This article presents a review of four chapters in "Part I, Section A: Making Curriculum" of "The SAGE Handbook of Curriculum and Instruction" (F. M. Connelly, M. F. He, J. I. Phillion, Eds.; Sage Publications, 2008). These chapters ["Curriculum Policy and the Politics of What Should Be Learned in Schools" (Benjamin Levin. Chapter 1, pp. 7-24); "Curriculum Planning: Content, Form, and the Politics of Accountability" (Michael W. Apple. Chapter 2, pp. 25-44); "Making Curricula: Why Do States Make Curricula, and How?" (Ian Westbury. Chapter 3, pp. 45-65); and "Subject Matter: Defining and Theorizing School Subjects" (Zongyi Deng, Allan Luke. Chapter 4, pp. 66-89)] are primarily concerned with curriculum making, with emphasis on the issues of practical and institutional consequences. This reviewer concludes that these chapters provide a good insight on the operation of the normative in the school, and serve to remind curriculum studies educators of their ongoing obligation to school children and teachers. He states that a focus on the normative raises profound questions about what is most worthy in the public school education of a child, and that the school cannot do this well without considering the deliberative and institutional features involved in fashioning, operating, and ultimately evaluating the normative experience.