bookpagedev

Self-HelpLifestyles

The flame of change

Review by bookpagedev

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you’ve hidden so well, you can’t remember where you put it, let along find the chutzpah to chase after it? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, a little getting to know thyself and doing something with your newfound knowledge may be in order. Whether you need a few simple ingredients for a spicier life, or some in-depth analysis, we’ve identified a few of the best in new personal-growth books to guide you on your way and help ignite that internal flame of change.

Maybe your life needs no more than a little spark to rekindle your sense of adventure. Chucking your job and backpacking in the Himalayas isn’t the only way to rediscover the joy and wonder of daily existence. A New Adventure Every Day: 541 Ways to Live With Pizzazz (Sourcebooks, $12.95, 384 pages, ISBN 1570719462) by David Silberkleit is chock-full of ideas to jump-start your joie de vivre. With 540 ideas to choose from, under categories ranging from home life to relationships to the office, you’re bound to find a personal ice-breaker in its pages to fit almost any situation, temperament or degree of daring. If No. 503 (“Dance with a tree in the wind”) is too outlandish for you or your neighbors (should they be watching), there are more conservative exercises like No. 408 (“Explore a debt-free lifestyle. Strive to pay off everything so that money loses its hold over you”).

On the other hand, maybe happiness and success haven’t eluded you at all. In fact, maybe you have a great, lucrative career and are deliriously giddy with fame and fortune. And yet. And yet. Something’s missing. You know what the rest of the world can’t see. You aren’t being something you know you were meant to be. (Hello, Nashville! Is that a song lyric?) If you’re searching for something more, read Po Bronson’s, What Should I Do With My Life?. Bronson makes a great case for turning your back on the almighty buck and following your star. In fact, he talks about the bad side of success, the temptations of money and an idea so scandalous it could rock the world. But here it is: “Productivity explodes when people love what they do.” Hey, he said it, not me.

The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success (Thomas Nelson, $19.99, 224 pages, ISBN 0785264280) by Andy Andrews is an unpretentious little work of fiction that picks up where the Capra heart- warmer It’s A Wonderful Life leaves off. Like George Bailey, Andrews’ modern-day protagonist, David Ponder, is at a crisis point in his life. Bailey, (c’mon, you know, James Stewart in the Christmas classic) miraculously gets a chance to see what the world would be like without him in it, discovering that his life is not only a precious gift to him, but to countless others as well. Ponder gets a different gift he gets to travel through time, gathering the wisdom of such notable figures as Abraham Lincoln and Anne Frank but his catharsis comes in discovering the power of a single, heartfelt decision. “There is a thin thread,” one of his messengers proclaims, “that weaves only from you to hundreds of thousands of lives. Your example, your actions, and yes, even one decision can literally change the world.” That’s a lot of pressure! But like Ponder, by the end of this inspirational tale, having learned the “Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success,” you will be better equipped to make choices with kindness, confidence and wisdom. This is a wonderful book to put into the hands of some promising young man or woman struggling with the inevitable incongruities, ambiguities and loneliness of modern day life.

From the best-selling author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series, comes What About the BIG Stuff? (Hyperion, $19.95, 294 pages, ISBN 0786868848), in which Richard Carlson addresses how to handle major life dilemmas like an impending divorce or the loss of a loved one without totally coming apart at the seams. Carlson contends that human beings have essentially two modes or mind-sets, and that one of them is “healthy” and one “reactive.” “In our healthiest state of mind,” he writes, “we dance’ with life. We’re patient, wise, thoughtful and kind. We make good, sound decisions.” But we have a flip side. In our reactive mode “we are less patient . . . we struggle and churn. . . . We are frustrated and hard on ourselves and others. Our problem solving skills are limited.” The good news here is that knowing we have the capacity for both states of mind, we can begin to nurture one and let go of the other. “By acknowledging the existence of a healthy state of mind you can learn to trust it,” Carlson assures us, “and access it, more often.” Not that doing so is an easy task. As psychologist Gary Buffone points out in The Myth of Tomorrow: Seven Essential Keys for Living the Life You Want Today (McGraw-Hill, $16.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0071389172), “Unlike physical aging, spiritual and emotional maturity do not develop automatically; they exist only as a possibility. They must be intentionally and consistently pursued via commitment, effort, and struggle.” Using the experiences of patients who have faced life-threatening situations, Buffone offers guidance on how to break out of a “holding pattern” and start reinventing your life today. “Spirituality,” he explains, “is about developing the ability to see the sacred in our daily lives and opening the door to a life filled with passion and depth.” Finally, The Art of Serenity: The Path to a Joyful Life in the Best and Worst of Times, by T. Byram Karusu, M.D., (Simon ∧ Schuster, $24, 256 pages, ISBN 0743228316) offers a more literary and philosophical slant, an “intellectual bridge” as it were, to get from wanting to knowing a life of passion and depth. Chapter titles alone (“The Love of Others,” “The Love of Work,” “The Love of Belonging”) if simply read and contemplated upon, might lead to higher thought. But the book is full of philosophical and spiritual quotations. “No seed ever sees the flower.” Zen saying. Wow. Think about that. Not that a book alone can teach you how to put into practice and live a life full of meaning, purpose and depth. That is something each of us must struggle and churn out for ourselves. But these books can help to ignite the flame. Linda Stankard makes her New Year’s resolutions at her home in upstate New York.

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you've hidden…
Self-HelpLifestyles

The flame of change

Review by bookpagedev

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you’ve hidden so well, you can’t remember where you put it, let along find the chutzpah to chase after it? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, a little getting to know thyself and doing something with your newfound knowledge may be in order. Whether you need a few simple ingredients for a spicier life, or some in-depth analysis, we’ve identified a few of the best in new personal-growth books to guide you on your way and help ignite that internal flame of change.

Maybe your life needs no more than a little spark to rekindle your sense of adventure. Chucking your job and backpacking in the Himalayas isn’t the only way to rediscover the joy and wonder of daily existence. A New Adventure Every Day: 541 Ways to Live With Pizzazz by David Silberkleit is chock-full of ideas to jump-start your joie de vivre. With 540 ideas to choose from, under categories ranging from home life to relationships to the office, you’re bound to find a personal ice-breaker in its pages to fit almost any situation, temperament or degree of daring. If No. 503 (“Dance with a tree in the wind”) is too outlandish for you or your neighbors (should they be watching), there are more conservative exercises like No. 408 (“Explore a debt-free lifestyle. Strive to pay off everything so that money loses its hold over you”).

On the other hand, maybe happiness and success haven’t eluded you at all. In fact, maybe you have a great, lucrative career and are deliriously giddy with fame and fortune. And yet. And yet. Something’s missing. You know what the rest of the world can’t see. You aren’t being something you know you were meant to be. (Hello, Nashville! Is that a song lyric?) If you’re searching for something more, read Po Bronson’s, What Should I Do With My Life? (Random House, $24.95, 400 pages, ISBN 0375507493). Bronson makes a great case for turning your back on the almighty buck and following your star. In fact, he talks about the bad side of success, the temptations of money and an idea so scandalous it could rock the world. But here it is: “Productivity explodes when people love what they do.” Hey, he said it, not me.

The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success (Thomas Nelson, $19.99, 224 pages, ISBN 0785264280) by Andy Andrews is an unpretentious little work of fiction that picks up where the Capra heart- warmer It’s A Wonderful Life leaves off. Like George Bailey, Andrews’ modern-day protagonist, David Ponder, is at a crisis point in his life. Bailey, (c’mon, you know, James Stewart in the Christmas classic) miraculously gets a chance to see what the world would be like without him in it, discovering that his life is not only a precious gift to him, but to countless others as well. Ponder gets a different gift he gets to travel through time, gathering the wisdom of such notable figures as Abraham Lincoln and Anne Frank but his catharsis comes in discovering the power of a single, heartfelt decision. “There is a thin thread,” one of his messengers proclaims, “that weaves only from you to hundreds of thousands of lives. Your example, your actions, and yes, even one decision can literally change the world.” That’s a lot of pressure! But like Ponder, by the end of this inspirational tale, having learned the “Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success,” you will be better equipped to make choices with kindness, confidence and wisdom. This is a wonderful book to put into the hands of some promising young man or woman struggling with the inevitable incongruities, ambiguities and loneliness of modern day life.

From the best-selling author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series, comes What About the BIG Stuff? (Hyperion, $19.95, 294 pages, ISBN 0786868848), in which Richard Carlson addresses how to handle major life dilemmas like an impending divorce or the loss of a loved one without totally coming apart at the seams. Carlson contends that human beings have essentially two modes or mind-sets, and that one of them is “healthy” and one “reactive.” “In our healthiest state of mind,” he writes, “we Ôdance’ with life. We’re patient, wise, thoughtful and kind. We make good, sound decisions.” But we have a flip side. In our reactive mode “we are less patient . . . we struggle and churn. . . . We are frustrated and hard on ourselves and others. Our problem solving skills are limited.” The good news here is that knowing we have the capacity for both states of mind, we can begin to nurture one and let go of the other. “By acknowledging the existence of a healthy state of mind you can learn to trust it,” Carlson assures us, “and access it, more often.” Not that doing so is an easy task. As psychologist Gary Buffone points out in The Myth of Tomorrow: Seven Essential Keys for Living the Life You Want Today (McGraw-Hill, $16.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0071389172), “Unlike physical aging, spiritual and emotional maturity do not develop automatically; they exist only as a possibility. They must be intentionally and consistently pursued via commitment, effort, and struggle.” Using the experiences of patients who have faced life-threatening situations, Buffone offers guidance on how to break out of a “holding pattern” and start reinventing your life today. “Spirituality,” he explains, “is about developing the ability to see the sacred in our daily lives and opening the door to a life filled with passion and depth.” Finally, The Art of Serenity: The Path to a Joyful Life in the Best and Worst of Times, by T. Byram Karusu, M.D., (Simon &and Schuster, $24, 256 pages, ISBN 0743228316) offers a more literary and philosophical slant, an “intellectual bridge” as it were, to get from wanting to knowing a life of passion and depth. Chapter titles alone (“The Love of Others,” “The Love of Work,” “The Love of Belonging”) if simply read and contemplated upon, might lead to higher thought. But the book is full of philosophical and spiritual quotations. “No seed ever sees the flower.” Zen saying. Wow. Think about that. Not that a book alone can teach you how to put into practice and live a life full of meaning, purpose and depth. That is something each of us must struggle and churn out for ourselves. But these books can help to ignite the flame. Linda Stankard makes her New Year’s resolutions at her home in upstate New York.

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you've hidden…
FictionHistorical Fiction

A new perspective on Lewis and Clark

Review by bookpagedev

Novelist Brian Hall was already "emotionally committed" to writing a novel about the Lewis and Clark expedition when the long shadow of Stephen Ambrose’s magisterial history of the expedition, Undaunted Courage, fell across the landscape. "At first, I was just too busy to read it," Halls says during a phone call to his home in Ithaca, New York, where he lives with his wife, writer Pamela Moss, and their two daughters.

At the time, Hall was completing work on his critically acclaimed novel about a 12-year-old girl growing up in Ithaca, The Saskiad. The book would soon spark a bidding war among European publishers that eventually afforded Hall uninterrupted time to concentrate on his Lewis and Clark novel. It wasn’t until 1998 that he found time to sit down and read Ambrose’s nonfiction account of the expedition.

"When I did read it," Hall says, "I was relieved to see that what seemed to interest him was not what interested me. It’s a really good biography, but my feeling was that Ambrose wasn’t as comfortable with some of the really interesting, unsettling questions about Lewis’ personality. He likes to tell stories about achievement, success and heroism . . . and I find fascinating the backside of the tapestry, where you see all the loose threads. Our two sets of interests somewhat complement each other."

What Hall finds on the backside of this tapestry is a clash of cultures and large questions about the human psyche. Brilliantly imagining the private, internal story that goes hand in hand with the public story of exploration and triumph, Hall also calls into question some cherished assumptions behind the historical record.

I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company tells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition and its aftermath through the perspectives of five participants: Sacagawea, the young Shoshone girl who proved so important to the expedition’s success; Toussaint Charbonneau, the French fur trader who bought Sacagawea as his wife; William Clark, who is commonly portrayed as the amiable co-captain of the expedition; York, Clark’s slave and the only black man on the expedition; and Meriwether Lewis, whose unexpected suicide has made him one of the great enigmas of American history.

Of these, the most beautiful, haunting and disconcerting perspective is that of Sacagawea. "I wanted this layering of the stories of the West, and she’s the aboriginal voice," Hall says. "I wanted the book to start out in prehistory, where she talks about the land and where the people live. And I very much wanted it to be strange." So Hall gives Sacagawea a way of speaking and perceiving that is at first disorienting and then luminous.

"The more I read about Native American culture," Halls says, "the more I sensed how very different it was. I never wavered in my determination to have part of the story be told by Sacagawea, but I was certainly aware as I read that there are certain things that I do not see, cannot see, that a Native American writer who is otherwise more or less in my position would see."

Hall’s magnificent, sympathetic portrait of Sacagawea will at the very least lead readers to question William Clark’s account of how he adopted Sacagawea’s son. "Historians have pretty much taken at face value the account that Sacagawea would happily give up her only begotten son," Hall says. "From early on I thought, now wait a minute. A common element of the ethnographic studies early travelers wrote of Native Americans was how surprisingly strong was the parent-child attachment. . . . Trying to think about Sacagawea’s particular circumstances, . . . I wondered what is the one thing that would feel like it really belonged to her? Obviously her son. And what does Clark do? He takes the son away from her. No one has looked at this and asked what would this look like from her point of view. It’s that kind of obliviousness on Clark’s part which historians have had to follow, because of course they have to follow the written record, and we don’t have a record of her feelings."

For Meriwether Lewis, on the other hand, there exists a rather thick historical record of letters and journals. What interested Hall in that record was not what it revealed but rather what it concealed. "The Lewis I wanted to understand and bring to life was the Lewis who could eventually get so despairing that he would kill himself," Hall says. "Lewis possessed a fairly extreme articulateness which he used to hide emotions behind, not only from others but from himself. I love the way articulateness can be used to obfuscate things. [Thomas] Jefferson is a supreme example of that, which is why I loved the fact that Jefferson was Lewis’ mentor. Jefferson is so smart and yet in some ways so blind. His great felicity with words obscures to him the extreme impracticality of a lot of what he’s talking about."

Through his deft portrayal of the unequal relationship between the articulate, mercurial Lewis and the steady, rather unreflective Clark, Hall presents a plausible and moving psychological portrait of Lewis and his "curiously insoluble loneliness." This portrait is the quiet, subtle and singular achievement of I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company.

"Having been born in the East and growing up in Boston," Hall says near the end of our conversation, "I hadn’t paid any attention to Lewis and Clark. Until I was asked to write a travel article on this journey of discovery, I didn’t know anything about Sacagawea. I didn’t know that Lewis had killed himself. So the story hit me all in one big discovery. What excites me about writing something is the idea of trying to take on an unusual perspective and look out through this perspective at the world. What I value about fiction is the different ways it gives you to see the world. The more you read, the more you understand different people. That is the moral function of fiction—a sort of empathy enlarger." Which, of course, is a particularly apt description of I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company.

Alden Mudge is communications director for the California Humanities Council.

 

Novelist Brian Hall was already "emotionally committed" to writing a novel about the Lewis and Clark expedition when the long shadow of Stephen Ambrose's magisterial history of the expedition, Undaunted Courage, fell across the landscape. "At first, I was just too busy to read…

Children's & YA

A Fine, Fine School

Review by bookpagedev

Rhyming, rhythmical and humorous describe award-winning author Sharon Creech's A Fine, Fine School. It is perfect for reading aloud to young children.

The cadence set by repetition will undoubtedly have young listeners anticipating the next refrain and reciting it even before the dialogue presents it. Children will associate easily with the story's characters and setting. The main character, Tillie, has a little brother and a dog named Beans. Like a typical child, she spends lots of time playing with her kid brother, teaching Beans to do tricks and, of course, attending school. Lessons for us all are often found in the simplest stories, and so it is with this delightful tale of a well-meaning but overly enthusiastic school principal. If five days of school are "fine," then seven days of school are better. If seven days of school are "fine," then adding in holidays and summertime will be even better. His intentions are commendable and his spirit laudable, but his judgment is flawed: if a little is good then surely much more is better. In his myopic determination for students to stay at school to learn, he overlooks the many lessons that life teaches outside the classroom through interaction with family and friends, allowing time to play and just dream. This humorous example of excess will give even the most compulsive person a chuckle. (Know any workaholics that could use a smile?)

A Fine, Fine School is illustrated beautifully by award-winning cartoonist Harry Bliss. His colorful pictures magically capture human nature through the initial disappointment and subsequent excitement seen on the children's faces as the story unfolds to its "fine, fine" conclusion. The background art cleverly supports the story's progression, emphasizing the absurdity of their predicament. Children will find this to be a "fun, fun" read and will reach for it again and again.

Author Sharon Creech has written several best-selling books: Walk Two Moons, winner of the Newbery Medal, The Wanderer, a Newbery Honor Book, Chasing Redbird, Absolutely Normal Chaos, Pleasing the Ghost, Bloomability and Fishing in the Air.

In addition to being an award-winning cartoonist, Harry Bliss is a cover artist for The New Yorker.

Rhyming, rhythmical and humorous describe award-winning author Sharon Creech's A Fine, Fine School. It is perfect for reading aloud to young children.

The cadence set by repetition will undoubtedly have young listeners anticipating the next refrain and reciting it even before the dialogue presents it.…

Fiction

A final volume in A.S. Byatt’s quartet

Review by bookpagedev

A.S. Byatt’s novel <I>Possession</I> assured her fame first when it won Britain’s Booker Prize in 1990, and recently as a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Readers who met the author through that romantic mystery may be somewhat puzzled by <B>A Whistling Woman</B>, the final book in her quartet featuring the bright and brash Frederica Potter. Begun when Byatt was a young mother of four, the ambitious quartet looks at the ideas that have dominated British culture during a 20-year period and the effect those ideas have had upon women. Frederica first appeared as a bright 17-year-old Yorkshire girl in <I>The Virgin in the Garden</I>. She is now 33, a divorced mother with a young son. Having escaped a violent and ultimately degrading marriage, Frederica finds herself, through luck and talent, the moderator of a new television show about the interplay of ideas. This development is especially convenient, given the cultural focus of the quartet.

<B>A Whistling Woman</B> begins in 1968, reproducing in italicized type the final part of a fantasy story about three travelers. Frederica’s friend Agatha Mond has been telling their children this tale a bit at a time and now brings it to an abrupt end. The children protest just as some feminist readers may protest Byatt’s ending her series before the modern women’s movement begins but both storytellers have reasons for ending their tales as they do.

Following the narrative in <B>A Whistling Woman</B> can, alas, be challenging. Byatt moves from the fantasy tale to scientists researching memory in snails, to an academician planning for a conference on Body and Mind, to a therapeutic community and the anti-university, and back again. An underlying theme for the decade is the mistrust of imposed authority. Byatt excels at creating vivid scenes of student protest, but her novel remains most agreeable when it concentrates on its characters and their individual stories.

Anne Morris writes from Austin, Texas.

A.S. Byatt's novel <I>Possession</I> assured her fame first when it won Britain's Booker Prize in 1990, and recently as a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Readers who met the author through that romantic mystery may be somewhat puzzled by <B>A Whistling Woman</B>, the final book in…

History

An unlikely figure in Japan’s history

Review by bookpagedev

<B>An unlikely figure in Japan’s history</B> Giles Milton, author of <I>Nathaniel’s Nutmeg</I>, returns to the perils and adventures of the 17th-century Pacific Rim in <B>Samurai William</B>. With a novelist’s eye, Milton illuminates a little-known but utterly remarkable period during which the fiercely insular Japanese shogunate opened its doors to the West, thanks mostly to the pluck and perseverance of an unlikely Englishman named William Adams. At the end of a disastrous Dutch expedition seeking a westward route to Asia, Adams’ dilapidated and undermanned ship drifted helplessly into Japanese waters in April of 1600. Adams and his crew were not the first Westerners to reach the Japanese coast Portuguese missionaries had begun to trickle in more than half a century before but they would be the most influential during Japan’s brief dalliance with the West.

Forbidden to return to his native Britain, Adams made the best of his situation, learning the Japanese language and customs, befriending the Japanese shogun and, as Britain and the Netherlands began to establish tentative toeholds of commerce on Japanese soil, becoming a <I>de facto</I> minister of European affairs. It was harrowing, often dangerous work: Japan was fraught with civil wars, and political, commercial and religious tensions frequently boiled over into violence among the Europeans. Shortly after Adams’ death, the Europeans were expelled from Japan, and the island nation again receded into isolation. Two centuries would pass before Japan restored contact with the West. Although almost nothing of the European sojourn had survived the wars and weather of the intervening generations, the memory of the man the Japanese called Anjin Sama, or Mr. Pilot, had been preserved in the name of Tokyo’s Anjincho district. Not only a unique figure in European history, William Adams had also earned his place in the annals of Japan. Adams’ story inspired James Clavell’s fictional <I>Shogun</I>, but the actual events of his life make as worthy a tale as any novel. Milton evokes with equal skill the gritty quays of London, the soupy tropical shores of equatorial Africa and the exquisite palace of Osaka. He has written an adventure tale that will appeal to both the armchair historian as well as the armchair explorer. <I>Elizabeth Entman writes from Manhattan.</I>

<B>An unlikely figure in Japan's history</B> Giles Milton, author of <I>Nathaniel's Nutmeg</I>, returns to the perils and adventures of the 17th-century Pacific Rim in <B>Samurai William</B>. With a novelist's eye, Milton illuminates a little-known but utterly remarkable period during which the fiercely insular Japanese shogunate…

Children's & YA

Celebrating the season: new books honor Hanukkah

Review by bookpagedev

With December upon us once again, it’s time to take a step back and think of what the holiday season means to us: family, friends and heritage. This month is the perfect time to teach children about special traditions. Two new books do just that, delving into the meaning of Hanukkah and the Jewish holidays in ways that young readers will love.

A Story that Spans Generations
One Candle by Eve Bunting is the touching story of a young girl whose extended family gathers together each year to celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. And every year her grandmother and Great Aunt Rose perform a ritual to recall their childhood, part of which was spent in a German concentration camp during the Holocaust.

In those bleak days, despite unrelenting hardship and fear, they sought to maintain their religious faith by smuggling a potato and some margarine into camp—elements which they used to construct a makeshift candle so they could surreptitiously celebrate Hanukkah.

Fifty years after the fact, the two sisters recreate their story with a wonderful clarity of detail. As they gather, surrounded by the warmth and safety of their family on the first night of the holiday, they painstakingly hollow out a potato, pour in a small amount of oil, and once again light "one candle."

Toward the end of the story, the young narrator says: "My sister Ruth whispers close to my ear, ‘Why do you think Grandma wants to do this every year?’

"I shrug my shoulders because I don’t know for sure. But I think it has to do with being strong in the bad time and remembering it in the good time."

It’s a hard but valuable lesson to teach the target audience of this book.

K. Wendy Popp’s haunting pastel illustrations mirror One Candle‘s dramatic theme. While the pictures of Grandma and Great Aunt Rose as young girls surrounded by their fellow captives are beautifully rendered, the story they reflect might be better suited for older readers. The suggested age range for One Candle is 4-8, but preteens are more likely to reap the benefits of the story.

Learning about heritage
Jewish Holidays All Year Round, written by Ilene Cooper, children’s books editor of Booklist, in association with the Jewish Museum in New York, is an excellent introduction to the special days on the Jewish calendar. Beginning with the Sabbath, the book discusses the major religious holidays such as the New Year (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), Purim and Passover, as well as more recent additions like Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Ha-Shoah) and Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha’aztma’ut). The stories are told in a straightforward yet entertaining manner that’s neither too childish nor too theological.

Each chapter includes a description of the significance of the special days and the preparations families make to observe them. There are also suggested activities and arts and crafts to make the holiday more "user-friendly" for kids. There are noisemakers for Purim, plants for Tu B’Shevat (Arbor Day) and dreidels (tops) for Hanukah. And since food is such a big part of the celebration, Cooper includes several recipes to commemorate the holiday, such as potato pancakes for Hanukkah; fruit compote for Shavuot, which marks the giving of the Ten Commandments; and Haroset, an integral condiment used in the Passover feast..

In addition to the simple-yet-evocative drawings by Elivia Savadier, Jewish Holidays contains dozens of photographs and illustrations of pieces from the Jewish Museum’s collection. A bibliography encourages further research for youngsters and adults.

Both books would make wonderful gifts for the young readers on your shopping list. But don’t let the fact that they’re aimed at children fool you; adults will get a lot out of them as well.

Ron Kaplan writes from Montclair, New Jersey.

With December upon us once again, it's time to take a step back and think of what the holiday season means to us: family, friends and heritage. This month is the perfect time to teach children about special traditions. Two new books do just that,…

Children's & YA

Celebrating the season: new books honor Hanukkah

Review by bookpagedev

With December upon us once again, it’s time to take a step back and think of what the holiday season means to us: family, friends and heritage. This month is the perfect time to teach children about special traditions. Two new books do just that, delving into the meaning of Hanukkah and the Jewish holidays in ways that young readers will love. A story that spans generations One Candle (Joanna Cotler, $15.95, 32 pages, ISBN 00602281154) by Eve Bunting is the touching story of a young girl whose extended family gathers together each year to celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. And every year her grandmother and Great Aunt Rose perform a ritual to recall their childhood, part of which was spent in a German concentration camp during the Holocaust. In those bleak days, despite unrelenting hardship and fear, they sought to maintain their religious faith by smuggling a potato and some margarine into camp elements which they used to construct a makeshift candle so they could surreptitiously celebrate Hanukkah.

Fifty years after the fact, the two sisters recreate their story with a wonderful clarity of detail. As they gather, surrounded by the warmth and safety of their family on the first night of the holiday, they painstakingly hollow out a potato, pour in a small amount of oil, and once again light “one candle.” Toward the end of the story, the young narrator says: “My sister Ruth whispers close to my ear, ÔWhy do you think Grandma wants to do this every year?’ “I shrug my shoulders because I don’t know for sure. But I think it has to do with being strong in the bad time and remembering it in the good time.” It’s a hard but valuable lesson to teach the target audience of this book. K. Wendy Popp’s haunting pastel illustrations mirror One Candle’s dramatic theme. While the pictures of Grandma and Great Aunt Rose as young girls surrounded by their fellow captives are beautifully rendered, the story they reflect might be better suited for older readers. The suggested age range for One Candle is 4-8, but preteens are more likely to reap the benefits of the story.

Learning about heritage Jewish Holidays All Year Round, written by Ilene Cooper, children’s books editor of Booklist, in association with the Jewish Museum in New York, is an excellent introduction to the special days on the Jewish calendar. Beginning with the Sabbath, the book discusses the major religious holidays such as the New Year (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), Purim and Passover, as well as more recent additions like Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Ha-Shoah) and Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha’aztma’ut). The stories are told in a straightforward yet entertaining manner that’s neither too childish nor too theological. Each chapter includes a description of the significance of the special days and the preparations families make to observe them. There are also suggested activities and arts and crafts to make the holiday more “user-friendly” for kids. There are noisemakers for Purim, plants for Tu B’Shevat (Arbor Day) and dreidels (tops) for Hanukah. And since food is such a big part of the celebration, Cooper includes several recipes to commemorate the holiday, such as potato pancakes for Hanukkah; fruit compote for Shavuot, which marks the giving of the Ten Commandments; and Haroset, an integral condiment used in the Passover feast.

In addition to the simple-yet-evocative drawings by Elivia Savadier, Jewish Holidays contains dozens of photographs and illustrations of pieces from the Jewish Museum’s collection. A bibliography encourages further research for youngsters and adults.

Both books would make wonderful gifts for the young readers on your shopping list. But don’t let the fact that they’re aimed at children fool you; adults will get a lot out of them as well.

Ron Kaplan writes from Montclair, New Jersey.

With December upon us once again, it's time to take a step back and think of what the holiday season means to us: family, friends and heritage. This month is the perfect time to teach children about special traditions. Two new books do just that,…
Biography

Marie Antoinette: The Journey

Review by bookpagedev

Famous for her personal indulgences, as well as her vanity, France’s controversial queen gets a break in Fraser’s best-selling biography. Clearing up some misconceptions about a woman who was, in reality, surprisingly compassionate, Fraser paints a compelling portrait of an unwilling monarch trapped in a loveless marriage and ill-prepared to handle matters of state. Married at the age of 14 to Louis XVI an act of diplomacy between Austria and France rather than a matter of the heart Marie Antoinette entered into a life at court marked by scandal, tragedy and violence, as political upheaval swept through France. With unforgettable incidents, some of which have become the stuff of myth, this is the surprising story of a queen capable of pity and remorse, whose heart went out to her suffering subjects. A reading group guide is available in print and online at www.anchorbooks.com.

Famous for her personal indulgences, as well as her vanity, France's controversial queen gets a break in Fraser's best-selling biography. Clearing up some misconceptions about a woman who was, in reality, surprisingly compassionate, Fraser paints a compelling portrait of an unwilling monarch trapped in a…
Children's & YA

The story of stories

Review by bookpagedev

How did stories begin? Writer Marguerite W. Davol has come up with an original folktale explaining the answer, one that kids are likely to believe and enjoy, and one that might serve as a good spark for conversation about the importance of stories and how they are created.

Inspired by a Seneca tale called “The Storytelling Stone,” The Snake’s Tales is also a perfect vehicle for reading aloud, because it’s full of rhythm and repetition, and Davol created it first as a story for telling, not as a book. Listen, for example, to how The Snake’s Tales begins: “Way back in time there were no stories. Season after season, the earth turned from day to night to day. People worked and ate, slept and woke. But they didn’t tell stories. Believe it or not, people simply didn’t know what stories were! So how did stories finally begin? Listen, and I’ll tell you.” A boy, Beno, is sent out to pick strawberries for his family, and on his way back a serpent glides beside him, promising stories in exchange for the strawberries. The boy, of course, takes him up on the offer, returning home empty-handed, but full of wonder at what the snake has shared. Next, his sister, Allita, has a similar experience when she is sent to fetch raspberries. Neither child tells the parents about this wondrous new thing they have experienced. Finally, the two go together to pick apples, after which they finally confess their secret, sharing their new, exciting tales. After that, so the story goes, the world was never the same, and people began sharing stories wherever they went. Even art starts here, as the children’s mother begins to weave the tales into tapestries. This simple yet believable new fable harkens back to Adam and Eve, with its fruit and beckoning snake, and will lure young readers just as the snake lures Beno and Allita.

The artwork of Korean-born artist Yumi Heo is the perfect complement to the fable. Her primitive-style pencil and oil illustrations convey a simple yet rich atmosphere full of amusing touches (a lop-eared bunny nibbling on strawberries, for instance, or a funny little monkey hanging from a tree). The bright red and yellow snake grows bigger and bigger as it spins its tales, fully encompassing its listeners. Young children will be spellbound by Davol’s story, and may just be inspired to start spinning tales of their own.

How did stories begin? Writer Marguerite W. Davol has come up with an original folktale explaining the answer, one that kids are likely to believe and enjoy, and one that might serve as a good spark for conversation about the importance of stories and…
Memoir

Final words from a beloved historian

Review by bookpagedev

College professors sometimes wish for the impossible: an opportunity to re-convene class to correct or amend lectures they delivered years ago. A full-time university teacher for 35 years before retiring from academia seven years ago, top-selling historian Stephen Ambrose came as close as one can to achieving that feat before his death in October. “I want to correct all the mistakes I made” in the classroom, he said, in explaining his decision to write To America: Personal Reflections of a Historian.

For instance, acknowledging “I did not know then what I do now,” Ambrose says in his final work that, contrary to what generations of students have been taught, it was disease not a deliberate policy of genocide that wiped out many Indian tribes as the government pushed the frontier westward. At first, he denounced the bombing of Hiroshima but, upon learning more, began telling his students: “Thank God for Harry Truman for his courage and decisiveness.” He details why he came to praise rather than condemn the “robber barons” who mined millions of dollars in financing the first transcontinental railroad. And he explains how he evolved from an admitted Nixon hater to someone with a genuine appreciation of the disgraced president.

To America is a mixture of interpretive history, personal recollection and parental musings from one of our country’s most popular historians with subjects ranging from Thomas Jefferson (“an intellectual coward” for doing nothing about slavery) to Lyndon Johnson, from racialism to women’s rights, from war heroes to explorers. Ambrose also shares the work habit that resulted in his writing or editing some 30 books, a number of which sped from the bindery to best-seller lists: “You do it by working hard, six to 10 hours per day, six or seven days a week.” He was also helped by the services of an “in-house” editor; his wife Moira listened to his readings of whatever he wrote each day and offered her suggestions. Thus, his advice to aspiring authors: “Marry an English major.” Ambrose wrote To America after learning in April that he had lung cancer. Unsure how long he would live, he set aside other work to write this final book, which he described as his “best” which means better than such blockbusters as Undaunted Courage, Citizen Soldiers and D-Day June 6, 1944. Whether or not To America is his best work, its pages certainly pulsate with the spirit and optimism of an author who was deeply in love with America.

College professors sometimes wish for the impossible: an opportunity to re-convene class to correct or amend lectures they delivered years ago. A full-time university teacher for 35 years before retiring from academia seven years ago, top-selling historian Stephen Ambrose came as close as one can…
NonfictionEssays

Seasonal reflections from a 21st century Thoreau

Review by bookpagedev

It’s tempting to compare rural writer Verlyn Klinkenborg to pillars of American literature such as Robert Frost and Henry Thoreau. Like Frost, Klinkenborg can find the universe in a dead bug on a page of writing paper. Like Thoreau, his meditations get at the natural relationship between man and the woods. But Klinkenborg, The New York Times editorial-page writer, uses language with such mastery and has such a unique style that these comparisons may not do him full justice.

The Rural Life is presented (somewhat deceptively) in the form of a journal, begun in January in a flurry of good intentions for the New Year. Each of the 12 chapters contains a series of meditations on the tasks and the weather of one calendar month. The individual meditations are self-sufficient, each a little gem with passages so witty and insightful, readers will find themselves looking around for somebody they could read them to.

The loose weave of the book allows Klinkenborg to write about a wide array of rural phenomena, from raising bees to watching the first snow fall to lighting the wood stove to mending fences. There’s no narrative device holding the pieces together no plot, in other words. On the contrary, the action doesn’t even take place in a single setting, but leaps from Wyoming to New York to Utah. As the book progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that this is not simply the journal of one year in Klinkenborg’s life but a collage of remembered experiences, recalled against the vivid backdrop of the changing seasons.

So the focus here is not upon any particular sequence of events in the author’s life, but on how people experience the seasons and the movement of time, a subject Klinkenborg keeps drifting back to like an Iowa snowfall.

One of the strongest chapters in the book is “June,” in which Klinkenborg remembers his father’s habits of industry, his love of carpentry and the family ranch he built on the outskirts of Sacramento, California. The writer honestly reports on his adolescent rebellion against this quiet, hard-working father. Then, in the middle of life, Klinkenborg finds himself putting on the garden gloves and going outside to do some project, just as his father used to do. Here Klinkenborg has caught an experience common to people in middle age finding their parents in themselves, after all.

Because its charms are so subtle and its structure so non-linear, it’s almost impossible to adequately capture The Rural Life in a review. But I do find myself wanting to e-mail some of Klinkenborg’s best passages to my friends or paste them on highway billboards. This one, for instance: “We live in a world of margins, every hour an occasion of its own, where sometimes the weather and the landscape and the state of the foliage live up to the idea of the very season we say is at hand.” Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

It's tempting to compare rural writer Verlyn Klinkenborg to pillars of American literature such as Robert Frost and Henry Thoreau. Like Frost, Klinkenborg can find the universe in a dead bug on a page of writing paper. Like Thoreau, his meditations get at the natural…
Memoir

Revealing glimpses of popular icons

Review by bookpagedev

Chicago-based entertainment writer Bill Zehme (pronounced ZAY-mee) has been cranking out interesting and colorful celebrity profiles for 20 years, mostly for such magazines as Esquire, Playboy, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. Few journalists have managed to produce such a steady body of quality work interviews at once entertaining and informative, focusing on media icons and written in an incisive, yet edgy, style.

Intimate Strangers, an engrossing collection of Zehme’s notable stories from the past two decades, showcases the author’s sometimes quirky but always fascinating approaches to the minds of such legendary figures as Hugh Hefner, Tom Hanks, Cameron Diaz, the Seinfeld gang, Johnny Depp and Eddie Murphy.

Zehme doesn’t merely ask a series of prepared questions; he’ll often spend days with his interviewees, keeping his tape recorder on, sharing their lives and gaining the necessary trust to elicit offbeat, ultimately revealing responses. The fact that these pieces date back to the early 80s ensures a curiously welcome historical perspective on popular culture. We hear Woody Allen’s pained remarks during the aftermath of the still-simmering Soon-Yi scandal; glimpse notorious ladies’ man Warren Beatty in the days before he settles down into wedded bliss; and listen to Madonna during her peak as a pop tart talking about Catholicism and the importance of her father in her life.

The book concludes with an insightful series of alternating, point-counterpoint interviews that Zehme published through the 90s with David Letterman and Jay Leno, during the era of Johnny Carson’s impending retirement. With Zehme just recently launching a new cable interview show on the Bravo channel, the timing is perfect for the release of this hip collection, which exhibits his skills as pop journalist to maximum effect. Filmmaker Cameron Crowe provides the introduction.

Chicago-based entertainment writer Bill Zehme (pronounced ZAY-mee) has been cranking out interesting and colorful celebrity profiles for 20 years, mostly for such magazines as Esquire, Playboy, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. Few journalists have managed to produce such a steady body of quality work interviews…

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