bookpagedev

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The Irish novelist Soinbhe Lally is well-known in her own land, but A Hive for the Honeybee is her first book to be published in the United States. Let us hope it is not her last. A Hollywood producer probably would describe this unique little book as Charlotte’s Web meets Animal Farm. It has the charm and melancholy of the former, with the animal characters remaining primarily within their creaturely natures, and the caustic satire of the latter. The combination, expressed in a prose distilled almost to poetry, makes for a strange and wonderful reading experience.

Lally’s creatures are never cute or endearing. Indeed, the rigid caste system and code of behavior imposed by the social hierarchy, while satirizing pomposity with Swiftian glee, still retains some of the mindless horror that is part of our fascination with instinctive creatures. Lally never flinches in the face of nature’s most disturbing and heartless demands. Many bees die in this book some of them during a civil uprising, others simply because bees hatch and grow old in the space of a season.

The story is framed by one summer in the life of a hive. It follows the lives and changing opinions of two worker bees, Thora and Belle, and two drones, Alfred and Mo. Lally’s bees may have spiritual and even artistic yearnings, but they remain in character as bees. They discuss the future of the hive’s society not over tea, but while emptying their pollen sacks or grooming each other’s antennae. Social issues derive entirely from the natural history of bees.

Against the traditions of his shiftless, literal-minded caste, Alfred is a poet. The text is enlivened with excellent poetry by this talented insect, including an expression toward the end of the very theme of the book which is that the brevity of our time on this beautiful earth makes life all the more sweet.

The Irish novelist Soinbhe Lally is well-known in her own land, but A Hive for the Honeybee is her first book to be published in the United States. Let us hope it is not her last. A Hollywood producer probably would describe this unique little…
Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Lifestyles of the artistic and famous Lives of the Great 20th Century Artists by Edward Lucie-Smith is at least three books in one: It is a comprehensive study of the vast expanse of 20th-century art, a presentation of the great movements in this century’s art, and the fascinating life stories of major artists. The book’s greatest strength is the masterful way in which it weaves the life stories of artists into the story of their art. We come away understanding not only what makes these artists work, but also having a good grasp of the significance behind what they did. The life stories are arranged chronologically by movement, from Cubism to American Pop Art. Each subchapter contains a picture of the artist accompanied by at least one well-selected color plate of his or her work. All the familiar names are covered, such as Picasso, Chagall, and Pollock, but also less familiar ones such as David Alfaro Siquieros (who botched an assassination of Trotsky) with life stories equally as riveting.

Lifestyles of the artistic and famous Lives of the Great 20th Century Artists by Edward Lucie-Smith is at least three books in one: It is a comprehensive study of the vast expanse of 20th-century art, a presentation of the great movements in this century's art,…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

As a child, long before he actually visited New Guinea, Tim Flannery fell in love with its exotic mystique. This love didn’t have to stay unrequited for long, because Flannery was born relatively close by, in Australia. He was 26 when he first set foot on the vast wild island to the north.

In the less than two decades since, he has undertaken 15 expeditions, explored some of the wildest territory remaining on our heavily paved planet, and identified almost 20 new species of mammals.

New Guinea is the second largest island on Earth. A previously unknown population of 750,000 people the last such hidden world was discovered in the interior as late as the 1930s. Not surprisingly, the native flora and fauna also harbor undiscovered treasures. Tim Flannery describes his love affair in Throwim Way Leg. In New Guinea Pidgin, throwim way leg means to go on a journey, Flannery writes. It describes the action of thrusting out your leg to take the first step of what can be a long march. When he first walked the rugged trails of New Guinea, Flannery had no inkling of the long march that lay ahead. Flannery is more than an explorer. He is, first and foremost, a scientist, a mammalogist who is currently visiting professor of Australian studies at Harvard. His commitment to science, attention to detail, and enthusiasm for adventure never falter. He manages to make of his science-inspired adventures an entertaining, even thrilling story. Flannery’s love of adventure is contagious. He encounters animals formerly unknown to the outside world and lives among people for whom cannibalism has only recently begun to go out of fashion. On one field trip, he discovers that, because he has been identified as belonging to the white wildlife clan, he is the target of a revenge scheme. He describes in harrowing detail his near-fatal battle with what he thought was malaria, which turned out to be typhus resulting from a bite by a scrub typhus tick. The Times Literary Supplement said of Flannery that Australia has found its own Stephen Jay Gould. Actually Flannery reads more like such scientific adventurers as Edward O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, and even Charles Darwin people who set out to learn more about their home world in the name of science, and who went out and faced nature on its own terms. Like them, Flannery has explained another piece or two of the great puzzle, and along the way he has forever changed himself and his relationship with the world.

As a child, long before he actually visited New Guinea, Tim Flannery fell in love with its exotic mystique. This love didn't have to stay unrequited for long, because Flannery was born relatively close by, in Australia. He was 26 when he first set foot…

Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Camille Saint-Saens, the famous 19th-century French composer, was usually quite serious about his music. However, he proved he had a sense of humor when he wrote Carnival of the Animals. Saint-Saens was a teacher in a music school when he decided to play a joke on his students a musical joke, of course. A series of 13 musical vignettes was the result. The book Carnival of the Animals includes a full-length CD as well as a commentary. Barrie Carson Turner’s commentary begins with a solid explanation of the orchestral instruments selected by Saint-Saens to represent the various animals (including a couple of surprises) in his carnival. Sue Williams’s illustrations not only display each of the instruments but each of the animals as well, enabling a visual correlation with the music and text. Stringed instruments, woodwinds, and finally percussion instruments are carefully described. A simple, nontechnical explanation is given, describing how each instrument is played; this would be helpful for teaching purposes and satisfying curious minds.

The carnival opens with a majestic march for the king of beasts and continues with lighter-hearted, sometimes comical, music for each of the other animals, before the elegant swan glides gracefully into the distance. The finale calls all the animals back for an exciting grand parade.

Young children, preschool through approximately age 10, will enjoy listening to the CD recorded by EMI Records Ltd., even without benefit of the text. For maximum enjoyment and pleasure, reading the text before listening to the corresponding musical selection is recommended. The brevity of each selection, the colorful illustrations, and the simple yet adequate commentary all combine to make Carnival of the Animals a good choice for children.

Carnival of the Animals may have been written as a joke for music students, but people have enjoyed this interesting composition so much that it is arguably the best loved and most famous of all the pieces written by Camille Saint-Saens. ¦ Cynthia B. Drennan holds a master’s in musicology and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction; she instructed children on the marvels of music for many years.

Camille Saint-Saens, the famous 19th-century French composer, was usually quite serious about his music. However, he proved he had a sense of humor when he wrote Carnival of the Animals. Saint-Saens was a teacher in a music school when he decided to play a joke…
History

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Soldiers’ stories In the years since the Second World War, historians have described and analyzed many of its battles, campaigns, and theaters. The Greatest War: Americans in Combat 1941-1945 offers a graphic timeline of the war from the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to the bombing of Nagasaki 45 months later. Historian Gerald Astor draws on the experiences and observations of more than 1,000 Americans who fought in the Pacific, Asia, and Europe in trenches, bombers, and landing craft. It is the story of many small and large unit actions some heroic victories, others sorry defeats. For the millions of Americans who fought overseas in World War II, the events recounted here defined the rest of their lives. The Greatest War is oral history at its very best and a reminder of the thin line that separates selfless heroism from senseless barbarism.

Soldiers' stories In the years since the Second World War, historians have described and analyzed many of its battles, campaigns, and theaters. The Greatest War: Americans in Combat 1941-1945 offers a graphic timeline of the war from the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to…

Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

I can’t remember a time when so many writers have been preoccupied with the media while turning their intellectual flashlights on every nook and cranny of the inchoate and sometimes weird forces from which we get information and entertainment.

Few can size up these forces better, and wittier, than George Trow, a founding member of the National Lampoon and a New Yorker staff writer for almost 30 years. His new book, My Pilgrim’s Progress, takes 1950 as his point of departure. World War II was over and that fact, he says, changed our cultural relationship with the rest of the world. If Britain had been the factual victor, we would have BBCed our way into the media age; if Hitler had won something else. They didn’t; we did and so we have New York-televisioned our way into the media age. Trow writes in an almost stream-of-conscious manner in picturing the vastly different worlds of 1950 and 1997. It is true that the 1950s were a less complicated time; television was still growing and echoing the simplicity of the times. Walter Cronkite was the most watched news figure on the tube. TV listings of the early ’50s were anything but interesting, except for Howdy Doody.

The ’50s had Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Winchell, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Westbrook Pegler on the commentary scene. None of them makes a powerful impression on Trow except for Ike, who Trow believed embodied the right stuff as general and as President.

There are a good many things to smile about, such as the charge that Madonna simply wants to be Elvis; that televised golf tournaments are likened to porn for the privileged and home shopping networks to cocaine addiction.

There are, however, chain-lightning points to Trow’s prose; he is quite good in dealing with the printed press, perhaps because he is closer to it and understands its inner workings. With television, he seems to be a detached bystander.

It’s too bad Trow’s progress ended in 1997; it would be interesting to see his take on President Clinton’s woes. Perhaps we’ll see it in the next volume of My Pilgrim’s Progress. It would be a doozy.

Lloyd Armour is a retired newspaper editor.

I can't remember a time when so many writers have been preoccupied with the media while turning their intellectual flashlights on every nook and cranny of the inchoate and sometimes weird forces from which we get information and entertainment.

Few can size up…
Children's & YA

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Anyone who still believes the good old days of living in the United States have been replaced with a more troubled world will think twice after reading The Way Things Never Were: The Truth About the Good Old Days . Through facts, stories, and photographs, the book challenges those stereotypical carefree images of life during the 1950s and ’60s that we’ve been exposed to, either through fond reminiscences from relatives or on television shows such as Father Knows Best. Like the film Pleasantville, The Way Things Never Were exposes the cultural myths of the time by breaking down the one-dimensional image of this era. Those good old days were also days of racial discrimination, sexual repression, and looming threats of Communism and nuclear war. It was a time when fat was considered good for you; vaccines for polio and other diseases (like mumps and measles) were nonexistent, as were video games and laptops; massive suburban housing developments were a new and promising trend; and environmental concerns were few. The Cold War hung in the air, and the duck and cover drill (recently parodied in a fast-food commercial) was a common practice and a dispiriting reminder for children of the fragility of peace. With its many references to studies and surveys, statistical information, and first-person accounts, the book serves virtually as a textbook for interpreting the shortcomings of the period and the progress made since.

Finkelstein doesn’t reflect upon the ’50s and ’60s as a less desirable time in which to live. Rather, he explains the evolution of American culture to give the reader a new perspective on the good of the present. Young readers who see the present state of American life as a confusing mix of Jerry Springer-like existence spiked with images of angst and boredom should find The Way Things Never Were a refreshing retrospective on a time that many can recall as if it were yesterday. The book is also a reminder that, if we can accomplish the same amount of progress in a period of 40 years, the future holds many wondrous things indeed.

Jamie McAlister is assistant editor of Port News in Charleston, South Carolina.

Anyone who still believes the good old days of living in the United States have been replaced with a more troubled world will think twice after reading The Way Things Never Were: The Truth About the Good Old Days . Through facts, stories, and photographs,…

Review

Review by bookpagedev

YE OLDE CURIOSITY SHOPPE There’s no place like foam Editor’s note: Each month we see lots of books. Some of the curious arrivals are featured in this space.

The universe is a strange and wonderful place, and nobody knows this better than the people who are experts on things that the rest of us take for granted. Sidney Perkowitz is just such an expert. A physics professor at Emory University, he is also a science writer of extraordinary talent and grace, author of the splendid 1996 book Empire of Light: A History of Discovery in Science and Art. His latest book is on a topic which you may never have given a moment’s thought: the physics of foam.

No topic is boring or incomprehensible when explained by the right person, and Perkowitz once again proves himself the right person. Universal Foam: From Cappuccino to the Cosmos is informative, yes, but it is also lively, entertaining, and even amusing. Perkowitz’s writing style refutes the hoary notion that scientists are dull geeks. Scientists who work hard to become popular science writers do so because they are enthusiasts.

What you take away from the 170-odd pages of Universal Foam is the realization that a great deal of the universe operates under the rules of the physics of foam. There are chapters on Edible Foam (bread, beer, cappuccino), Practical Foam (cork, shaving cream), Living Foam (cells, viruses), and even Cosmic Foam (comets, galaxies). You wind up shaking your head and repeating the last words of the Wicked Witch of the West: What a world, what a world. . . .

YE OLDE CURIOSITY SHOPPE There's no place like foam Editor's note: Each month we see lots of books. Some of the curious arrivals are featured in this space.

The universe is a strange and wonderful place, and nobody knows this better than…

Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Joseph Klempner begins his tale of murder and its aftermath by describing its setting a small, ordinary community in upstate New York called Flat Rock. Flat Rock is small enough to fill every public office with volunteers, and small enough to route weekend calls to police headquarters to the Officer on Call. It is through this quite ordinary relay system that Bass McClure, Flat Rock’s volunteer Fish and Game Warden, receives a phone call that proves to be less than ordinary.

Jonathan Hamilton a 30-year-old man most of the town charitably calls slow has called to say his grandparents have been hurt. McClure, long familiar with the Hamilton family, arrives at the main house of the estate to find Jonathan rocking, making trapped animals noises, and covered in blood. Saying to Jonathan, Show me, McClure is lead to an upstairs bedroom, two bodies, and a mess of blood. An investigation begins.

The investigation, conducted by McClure and Deke Stanton, turns up what appears to be solid evidence that Jonathan has brutally killed the two people he loves most in the world. Evidence seems to suggest the motive for the murders supposedly committed by a man most would label retarded was greed.

Because a double murder carries a possible death penalty and New York has recently placed special emphasis on cases in which the death penalty applies, the state calls Matthew Fielder to defend Jonathan. A graduate of Death School, and a firm believer that death is different, Fielder collects a team to assist him in developing a defense for what seems indefensible. With the expertise of a private investigator named Gunn and a social worker named Hillary, plus input from Jonathan’s family, Fielder makes a decision on how to best defend his client only to find his decision was based on inadequacies and clouded by his own prejudices.

Klempner, who has a background in criminal defense, does the expected, delivering an intriguing look at the nuances of the law; he also delivers the unexpected. He winds his courtroom drama around the landscape, characters, and subplot narratives in the same way a favorite uncle strings together seemingly unrelated anecdotes until, without understanding exactly how it happened, you realize a powerful story has been told and you have learned something in the telling.

Jamie Whitfield is a published author and teacher. She lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Joseph Klempner begins his tale of murder and its aftermath by describing its setting a small, ordinary community in upstate New York called Flat Rock. Flat Rock is small enough to fill every public office with volunteers, and small enough to route weekend calls to…

Fiction

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Most colas traditionally fizz with carbonated wonder, sweetly swashing in the mouth with the familiar caffeine bite in every swallow. Maxx Barry’s Syrup is as close to the real thing as you can get: flowing with flavor, full of pop, and heavy on the bite. This novel is a refreshing piece of literature to pull from your local bookseller’s shelf and knock back during the summer months.

As anyone in the real cola industry will tell you, the heart of the world’s most popular soft drink is in the syrup, which is added to carbonated water to make what we call cola. Barry uses cola syrup as a metaphor in his novel Syrup. This story is a tale of success, or at least how to achieve success marketing beverages in a comically cutthroat manner. Scat, alias Michael George Holloway, is our chief conniving marketing scud, hell-bent on making millions on every wild get-rich plot that occurs to him. His first venture is a new cola concept, produced by the Coca-Cola corporation. Aimed at the disenfranchised and at Gen-Xers, the name of the new cola is meant to impact potential readers and customers like a hard swallow. (Unveiling the name of the new cola is tempting, but would undermine some marketing credo in Syrup, so it will remain unrevealed.) Scat is also surrounded by such comic characters as Tina, Sneaky Pete, @, and the frosty cold but tall and smooth 6. Syrup is refreshing and entertaining. The style and wit are layered flavors of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Woody Allen. Maxx Barry’s experience in marketing makes Scat and Company’s unbelievable marketing schemes seem quite plausible. Best grab this book this summer and slam down a gulp or two of something fun, strong, and satisfying. Syrup is simply the next best thing to the real thing.

Kevin Zepper writes from Moorhead, Minnesota.

Most colas traditionally fizz with carbonated wonder, sweetly swashing in the mouth with the familiar caffeine bite in every swallow. Maxx Barry's Syrup is as close to the real thing as you can get: flowing with flavor, full of pop, and heavy on the bite.…

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Review

Review by bookpagedev

At dusk, when he couldn’t draw anymore, Max used to sing . . . . His songs were wordless. I’d snuggle into the cozy red easy chair and listen. With these vivid images, German illustrator and author Quint Buchholz begins his gorgeous new children’s book, The Collector of Moments.

The narrator of this charming and beautifully illustrated story visits daily an old painter named Max. Max paints constantly, but turns the pictures to face the wall. He explains that an artist can’t show a picture too soon. He also tells stories of things he has seen a floating circus wagon, snow elephants in Canada.

Then one day Max leaves town for awhile and asks the boy to care for his studio. When he enters, the boy finds that the pictures are now turned outward, creating a private exhibition for him, with brief cryptic notes by Max. The paintings show many of the outrageous scenes Max described in his stories. As he thinks about the pictures, the boy reflects, Max always captured a precise moment. But I understood that there was always a story attached to this moment which had begun long before and would continue long afterward. He remembers that Max had once said, I’m merely the collector. I collect moments. Penguins walking down a city street, a giant flute being air-lifted in the dusk by balloons these are some of Max’s moments. A king, a little girl, and a lion head out to sea in a small boat with an outboard motor. A boy and his six-inch-high companion stare out to sea together. The pictures are saturated in both subtle color and subtle emotion.

Finally the boy realizes why Max wanted him to see the pictures while he was away so that he would decipher them on his own. The answers to all my questions, the boy thinks to himself, were revealed in the long spells which I spent in front of the pictures. Children who read and look at The Collector of Moments will have the same response as the narrator long spells of becoming lost in the pictures, slowly finding the answers for themselves. And then they will understand the lovely moment on the last page, when the boy receives a final gift from Max.

Michael Sims is the author of two children’s science books that will be published next year.

At dusk, when he couldn't draw anymore, Max used to sing . . . . His songs were wordless. I'd snuggle into the cozy red easy chair and listen. With these vivid images, German illustrator and author Quint Buchholz begins his gorgeous new children's book,…
Children's & YAPicture Book

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Some children’s books are written to entertain. Others are written to educate in an entertaining manner. Rainy Day falls in the latter category.

Written by a journalist who specializes in children’s books, Rainy Day has a simple theme: Children can have meaningful relationships with fathers who no longer live in the home. The book describes the experiences of a young boy visiting with his father on a rainy day. They romp together in the rain, explore a wooded park, then visit a seashore, where giant waves pound in all about them. Toward the end of their visit, the rain stops and the sun breaks through the clouds, allowing sea gulls to fill the air. The message is simple: Rainy days aren’t so bad. And they don’t last forever. Incredibly, the father and son depicted in the book bear a remarkable resemblance to Cuban Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his son Elian. That is a coincidence, of course, since the artwork was completed long before the Gonzalez family made news around the world as a symbol of paternal rights, but it does get your attention.

Illustrator Angelo Rinaldi does an excellent job with the artwork, although its grainy, soft-focus images seem to target adults more than children. Where Rinaldi truly excels is in his depictions of the physical interactions between father and son. There is lots of hugging and hand holding and playful roughhousing. Obviously, Rinaldi understands that young children are far better able to remember their parents’ physical gestures toward them than their spoken words. With children, a single loving gesture is worth a thousand words or any number of expensive toys. Children who read the book will probably pick up on this message faster than their parents.

Written for children ages five to eight, this book is highly recommended for households experiencing divorce or separation.

Before becoming an author of books for adults, James L. Dickerson worked for seven years as a social worker in a child protection agency. He is a divorced father of a son.

Some children's books are written to entertain. Others are written to educate in an entertaining manner. Rainy Day falls in the latter category.

Written by a journalist who specializes in children's books, Rainy Day has a simple theme: Children can have meaningful relationships…
Memoir

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Now we are together for the first time. We have actually become, as is often said of a happily married couple, inseparable, John Bayley writes of his current life with his wife Iris Murdoch. Murdoch, one of Britain’s most learned and noted novelists, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and Bayley’s Elegy for Iris recounts their marriage in two sections tellingly named Then and Now. Togetherness, and the struggles the couple have with their peculiar brand of inseparability are Bayley’s themes in his moving memoir. Bayley describes his romance with Murdoch with nostalgia, hearkening back to scenes of Oxford dons and bicycling around campus. After a dance, the two return to Bayley’s apartment and begin to get acquainted, foreshadowing the extraordinary vulnerability and strength that will characterize their life together. She seemed to be giving way to some deep need of which she had been wholly unconscious: the need to throw away not only the maneuvers and rivalries of intellect but also the emotional fears and fascinations, the power struggles and surrenders of adult loving, Bayley writes. As he illustrates the beginnings of their love affair, Bayley never lets the present escape entirely, reminding the reader that Alzheimer’s sufferers are not always gentle: I know that. But Iris remains her old self in many ways. Past and present are intertwined, imbuing Bayley’s narrative with a sense of completeness. Throughout the narrative, Alzheimer’s and its repercussions are never distant from even the most long-ago recollections.

With the image of a vibrant, younger Iris pedaling around Oxford in mind, scenes in the Now portion of his memoir seem poignant, but never saccharine. Bayley writes of Iris’s love for the Teletubbies, her insistence on wearing trousers to bed, how difficult is it to travel with someone who keeps asking Where are we going? and can never remember the answer. In Elegy for Iris, Bayley demonstrates their experience as not necessarily negative, but alternative to most people’s experiences of aging. As Bayley reminds us, She is not sailing into the dark: The voyage is over, and under the dark escort of Alzheimer’s, she has arrived somewhere. So have I. Eliza McGraw is a graduate student in Nashville, Tennessee.

Now we are together for the first time. We have actually become, as is often said of a happily married couple, inseparable, John Bayley writes of his current life with his wife Iris Murdoch. Murdoch, one of Britain's most learned and noted novelists, suffers from…

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