Corinne Naden has over a hundred books to her credit. They include African-American biographies (including Condoleezza Rice and Whoopi Goldberg) and short educational children's books on the Andes, ancient China, golf, abortion, sharks and frogs. She has retold classical myths, written children's fiction and contributed to many volumes of ‘book talks’, introductory tasters aimed at promoting reading among children.

This remarkable and diverse output may help explain why The Golden Age of American Musical Theatre adds little to the well-told story. Naden is no scholar. She declares that 1943–65 constituted the Golden Age, beginning with Oklahoma! and ending with On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. It's tidy, in a way: it's the period of the great Rodgers and Hammerstein shows, but her justification is thin, indeed non-existent: with the 1943 production of Oklahoma! ‘the whole idea of what was musical theatre in New York began to change’ (p. 5). Her period ends with ‘On a Clear Day . . . to mark the distinction of a changing Broadway’ (p. 5). A brief mention of the growth of recorded popular music would make her case.

Apart from a short, eclectic history of Broadway, this is a book of lists: shows and casts, production credits, award winners, song titles, all widely available elsewhere. Naden might have noticed that in Gerald Borman's comprehensive The American Musical Theatre, 1924–37 is Broadway's golden age because of its great songs and scores. Naden's alphabetical entries offer plot synopsis, length of run and a little tittle-tattle. Borman analyses form, content and artistic talent. Naden's text is full of errors. Under Pickwick, ‘Mr Pickwick is chairman of The Pickwick Club, a scholarly group in seventeenth-century [sic] London’ (p. 121); on Oh What a Lovely War, ‘Generals flounder around in this anti-war production with music and lyrics that Cole Porter had composed years earlier’ (p. 112). Certainly, there's a Jerome Kern number in the show, ‘And When They Asked Us’, but Porter? Where?

Entries include comments: but these are obvious or trite: on West Side Story, ‘This is one of Broadway's best-loved musicals’ (p. 141); on Wish You Were Here, ‘The show was named for the standard greeting on most postcards of the time’ (p. 144). The Park Avenue entry shows a trace of wit: ‘Reviewers called the entire production, which revolves round a wealthy sophisticate on Park Avenue, who is making plans to wed a simple southerner, without humor, and audiences tended to agree’ (p. 120).

It is hard to have confidence in a book of facts which declares that ‘Broadway ruled in the 1950s . . . People were preoccupied with war in Korea, or trouble with Cuba, or the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jnr. [in the 1950s?], but there was still time for a show tune’. Let's hope Naden took greater care checking her facts about abortion and sharks.