This book, part of the Whole Language Umbrella Series, offers a critical reexamination of "inquiry" and "whole language" as tools for rethinking literacy, schooling, and humanistic citizenship in the complexities of today's multicultural world. The essays in the book explore the political implications of literacy theories and practices by asking what kinds of inquiries promote or hinder the acquisition of literacies as tools for envisioning, critically exploring, and reconstructing knowledge and societies that are socially just. After an introduction ("The Inquirers and Their Questions" by the editors), essays in the book are: (1) "What Education as Inquiry Is and Isn't" (Jerome C. Harste); (2) "Curriculum as Inquiry" (Kathy G. Short and Carolyn L. Burke); (3) "The Journey from Pedagogy to Politics: Taking Whole Language Seriously" (Susan M. Church); (4) "What's It Going To Be?" (Patrick Shannon); (5) "Critical Inquiry or Safe Literacies: Who's Allowed To Ask Which Questions?" (Barbara Comber); (6) "Writing for Critical Democracy: Student Voice and Teacher Practice in the Writing Workshop" (Timothy J. Lensmire); (7) "Classrooms in the Community: From Curriculum to Pedagogy" (Timothy Shannon and Patrick Shannon); (8) "'I Knew That Already': How Children's Books Limit Inquiry" (Jennifer O'Brien); (9) "Examining Poverty and Literacy in Our Schools: Janice's Story" (Connie L. White); (10) "Classroom Inquiry into the Incidental Unfolding of Social Justice Issues: Seeking Out Possibilities in the Lives of Learners" (Vivian Vasquez); (11) "Our Kinds of Questions You Wouldn't Find in a Book" (Robyn Jenkin); (12) "Young Researchers in Action" (David Wray, Maureen Lewis, with Carolyn Cox); (13) "Different Cultural Views of Whole Language" (Lee Gunderson); and (14) "Inviting Reflective Global Inquiries: Politicizing Multicultural Literature, Mediated Student Voices, and English Literacies" (Sibel Boran). (RS)