bookpagedev

NonfictionEducation

Point your student in the right direction

Review by bookpagedev

Plato said, “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.” With so much at stake, it’s no wonder that helping students succeed is a daunting task for all involved. Just in time for a new school year, several new books offer parents ideas for cultivating a prosperous environment that yields better results for their children.

School reform In Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need UCLA professor William Ouchi advocates bold, unconventional methods for turning around low-performing schools. Wondering, for example, how much your school district really spends on its students? Ouchi proposes attending a school board meeting to ask board members in public.

An intensive study of the management systems in six metropolitan areas, Making Schools Work examines an array of public and private schools. Through interviews with superintendents, principals and teachers, Ouchi gleans a complete picture of what works. He finds that the keys are an entrepreneurial spirit and parents who arm themselves with information.

“Once the principal and teachers in your school realize that you know what questions to ask . . . they’ll come up with answers for you,” Ouchi writes. “If you don’t ask, though, they’re likely to continue business as usual, with the same results as before.” Ouchi concludes that bureaucratic, top-heavy school districts collapse under their own weight, while districts that allow all parties to participate in decision-making thrive.

Arriving on the heels of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a stringent federal education law that demands academic improvement, Making Schools Work is a pragmatic, meticulously researched and engaging glimpse at what happens and what should happen behind schoolhouse doors.

Conference time Harvard University professor Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot offers a fascinating meditation on the dynamics of an age-old school tradition, the parent-teacher conference, in The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn From Each Other (Random House, $24.95, 288 pages, ISBN 037550527X).

The author contends that adults coming together to discuss a child’s progress are accompanied by what she calls their own “autobiographical scripts.” In other words, their exchanges are colored by their own experiences as students.

As a child in a rural New York school district, Lawrence-Lightfoot’s teacher informed her crushed parents that she might not be college material. Years later, Lawrence-Lightfoot’s mother still wished she had advocated harder on her child’s behalf.

The Essential Conversation instructs parents and teachers alike how to do just that. At the start of most conferences, parents are terrified of negative feedback about their children, and teachers worry that they’ll hit a nerve, causing parents to withdraw from the discussion. Instead of conversations that yield solutions, conferences can devolve into rigid, polite exchanges that are, ultimately, a waste of time.

“[We must] modify our portrayal of parent-teacher meetings as civilized, ritualized encounters devoid of passion and heat, and replace it with a much more realistic picture that admits the threats, the vulnerabilities, the wounds,” says Lawrence-Lightfoot.

Lawrence-Lightfoot writes with great precision and compassion about this crucial but often-minimized component of the school experience. She offers specific and constructive ideas on how to transform an anxious, sometimes awkward interaction into the essential conversation that it should be.

Empowering parents Any parent who has ever done a slow burn trying to understand what really goes on in the classroom would do well to pick up A+ Teachers: How to Empower Your Child’s Teacher, and Your Child, to Excellence (Andrews McMeel, $10.95, 224 pages, ISBN 0740735233). Author Erika Shearin Karres offers a straightforward manual that instructs parents on specific questions to ask that can contribute meaningfully to their child’s education.

A+ Teachers is particularly enlightening when Shearin Karres delves into the myriad overlooked factors that affect a learning environment. She contends that teachers’ personalities and attitudes, such as whether they treat their students with respect, can have an enormous impact on student progress.

“If kids notice constant grouchiness and feel dissed, they can’t learn,” she writes.

A former teacher, Shearin Karres is a frequent lecturer on education issues. Her breezy, tell-it-like-it-is prose makes reading A+ Teachers feel a lot like getting advice from a feisty friend. This book will be a welcome guide for parents trying to navigate the confusing maze of lesson plans, discipline and testing. Amy Scribner writes from Washington, D.C.

Plato said, "The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life." With so much at stake, it's no wonder that helping students succeed is a daunting task for all involved. Just in time for a new school year, several new books…
FictionPoetry

Review

Review by bookpagedev

As a child, I used to run barefoot along the sand dunes that snaked in and out of the Mississippi River like a benign creature of habit. Later, when I was older, I often camped on those dunes, especially those located at the edge of big, swampy forests that pressed down close against the river.

One of the best things about camping on the dunes is that you never see other human footprints. It is a wild, secret place that seldom has human visitors. At night, it is a spectacular place to be alone. There is no light, except for the moon reflecting off the river, and you can run all night across the sand, chasing fireflies and stampeding the bats that swoop down to feed on them, without ever feeling foolish.

As wide as the Mississippi River is and as deep as it runs it is stone-cold silent on summer nights. There is no rushing of water, no swirling, gurgling currents that battle for supremacy. It is as quiet as a church and almost as spiritual.

I am the river, Deep and strong.

I sing an old, enduring song With rhythms wild and rhythms tame, And Mississippi is my name.

From ice and snow my life began As melting glacial waters ran In rising, frigid floods that found A thousand paths to lower ground. Written as a long poem, this book tells the story of the Mississippi River from a time when giant mammoths roamed the continent, up to the present day. It is a story packed with Indians and riverboats, Civil War gunships and modern tugs, floods and bountiful harvests and, of course, a vivid assortment of alligators and snakes.

The quiet days had surely passed With changes coming hard and fast.

I heard the mighty gunboats roar Amid a bloody civil war, Then watched the country, torn in two, Be reunited, born anew. Author Diane Siebert is no stranger to children’s books that blend simple, one-word themes with allegory and fantasy. Her other children’s books include Cave, Mojave and Train. To research this book, she says she “crossed just about every bridge across the Mississippi,” and I believe her. The illustrations by Greg Harlin are nothing short of spectacular. The artwork alone is justification enough for owning this book. Richly textured and passionate, they tell stories that words alone cannot address. This is his first picture book, but his award-winning work has been featured in museums around the country and in exhibits for the National Park Service.

Mississippi is touted for children of all ages and that is probably true, insofar as the illustrations are concerned but the poetic format of the book may be too challenging for younger children. It is by no means too challenging to be heard. What children cannot see with their eyes, they often can hear in minute detail.

Naomi Branch reviews nature, health and children’s books. She wrote this review while on a botanical expedition on the Tennessee River.

As a child, I used to run barefoot along the sand dunes that snaked in and out of the Mississippi River like a benign creature of habit. Later, when I was older, I often camped on those dunes, especially those located at the edge of…
Children's & YA

School days in Arizona

Review by bookpagedev

So begins Monchi’s story of the 1938-39 school year at Coyote School in Pima County, Arizona. Every day, Monchi and his friends catch a bus and take a long, bumpy ride to school. But the journey is worth it, because this is a special school year. Their new teacher, Miss Byers, has lots of fun new ideas, like baseball at recess. Not only that, she encourages her students to create their own newspaper, the Coyote School News. In the paper, Monchi and his friends record stories, news items and noteworthy events, such as their Halloween party or the time when their bus driver, Se–or Grandote, ran over a rattlesnake. As the year progresses, the reader gets to know Miss Byers, her students and their way of life through Monchi’s story, as well as through monthly editions of the paper.

This unusual and delightful picture book is based on the true story of an Arizona teacher, Eulalia Bourne, who created a collection of mimeographed newspapers with her students in Arizona county schools from 1932 through 1943. Author Sandin’s story is based on these newspapers, as well as the memories of a high school friend who attended a school very much like the one depicted in the book.

Longer than the usual picture book, Coyote School News includes 17 short chapters, as well as the students’ newspapers for each month, from September until May. The book’s length means that readers get the chance to follow Monchi’s adventures as he helps with roundup at the ranch, picks chiles and celebrates Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) with tamales and a pi–ata. Simple and straightforward, Coyote School News is a heartwarming portrait of a community in a time gone by. And it’s sure to be a favorite of parents, teachers and kids for years to come. Deborah Hopkinson’s new book, Shutting out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York, will be published this fall.

So begins Monchi's story of the 1938-39 school year at Coyote School in Pima County, Arizona. Every day, Monchi and his friends catch a bus and take a long, bumpy ride to school. But the journey is worth it, because this is a special school…
Children's & YA

A fun-filled journey for young readers

Review by bookpagedev

“Are we there yet?” It’s an age-old question that’s been asked by millions of children around the world and throughout the ages kids traveling by horseback and covered wagon, by airplane and automobile. Now, a breezy new book for younger readers captures all the pesky curiosity behind the timeless inquiry. Written in verse, Are We There Yet? opens appropriately enough with all the hoopla and hope that mark the start of a car journey: “Backseat Race /All in place?/Wagon ho!/Here we go!/City fading,/Ducks parading, /Mooing cows all serenading.” Of course, before you know it everything starts disintegrating in the back seat. The sudden pastoral scene of grazing cows is interrupted by more of Dandi Daley Mackall’s short but to-the-point verse: “Sing-along?/Hate that song! How long is ÔIt won’t be long?'” If you’ve ever been on an extended car ride with kids, you’ll definitely be able to relate.

Shannon McNeill’s art is the perfect accompaniment to the chaos. Her simple scenes and faces are filled with all the joy, boredom and annoyance that characterizes any family’s endless interstate journey. Humorous pictures show the long road, the passing scenery and, of course, close-ups of what’s going on inside the car, including a snoring father with his mouth open wide, and a bored brother about to pull his sister’s ear. Verses like “Open sunroof /Byebye, shoe!” are left up to the imagination. (Note when you share this book with your children, be sure they don’t get any new ideas of their own!) And yes, there is finally an end to this journey, one that’s well worth the wait. The family reaches a fairground, where they jump into bumper cars the perfect outlet for the many frustrations that mounted during the just-completed car ride! Be sure to take this book along on your own family trips and whip it out during those moments when you’re ready to escape through a window and take a walk. Happy traveling!

"Are we there yet?" It's an age-old question that's been asked by millions of children around the world and throughout the ages kids traveling by horseback and covered wagon, by airplane and automobile. Now, a breezy new book for younger readers captures all the…
Biography

An inside look at the Supreme Court

Review by bookpagedev

During his 24 years as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Harry Blackmun wrote many landmark opinions on an array of controversial issues. Although probably best known as the author of the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade in 1973, his legacy also includes notable opinions on sex discrimination, bankruptcy and the death penalty. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Linda Greenhouse traces the extraordinary life and career of this influential associate justice in considerable detail in her consistently engaging and enlightening, very readable Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun’s Supreme Court Journey. Greenhouse was given access to Blackmun’s extensive archive and papers at the Library of Congress. And although her focus is on Blackmun, we also get a sense of how the court functions and the interaction among justices.

The direction taken by Blackmun’s career on the Court could not have been predicted either by Richard Nixon, who appointed him, or his longtime friend and fellow Minnesotan, Chief Justice Warren Burger. William Rehnquist, then an assistant attorney general in the Nixon administration, had this to say about Blackmun’s record as a federal judge: He does not uniformly come out on one side or the other, though his tendencies are certainly more in the conservative direction than the liberal. His opinions are all carefully reasoned, and give no indication of a preconceived bias in one direction or the other. No one could possibly accuse him of lack of scholarship, since his opinions are replete with citations and discussion. For most observers only one part of this judgment would change: by the time he retired from the Supreme Court, Blackmun was generally considered to be its most liberal member.

This authoritative and insightful book succeeds as both legal history and as a compelling personal story. Greenhouse masterfully explains major opinions in terms that can be understood by non-specialists.

 

During his 24 years as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Harry Blackmun wrote many landmark opinions on an array of controversial issues. Although probably best known as the author of the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade in 1973, his legacy…

Children's & YA

Down-to-earth wisdom in the kitchen

Review by bookpagedev

True friends: Bailey defends 12-year-old Rosie from school bullies; Rosie secretly learns to read Braille as a surprise for Bailey, who is blind. Rosie calls Bailey “my neighbor, my friend, my buddy, my pal for my whole life.” But what happens when a new girl moves into the neighborhood, with her “cool frizzy black hair,” flashing her “sparkly white smile, no braces or anything?” Or when another family moves in with boys their age? In Sharon Creech’s latest book, Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, friendship gets tricky when others enter the mix. We watch as various sides of Rosie surface: odd Rosie, stubborn Rosie, take-charge Rosie. She’s a faithful friend, but sometimes a jealous one. And that’s where Granny Torrelli comes in. Rosie’s Italian grandmother is a down-home mentor for Rosie, with wisdom, life experiences and stories to help her through friendship’s trials and tribulations. While making zuppa (soup) or pasta with Rosie, she shares similar experiences of when she was a girl in Italy with a best buddy named Pardo. When a beautiful new girl named Violetta threatened her relationship with Pardo, and a handsome boy named Marco moved into the neighborhood, Granny faced many of the same problems Rosie is encountering. When Granny relates how Pardo was killed in a horrible accident, Rosie learns the importance of letting your friends know how much you love them. Granny also shares a story of caring for a neighbor’s sick baby, holding her and singing to her for hours. Helping the little Gattozzi baby, she says, made her feel as if her life were bigger, not so centered on herself. Told in Rosie’s sprightly, engaging voice and laced with Granny Torrelli’s down-to-earth wisdom, this slight, fast-paced novel is as satisfying as a bowl of zuppa. Chris Raschka’s drawings add a special spice to this story of life, family and friendship. In Granny Torrelli’s Italian kitchen, Rosie learns important lessons and, by the end of her story, her world, too, seems larger. May we all have a Granny Torrelli in our lives, full of wisdom, warmth, and home cooking. Tutto va bene, Rosie. All is well.

True friends: Bailey defends 12-year-old Rosie from school bullies; Rosie secretly learns to read Braille as a surprise for Bailey, who is blind. Rosie calls Bailey "my neighbor, my friend, my buddy, my pal for my whole life." But what happens when a new girl…
NonfictionHumor

Review

Review by bookpagedev

he clock is ticking T. M. Shine is not your average working man; he eats lunch alone, he smarts off to his boss and he excels at cheating the work system. Combining a zest for anal-retentiveness and a sardonic attitude, Shine considers the insane idiosyncrasies of living in his new book, Timeline.

Shine’s book is just what the title suggests: a diary for a month of his life, which he documents by the minute and sometimes even by the second. Instead of cataloguing monumental events, Shine reaches for the most mundane moments (“the bottom of your shoe and everything that has stuck to it all day”) and gives them flare. “8:05 a.m.: Neighbor who only watches PBS and is always full of historical facts rushes over the border of my property, stops short, and yells, ” Did you know Lewis and Clark were gay?’ That explains everything, I say.” For 31 days, the reader is with Shine in his voyage through the purple haze of the 21st century, listening in on his stream-of-conscious commentary. A favorite target is the overbearing media he encounters. In one instance, Shine hears a news flash on the radio about Puff Daddy having sex on the beach. Puffy’s publicist denies the account, claiming that “Puffy hates sand.” Later that day when Shine finally gets to leave the drudgery of the workplace, a neighbor greets him with, “What’s new?” Shine replies: “Puffy hates sand.” In the hands of another writer, this compilation of the daily detritus of life might prove depressing. But Shine, a newspaper humor columnist, manages to make us laugh at the absurdity of it all.

he clock is ticking T. M. Shine is not your average working man; he eats lunch alone, he smarts off to his boss and he excels at cheating the work system. Combining a zest for anal-retentiveness and a sardonic attitude, Shine considers the insane idiosyncrasies…
Children's & YA

Capturing the dog days of summer

Review by bookpagedev

The acclaimed author of seven works of adult fiction, Ron Carlson hits a homerun with his first novel for young people. Set in the 1950s, The Speed of Light is a wonderfully resonant book about a trio of baseball fans and their summertime adventures. On the cusp of adolescence, Larry, Witt and Rafferty have just finished their final year of grade school. High school looms on the horizon, along with a summer of changes, both subtle and substantial. Larry, the narrator, worries his parents will discover that he has become a girl-watcher and a fighter, instead of the perfect son they believe him to be. His friend Rafferty is dealing (inadequately) with his single mom’s macho boyfriend, while Witt has it the roughest, with his run-down house and abusive father. But the plethora of gadgets in his basement and the broken-down car in his yard make Witt’s place the most fun.

Distilling the essence of summer bikes and bullies, playgrounds and thunderstorms Carlson creates a fertile field for the boys’ youthful imaginings. While Witt is the “brain” of the bunch, Carlson realizes that all three characters contribute to the wondrous milieu that is childhood, and he lets each boy make his own personal discoveries, some of them not so pleasant. Larry’s introduction to the mechanics of the opposite sex is priceless, Rafferty’s emergence as a baseball player is touching, and Witt’s attempts to resurrect a dead lizard are hilarious. What a summer it is! Reading about the intricate nighttime dance the boys call “car baseball” is worth the price of the book.

Ron Carlson’s take on growing up in the late fifties feels uncannily true and pure. His prose is eloquent and beautiful: “Now it rains every afternoon. The clouds proud and fat, darkening after four and spilling huge and fragrant showers that last an hour.” Like the end of summer itself, the final pages of the novel seem to come too quickly. With The Speed of Light, Carlson has written an eloquent tribute to childhood that young readers will love. James Neal Webb writes from Nashville.

The acclaimed author of seven works of adult fiction, Ron Carlson hits a homerun with his first novel for young people. Set in the 1950s, The Speed of Light is a wonderfully resonant book about a trio of baseball fans and their summertime adventures. On…

Let that be a lesson to you

Review by bookpagedev

Entrepreneurs are a notoriously optimistic lot: they focus on inspiration and perspiration and often share failures only with insiders. Carol Frank, a serial entrepreneur herself, persuaded some American CEOs and small-business owners to dish about their non finest moments in Do As I Say, Not As I Did: Gaining Wisdom in Business Through the Mistakes of Highly Successful People. This how-not-to guide begins with an agonizing look at the debacles Frank orchestrated while building a multimillion-dollar birdcage business. Readers may want to scream look out for the monster behind you as she relates a string of boo-boos, big mistakes and bad judgment calls.

The other entrepreneurs in the book the founders of Monster.com, the Container Store and CiCi’s Pizza, among others also analyze when things went wrong, how they bounced back from near-fatal mistakes and what they learned from the experience. The interviews all fascinate with the same train-wreck tension. But true to her name, Frank sees these failures and eventual recoveries in sharp 20-20 hindsight. The meta-lessons from the book feature the common business sense that isn’t so common anymore: perform due diligence before the deal; know the business you’re in; success can be the biggest enemy; get a naysayer on your team; verbal contracts are worthless; and no matter how many of these rules you forget or ignore, quitting isn’t an option.

Entrepreneurs are a notoriously optimistic lot: they focus on inspiration and perspiration and often share failures only with insiders. Carol Frank, a serial entrepreneur herself, persuaded some American CEOs and small-business owners to dish about their non finest moments in Do As I Say,…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

n the southern coast of Italy lies the little village of Amalfi. Apart from its picturesque setting and the view it offers of the Tyrrhenian Sea, Amalfi’s principal claim to fame is symbolized by a tall bronze statue of its most famous son, Flavio Gioia, reverently honored as the inventor of the magnetic compass. But if the sculptor was somewhat noncommittal as to Flavio’s facial features, it is only because no one knows what he looked like or, indeed, if he ever actually existed.

In The Riddle of the Compass, best-selling science writer Amir Aczel visits Amalfi to investigate the mysterious life of Gioia and to explore the innovation that occurred in the village between 1295 and 1302, when the magnetic compass was perfected, transformed from a needle floating in water or supported in air into the device we know today a round instrument containing a magnetic needle and a compass card divided into 360 degrees. It was a modification that revolutionized maritime navigation. Aczel uses Gioia as a starting point for a fascinating exploration of navigation techniques. Aczel’s own firsthand experiences at sea are also included in the book. As a child he lived on a passenger ship which his father captained and by the age of 10 was an apprentice at the helm, learning the finer points of negotiating the Mediterranean. Personal and poetic, his memories of sailing give the book extra texture.

In his exploration of the theories of ancient navigation, Aczel spurns the idea that mariners piloted by “hugging the coastline,” which, he says, would have meant courting the greatest of dangers that of running aground. It was precisely this risk, he says, that led to the development of the sounding line, which was knotted at intervals and weighted with lead.

Tracing the roots of the modern-day device to ancient China, The Riddle of the Compass is full of delightful digressions. Although Aczel himself follows a winding course in the narrative, he moves methodically toward his destination and with the aplomb of Hercule Poirot carefully flicking a speck of lint off his coat sleeve, gracefully explains the final difficulties of the riddle of the compass.

H.

V. Cordry is a former professor, now writing from his home in Kansas.

n the southern coast of Italy lies the little village of Amalfi. Apart from its picturesque setting and the view it offers of the Tyrrhenian Sea, Amalfi's principal claim to fame is symbolized by a tall bronze statue of its most famous son, Flavio Gioia,…
Biography

Superstars of the Wild West

Review by bookpagedev

The prolific Larry McMurtry has written essays, screenplays, memoirs and 27 novels, including the fabulous Lonesome Dove. In all that work McMurtry has probably written no more than a dozen or so bad paragraphs, and his writing about the American West usually offers a compelling blend of insight and humor. So even a relatively minor work like The Colonel and Little Missie, McMurtry’s study of the celebrity of Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley, gives reason to sit up and pay attention.

Buffalo Bill Cody was an extraordinary figure who, in McMurtry’s view, was America’s first superstar. Annie Oakley, who shared the stage with Cody in his Wild West Show, was the second. Of the two, Cody was the more outgoing and flamboyant. As an Indian scout he knew George Armstrong Custer, won and then lost a Congressional Medal of Honor (turns out he wasn’t actually in the U.S. military at the time, which is a requirement), and, McMurtry writes, received major fame for the minor role he played in the Indian wars. To the end of his life, Cody cut a smashing figure on horseback. His adventures, real and imagined, were the subject of an incredible 1,700 dime novels. Many of the signature exploits of his life what McMurtry calls the "tropes" formed the centerpiece of Cody’s 32-year career as a showman. Casting a friendly but skeptical eye on these legends, McMurtry presents with great economy a fascinating portrait of a rather complex man.

Annie Oakley occupies a much smaller part of McMurtry’s narrative, mainly because she was less knowable. She was reserved, modest to the point of requiring a female embalmer, and so frugal that many [Wild West] troopers believed that she lived off the lemonade Cody . . . served for free. She grew up in grinding poverty in Darke County, Ohio, but rarely spoke of her past, devoting herself instead to becoming a consummate performer.

Good novelist that he is, McMurtry leaves the mysteries of these two engaging personalities intact. He suggests rather than defines how it was they seized the public’s imagination and love in their day, and why they should remain of interest today.

 

The prolific Larry McMurtry has written essays, screenplays, memoirs and 27 novels, including the fabulous Lonesome Dove. In all that work McMurtry has probably written no more than a dozen or so bad paragraphs, and his writing about the American West usually offers a…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

ust is everywhere, both on planet Earth and throughout the cosmos. Usually regarded as an annoyance at cleaning time, this humble substance actually plays an important role in everything from the formation of stars to the falling of rain. A new book by noted science writer Hannah Holmes proves that the subject of dust is anything but dry.

In The Secret Life of Dust Holmes tells us that the substance which comes in a bewildering array of shapes, sizes and compositions may also be responsible for the extinction of several species, including the dinosaurs and, perhaps in time, our own. Holmes’ fascinating and deeply researched account assembles the views of a number of scientists who devoted their careers to studying this omnipresent substance. Dust coalesced billions of years ago to form the first stars, which in turn manufactured heavier atoms such as carbon, the basic building block of terrestrial life. When stars explode, they shatter into huge glowing clouds of gas and dust that become nurseries for new stars. Dark clouds of interstellar dust, though, can block earthbound telescopes and obscure these and other celestial marvels. A good deal of dust is manmade. As Holmes reveals, people don’t just create it through agriculture and industry. Like Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip, each of us walks the earth in a cloud of dust, shedding fragments of skin and bits of lint torn from our clothes through friction. With all that dust around, Holmes’ look at the hazards it can pose is rather unsettling. A more immediate threat than some far-off nuclear winter, dust of various kinds kills people every day all over the world. Lung diseases such as silicosis affect desert dwellers who inhale tiny sand particles; people contract cancer from secondhand smoke; and babies play on floors that are the inevitable destination of gravity-bound lead and chemical dusts. A welcome addition to The Secret Life of Dust is an appendix of Web sites that illustrate Holmes’ intriguing revelations about the topic. A gifted writer, Holmes turns a seemingly unremarkable substance into the stuff of a great story.

Gregory Harris is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis.

ust is everywhere, both on planet Earth and throughout the cosmos. Usually regarded as an annoyance at cleaning time, this humble substance actually plays an important role in everything from the formation of stars to the falling of rain. A new book by noted science…
Children's & YA

Animals fight for their rights

Review by bookpagedev

“Customs come and customs go. I learned this from the chickens.” So begins this amusing tale about a flock of chickens that go on strike against an old Jewish custom called Kapores. And, really, who can blame the critters? For this New Year custom involves people twirling live chickens overhead to erase their bad deeds. It’s enough to scramble any hen’s head.

The story begins in a Russian-Jewish village on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish New Year. The young boy who narrates the story longs to be good and make his Papa proud. But one thing leads to another, and before long he’s sent away from the prayer house in disgrace. Outside, he encounters a parade of poultry fleeing the village. Curious, the boy follows, only to overhear some of the stirring squawks of the speaker, who calls for an end to the custom of Kapores. “No more grabbing and twirling! No more Kapores!” When the time comes for Kapores, the fowl, determined to be free, fight off the efforts of the villagers to capture them. Even a negotiating committee led by the Rabbi fails to make progress. The Rabbi’s wife suggests a compromise: the villagers will hold the chickens more gently and pray more quickly. But the chickens stand firm. The villagers, they say, should simply find themselves a new custom.

As a last resort, the young boy pleads with the chickens. “Without Kapores, I will never be able to make my papa proud.” The broody hen’s answer spurs him into finding a way to do more good deeds and help the chickens gain their rights. This beautifully illustrated tale was adapted from a story by the great Yiddish author, Sholem Aleichem (pen name of Sholom Rabinowitz), whose work forms the basis of Fiddler on the Roof. Young readers may be inspired to ask grandparents and relatives if they ever practiced Kapores. Author Silverman notes that her mother remembers a clucking chicken being held over her head while a prayer was said. But who knows? Since then, the chickens may have all gone on strike.

"Customs come and customs go. I learned this from the chickens." So begins this amusing tale about a flock of chickens that go on strike against an old Jewish custom called Kapores. And, really, who can blame the critters? For this New Year custom involves…

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