" The Education of Things will be read with interest across a range of scholarly disciplines. a most welcome addition to the shelves of the academic bookshop, and--if only in an idealised world--to the rational toy-shop as well."-- Melanie Keene , Historical Studies in Education "A significant strength of Hoiem's book is her interdisciplinary approach. The result is a convincing case for the role of mechanical thinking throughout nineteenth-century texts of all sorts."-- Michelle Biessel Heath , Victorian Studies "Reading and learning about the physical world go hand in hand in Hoiem's fascinating archive, and her focus on working-class children as well as middle-class ones redresses the bias toward the latter in much children's literature criticism."-- Hannah Field , author of Playing with the Book: Victorian Movable Picture Books and the Child Reader " The Education of Things is an important contribution to the study of children's literature and the history of education--as well as to histories of object-based knowledge. Hoiem's creative, multidisciplinary approach makes connections among fields that are often considered separately, making this a particularly exciting and novel intervention."-- Sarah Anne Carter , author of Object Lessons: How Nineteenth-Century Americans Learned to Make Sense of the Material World.