathrooms (toilets, sinks, bathtubs), cooking (stoves, toasters, refrigerators), cleaning up (laundry machines, irons, vacuum cleaners), telephones, pens and pencils, typewriters, and more. Rubin (Emily in Love, 1997, etc.) explains how the idea for the book came about; when she was remodeling her kitchen and chose her new stove, its red knobs so " dazzled" her that she began thinking about good design. Others have thought about good design, too; in 1938, Rubin points out household objects began to be recognized by the Museum of modern Art in New York City as "applied arts." The large black-and-white picture, especially of the early prototypes, offer clear reference points for the progression of machinery through the ages. Computers, cellular phones, Caller ID-readers will never take them for granted again after reading about their remarkable predecessors. (index, not seen, notes, bibliography) (Nonfication 8-12).

Review in 'The New York Times' dated Jan 17. 1999

TOILETS, TOASTERS & TELEPHONES. By Susan Goldman Rubin. Illustrated with photographs and with illustrations by Elsa Warnick. Browndeer/Harcourt Brace. $20. (Ages 8 to 12) The household appliances we use are all the products of industrial design, but they have evolved in curious and interesting ways. A brisk, cheerful history of some of the objects we use most often and how they came to the forms – by no means always the obvious ones – in which we find them.

The perfect gift for anyone who uses the bathroom !

Dori Hutson is an artist whose work has appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Life Magazine. In Hidden Assets she combines her artistic ability with a wry sense of humor to "a-commode-ate" her readers. She sketched or photographed privies while travelling in England, France, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S. Then she turned these into illustrations and added a hilarious historical commentary. You hold the result in your hands.