Have you seen
our November issue?
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One man's pilgrimage
with the Savior. How God
calls to us in the midst
of our valleys and fulfills
His promise to never
leave or forsake us.
Delightfully readable poems... blessed with
a sense of humor
—Amazon
Highly readable.
—PODBRAM
Pregnancy risked Meg’s life, so Laurie became her surrogate. No one expected the tragic ending to what should have been a
happy one.
Verses for cat lovers
of all ages
“long overdue...
deep truths of
Christianity revealed
...unique and a real winner”—Bud Niebergal
“A tour de force”
—New York Times
“Bob Sanchez is a consummate writer.”
—Kaye Trout’s
Book Reviews
Contributors
Anna BookClover is a writer, translator, and avid reader. She blogs about books at www.bookclover.blogspot.com.
Freelance journalist Marty Carlock, author of A Guide to Public Art in Greater Boston, has published more than 1,600 articles in thirty-plus publications. At present she writes for Sculpture and Landscape Architecture magazines and for her own amusement.
David Daniel is the author of many books, including a forthcoming collection of stories, Six off 66, and
a novel, Reunion. Visit http://daviddanielbooks.com.
Nancy R. Davison is an artist-printmaker who lives and works in Maine. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Michigan.
Ruth Douillette retired after 35 years as a middle school teacher, and now freelances as a writer and photographer.
Her essays have been published in the Christian Science Monitor, Cup of Comfort, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and
Under Our Skin, an anthology about breast cancer. Her photography has been featured in flashquake's gallery of art. For a sample of her writing
and photography, visit her blog, Upstream and Down~.
Alice Folkart lives and writes poetry and short fiction in Hawaii. She has found that sand is OK for ukuleles, but not for laptops.
Nell DuVall, freelance writer and consultant, wrote Domestic Technology, a history of household technology.
Fascinated by Ohio history, she found a rich lode in the rivalry between the canals and the early railroads,
which she used in her time travel romance Train to Yesterday. Southern Ohio's Appalachian foothills provide
a bit of paradise for Nell, two cats, five dogs, and Cormac, her pet pig, who's provided material for several
children's stories. As Mel Jacob, she writes occasional reviews for Gumshoe Review and SFRevu.
Carol Hicks writes: “Who am I? I’m still designing me at the age of 77. At this point, I’ve found editing and book reviews to be my special talents. My special loves are, in this order, chocolate, humor, editing, chocolate, book reviews, chocolate, teaching and playing bridge, and humor and chocolate. I live in a retirement village started by J.C. Penney almost 80 years ago.”
Kathy Highcove writes and publishes in the field of non-fiction: articles, interviews, restaurant reviews and continually looks for story ideas in daily events and news items. She enjoys membership in the Internet Writers Workshop and finds her writing enriched by dialogue with her online peer group.
Jessica Jacobson is a writer based in New Jersey. Her guidebook, Roaming Kyrgyzstan: Beyond the Tourist Track, has just been released. She blogs about her travels at http://jjstravels.blogspot.com/.
Carter Jefferson is editor of The Internet Review of Books.
Julie McGuire, fiction editor of The Internet Review of Books, is a paralegal. Her personal essays and poems have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and several small periodicals. She and her family live in Virginia.
Doris E. Pavlichek holds a degree in communications and is a technical writer by trade. She’s published two books on network engineering, poetry in the StrokeNet Newsletter, and historical non-fiction in Constellation magazine. She helps coordinate and participates in biannual poetry readings at the University of Maryland in College Park. Ms. Pavlichek resides in Frederick, MD, with her husband, two children, two English Bulldogs, and three cats.
Sherry Podobnik is the Executive Director of The Pittsburgh Caring Center and Healer’s Network. She has had a private counseling practice for twenty five years that blends traditional psychotherapy with alternative modalities and has a part-time public relations consulting business specializing in the arts. She would rather be writing!
Gary Presley resides in Springfield, Missouri, retired after a career spent primarily in insurance customer service. Although he once had a job writing news and advertising copy for a radio station, his original work was published mostly in local newspapers. He only began serious study of the craft after entering and winning a regional essay contest.
Since then, his essays have appeared in publications ranging from Salon.com to Notre Dame Magazine to The Ozark Mountaineer.
His memoir, Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio, was published by the University of Iowa
Press in October 2008. You can follow his journey through postings to his blog.
Rita Richardson is a freelance writer who lives in Boston and on Cape Cod. She has been published in The Herb Quarterly, The Cape Cod Guide, and Sasee Magazine. She self-published a Paris memoir and researched and compiled a book on Lavender for the Cape Cod Lavender Farm. Rita enjoys walking the city and the shore, reading, cooking and writing about life’s little idiosyncrasies.
Rebeca Schiller is a freelance writer. Her interests include: The Spanish Civil War, the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, and anything having to do with Spanish Civil War veteran, novelist, and Hollywood Ten member Alvah Bessie.
Frank Tachau is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He spent many years residing in the Middle East and is the author of numerous articles and book chapters as well as a book on Turkish politics (Turkey: The Politics of Authority, Democracy, and Development), and an edited encyclopedia of political parties in the Middle East and North Africa.
Joanna M. Weston has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty years. She has two middle-readers: The Willow Tree Girl and Those Blue Shoes, and
Poetry, A Summer Father, published by Frontenac House of Calgary, all in print. Joanne invites you to visit her website.
’Tis the season...
Thanksgiving turkey is a memory, Black Friday has come and gone, and we are now officially in the “holiday season.”
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or just hold in your heart a wish for “peace on earth, good will toward men,” no doubt you have a list of gifts to buy.
What better gift than a book?
We’ve compiled a list of suggestions from readers and reviewers for books that just might make the perfect gift for someone on your list. Browse here and make a list to take to the mall. Better still, shop right here—we’ve made shopping easy!
If you move your mouse over any of the book images, you’ll see an Amazon graphic that lets you order them right here. That would be a favor to us, because we make a few cents on each purchase from this site. So while the IRB is truly a labor of love, we’d be pleased to defray some of our expenses. Thank you!
Fiction
A Novel
By Nicole Krauss
Suggested by Anna BookClover
This is a great gift for the daydreamer or romantic in your life;
it will bring hope and joy into any heart.
When Leo Gursky was very young and living in Eastern Europe he wrote a novel for the woman he loved: The History of Love. Leo and his love were separated when they each escaped to America to avoid Nazi persecution. Sadly, they never found each other.
We meet Leo 60 years later, in New York, where Alma, a girl who has recently lost her dad, lives. She reads The History of Love while her mother is translating it. Intrigued, she decides she wants to meet the author and his love, and begins to look for them.
Although Alma and Leo are very different, they are connected by the experience of having lost someone they loved and both struggled to move on with their lives.
Do not expect this book to be sad and boring; it is not. It is full of joy and hope and will stay with you forever, as only great books do.
By Khaled Hosseini
Suggested by Anna BookClover
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel, is well-written,
honest, and strong on emotion. It is about forgiveness, friendship,
family, and loss.
We meet Amir in Afghanistan; he’s a child enjoying his life, thinking movie stars live in his country. He’s an avid reader (as was his mother, whom he never knew) and a soon-to-be writer.
Amir, from a background of wealth and privilege, is friends with Hassan, the son of a servant. Joyful childhood ends as the country becomes unstable. Amir emigrates to America, leaving his friend’s family in the hands of the Taliban.
Following Amir’s life, we come to love his family, suffer for his losses, run with him to catch a kite. Emotional turmoil eventually leads Amir back to Afghanistan to make what amends he can, and in particular, to ask forgiveness. There he meets someone who will change him forever and teach him to open his heart to the unexpected.
Tears began at page 216. I couldn’t put the book down.
By Wendell Berry
Suggested by Carol Hicks
Wendell Berry, author of the fictional biography of a small town barber, Jayber Crow, confronts us with: NOTICE, BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR: “Persons attempting to find a ‘text’ in this book will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a ‘subtext’ in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise ‘understand’ it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.” If we landed on a desert island with this one book, we would be content. It is a masterpiece: a work of laughter and sadness, beauty of language, and love.
I especially enjoyed his description of the school in town, and his conclusion: “The future presses hard upon a high school, and somehow qualifies and diminishes it.”
Mattie Keith, the focal point of the novel, is introduced in a moment of childlike exuberance: “But it was her eyes that most impressed me ... The brief, laughing look that she had given me made me feel extraordinarily seen, as if after that I might be visible in
the dark.”
Give someone this book and you will be offering them both joy and wisdom “visible in
the dark.”
By Terence Hanbury White
Suggested by Carter Jefferson
One of the best books I’ve ever read. The writing is gorgeous. The
tale came close to making me cry, and that’s no cinch, but parts of it
are hilarious. Finally, everybody simply has to know the story of the
Knights of the Round Table. I vastly enjoyed Howard Pyle’s version when I must have been about ten, found the Mallory medieval source fascinating when I was 20, and revelled in this one at 30 or so. If you haven’t read it, buy two copies and keep one for yourself.
By Pierre Comtois
Suggested by David Daniel
If you’re one of those readers who look back longingly at the Golden Age of Sci-Fi, still probing the sky for personal spacecraft, ruined Martian cities, or high speed rail service on Venus, then look no further than these fables!
Pierre Comtois has spun a series of yarns that are to the carbon-steel grit of cyberpunk what the black and white world of Pleasantville is to the Big Apple: engaging, imaginative, oddly quaint in their charm, and, may I say it, sweet.
Comtois knows his way around the past, and The Way the Future Was is at once retro and as shiny as a new moon-bound rocket! Recommended.
By Thomas Kinkade & Katherine Spencer
Suggested by Doris Pavlichek
If you’re looking for a good holiday gift, you can’t go wrong with The Christmas Star, the intertwined portraits of two small-town families enduring difficult circumstances at the most stressful and exciting time of the year.
Sam and Jessica Morgan are living a wonderful family-centered life when a fire that breaks out in their home just after Thanksgiving leaves them homeless. They live with friends and relatives while they battle the insurance company.
Across town, Jack Sawyer runs the Christmas tree farm where the Morgans bought their tree the night before the fire. Jack’s life is in shambles, his heart no longer in his business or even in his life. He’s still mired in grief two years after the death of his wife. Compounding his loneliness, his adult son left home on bad terms shortly after his mother’s death.
When a young mother and daughter end up stranded near Jack’s farm, they quickly become part of the fabric of the town and part of what will melt Jack’s frozen life. The stories of these ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances inspire and warm the heart at this special time of year.
By James Baldwin
Suggested by Sherry Podobnik
James Baldwin! For me, writing his name sends joy and awe straight to my heart. I have loved him since I was a teenager and found him on a library bookshelf. I devoured all of his satisfying novels, but when I read Giovanni’s Room, I found what I had been searching for. A few pages into it, I felt that stab in the gut, that overwhelming rush that one gets when hearing an absolutely perfect piece of music or falling heart-first into a work of art. I know that it was the elegance of Baldwin’s writing in this short novel that sent me head over heels in love with words.
Giovanni’s Room is a painful story of an uncertain young man in Paris who’s uncomfortable with his sexuality. Baldwin presents a complex series of events with an understated, brilliant use of character and dialogue.
Baldwin wrote so very well that it took several readings for me to understand that it was not merely a tale of repressed desires, but also a cautionary tale of the cost of casual acts of selfishness and unkindness. I re-read it every few years.
Each Christmas, I choose a few friends and give them Giovanni’s Room. It gives deep pleasure to hear their reactions to this author’s soulful genius, and it is my small way of sending my gratitude to James Baldwin, who died of cancer in 1987. I miss him.
A Novel of the Civil War in Indian Territory
By Jack Shakely
Suggested by Carter Jefferson
Jack Gaston finds his studies at Harvard interrupted when he's
called back to Oklahoma to join the Creek Nation's “House of
Warriors”—and become an officer in the Confederate Army. He's not much of an Indian, having been raised by his Anglo mother in St. Louis, and he hates slavery, but he answers the call. It's a tough decision, and a couple of years of tough fighting ensues.
Give this one to anyone who likes historical novels. It's well worth reading, both for its fast-moving plot and Shakely's excellent summation of the action in this little known theater in the Civil War. Despite the sad story of Creek warriors having to fight other Indian tribes as well as Union soldiers, virtue triumphs, and Gaston wins a bride.
Jack Shakely is familiar with the Oklahoma territory. He reports that he's part Creek, but also, as Will Rogers said, has more than enough white blood not to be trusted. You can surely trust him for a good story.
By Bob Sanchez
Suggested by Ruth Douillette
Anyone on your list have a sense of humor? Or maybe you know
someone who could use a good laugh. When Pigs Fly will trigger
plenty of chuckles, and at times had me LOL, as they say.
Sanchez’s first novel is a fast paced, action-oriented quest. Retired cop Mack Durgin sets out from Massachusetts to scatter the ashes of a friend in the Grand Canyon. Little does he suspect that the urn he carries has a winning lottery ticket stashed inside for safe keeping. Others know, though, and quite a cast of characters gets involved, including a pet javelina, who indeed flies.
Chapters toggle between Massachusetts and Arizona, and unexpected events keep the plot racing forward. There is truly never a dull moment. If it sounds like a book that is too crazy to enjoy, that's what I thought, and was I ever wrong.
The Book Babes’ Guide to a Woman’s Reading Pleasures
By Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel
Suggested by Alice Folkart
Two women who love to read, have years of editing experience, and have served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, have compiled information that reading women will find useful.
Between The Covers is an annotated list of the author’s favorite books organized into interesting categories: Babes We Love, Ages and Stages, The Babe Inside, Family & Friends, Love, Sex and Second Chances, Home, Work & Taking Care, Babes in the World, and Babes Without Borders.
The categories are further refined, giving us wise and witty flash-reviews of more than 400 books, both recent and classic.
This book is not only a wonderful resource for the reading woman—a place to go to when wondering, “What shall I read next?”— but also a satisfying read in its own right. I plan to send one to every reading woman on my Christmas list.
A Novel
By Nancy Horan
Suggested by Rita Richardson
If you know some one who loves architecture, well-crafted prose, historical fiction, and a darn good love story with enough twists and turns to break a heart, do I have a gift for them!
The noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright comes alive in all his artistic flamboyance, and culminates in the construction of his beloved house, Taliesin.
Set amid an era of suffragettes, emerging feminism, and moral groundbreaking, Frank Wright and Mamah Borthwick begin an affair while he oversees the building of a home for her and her husband in Chicago in the early 1900s.
The pair leaves their spouses and children, causing a huge scandal that dogs them throughout Europe, Japan, New York, Chicago and Wisconsin. Mamah and Frank are soul mates, intellectual equals, rule breakers and truth seekers. Their love story is riddled with guilt, pride, and finally a huge tragedy that I won’t give away.
History, architecture, nature, poetry—this novel has it all and then some.
Non-Fiction
Stories of How Nature Heals and Unifies
By Tom Stoner and Carolyn Rapp
Suggested by Carter Jefferson
Inspired by a small, secluded, and safe park in the center of teeming London, Tom and Kitty Stoner came home to the Chesapeake Bay area determined to create such oases anywhere they could. “Certain spaces can transform you . . . certain spaces are sacred,” Stoner writes. Not sacred in a particular religious sense, but sacred in that people can back off from the cares of daily life to contemplate the joys of peace and calm.
The Stoners helped to inspire and finance the building of such parks in places like inner city Baltimore, where even drug dealers have tacitly accepted them as safe havens for anyone. One park is on the grounds of a prison, one on a traffic island, another near an HIV hospital. The Stoners didn’t build the parks; that was done by local leaders—pastors, wardens, administrators—and residents of the communities involved.
Filled with colorful photographs of these islands of tranquility, this volume made me marvel that a sense of community could be built in unlikely places, the recapture of gentle humanity in a fiercely competitive world.
Give this book to someone, and perhaps encourage the creation of yet another resting place amid the madding crowd.
By Sari Nusseibeh
Suggested by Frank Tachau
I find the book to be fascinating. It’s the autobiography of a leading, highly unusual Palestinian. Coming from an elite background, armed with graduate degrees from Oxford and Harvard, he has devoted his career largely to academics (he is the president of the only Arab university in Jerusalem) and to non-violence in the continuing struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. The book should be refreshing for both supporters of Israel and the Palestinians. It provides a thin ray of hope.
A “HISTORY MEDLEY”
Suggested by Gary Presley
A history buff on your gift list? Wrap up a novel covering the same event. As George Sand said, “Life resembles a novel more often than a novel resembles life.”
A little research will make for easy pairings. Ivanhoe with Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror. Jarhead with Woodward’s The Commanders. It will be easier than fighting traffic at the local mall.
The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
By Doris Kearns Goodwin
Suggested by Kathy Highcove
American citizens called for change. A plethora of candidates campaigned for their votes, public forums discussed the future of new Western territories, and dangerous dissension polarized the country. In the1850s the United States seethed with unsettled issues—the slavery issue caused heated arguments and debates in every state of the Union.
Abraham Lincoln, a rough-hewn, genial, and hard-working backwoods lawyer, carefully laid the foundation of his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. He networked in rural communities, kept track of his political rivals, and subtly promoted his nomination by the Republican Convention. Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, is an accurate and readable account of the Lincoln presidency—the man and his methods.
Goodwin shows us a man who was shaped by his time, and who became the perfect president during the tragic Civil War years. He valued intelligence, insight, and accurate analysis. Lincoln enlisted both friends and political rivals for his cabinet. ”Yes-men“ need not apply.
Team of Rivals clearly portrays the special qualities of the Lincoln presidency—American citizens of 2008 might find this historical work instructive.
By André Kertész
Suggested by Nancy R. Davison
Photographer André Kértész finds readers and references to
reading everywhere in this clever and engaging book. His intense
black and white photographs, taken between 1915 and 1970,
show people intent on their reading, often in unlikely places.
Three Hungarian urchins sit on a pile of rubble to share a book in 1915.
Readers enjoying the sun are nearly lost among the chimney pots and ventilators
on rooftops in Greenwich Village. A cow studies a newspaper read by a dapper man
who wears a beret, and passersby ignore the painting of a Hebrew scholar that
leans against an outside wall. Readers with their attention focused on the page
in front of them temporarily inhabit a different world from the one that surrounds
them. We, in turn, temporarily observe the world of these readers. Other photos
show libraries with or without people.
Originally published in 1971, On Reading has been ”reissued with striking new duotone reproductions“ and a new preface. The images are higher in contrast than the ones I saw at the Portland Art Museum exhibition in Maine, but Kertész himself used a #2 pencil to adjust the contrast in his books and photographs whenever he got the chance.
This charming book is a gift from me to myself. I would happily give it to anyone who likes to read or who enjoys photographs.
Barron’s Cooking Guide, 3rd Edition
By Sharon Tyler Herbst
Suggested by Rita Richardson
You don’t have to be a gourmet cook, just a curious eater to enjoy
the contents of Food Lover’s Companion.
I’ve given this chunky paperback to friends and family for housewarming or hostess gifts.
It contains over 6,000 items, listed alphabetically, from Abalone to Zwieback. Correct pronunciation and a succinct description follows each bold-faced entry. Priced under $20.00 per copy, you certainly get your money’s worth in its hefty 772 pages.
So what, you might say to yourself. I think I know all I need to know about the food I eat, but did you know that:
Tapioca is made from the casava (yucca) root?
Japanese chop sticks are pointed at the eating end;
Chinese ones are blunt?
The term jambalaya comes from the French word
for ham: jambon?
That the lingonberry is a relative of the cranberry ?
Food Lover’s Companion makes an excellent gift for a holiday grab, secret Santa, or a stocking stuffer.
We all have to eat, and this book provides basic yet interesting information in a clear and precise manner. There is food for thought here for everyone from the trivia buff to the weekend gourmet.
Put it on your wish list or buy one for yourself. It will never go out of style.
A Life Beyond Polio
By Gary Presley
Suggested by Sherry Podobnik
What do you do when your life as you know it is wrenched
from your grasp? Do you bow to the inevitable and succumb to
the limitations so suddenly imposed? Some dwell on their lot
and losses and never rise.
The healing path is crowded with obstacles—judgments of self and judgments by others, limitations and degradations from the systems that are supposed to bring ease and comfort. Anyone who has had to face deep life crisis knows the incredible strength it takes to gather your resources, keep your mind focused, and learn how to live again.
Seven Wheelchairs is a moving, brilliantly crafted, true story of a man who moves mountains. Gary was a vibrant, healthy 17 year-old one day and a boy in an iron lung the next. His decision not to run from his feelings but to experience them and finally share them completely in this book is our blessing. Seven Wheelchairs is not merely an inspirational book; it is an invitation to meet a fine man who shows us what it means to be fully engaged in life.
The Storycorps project
By David Isay
Suggested by Jessica Jacobson
Think the heartwarming vibes from Chicken Soup books, but so much more raw and moving. The Story Corps project captures the conversations between pairs of people across America. From New Town, North Dakota, to New York City, friends, relatives and colleagues discuss history, hardship, survival, love, heartbreak, and perseverance. Reading this book will take you into a blossoming romance between employees in a public school, into a conversation between two prisoners, into a hospital after Hurricane Katrina, into a burning tower on 9/11 and into the life of a Pentecostal preacher’s son. The characters are male and female, young and old, wealthy and poor, of varied races and backgrounds. The compilation of stories not only provides a great slice of American history. It shows readers that we are all more alike than we are different.
By Naomi Wolf
Suggested by Jessica Jacobson
Give Me Liberty is an inspiring guide for how and why to take citizen action, especially useful in this new political period. She writes about the change that can result from small actions, how steps taken by individuals and communities can have national impact. Practical tips include everything from how to write a press release to how to lead a boycott to how to get government files. An empowering book for those who want to reclaim
citizen democracy.
By Alvah Bessie, One of the Hollywood Ten
(Out of print, but available used on Amazon)
Suggested by Rebeca Schiller
In this wry narrative Bessie writes the behind-the scenes story
of the “unfriendly witnesses”—ten screenwriters, producers,
and directors who were sent to prison for contempt of court when they refused
to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Structured like a
screenplay, Inquisition moves back and forth with Bessie’s
recollections of his early days as an actor on the New York stage; life in Vermont
with his young family, struggling to write and keep food on the table; his return
to New York after the Spanish Civil War and his appointment as the drama critic for
the New Masses; to his heady days in Hollywood as a “Red”
screenwriter at Warner Brothers studios, and finally his time at the Federal Correctional
Institute at Texarkana, Texas. If you’re a political lefty throwback like me,
you’ll find yourself cheering at the Hollywood Ten’s refusal of naming names
and standing up for their beliefs. Reading Inquisition in Eden,
you’ll want to read more books and stories by Alvah Bessie.
A War Story
By Diane Ackerman
Recommended by Rebeca Schiller
Diane Ackerman, the author of the best-selling A Natural History of the Senses, brings to life the amazing and courageous story of Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski who saved more than 300 hundred Jews from the Warsaw ghetto by hiding them in their house and throughout the zoo. From Antonina’s memoirs, Ackerman poignantly writes of this brave woman’s relationships with all creatures great and small. The stories of Tuzinka, one of the 12 elephants born in captivity, and the misadventures of Badger, the Zabinski’s family pet, will leave readers smiling. Tears may fall at the tales of keeping Warsaw’s Jews hidden safely. For those interested in the Holocaust, this is a story that ends happily and it’s one of those books that you’ll wish would never end.
By Greg Mortenson
Suggested by Marty Carlock
Tired of accumulating Christmas presents, however thoughtfully chosen (and most were), I began a few years ago asking my grown children to contribute instead in my name to some worthy cause. I’ve gotten gifts via Heifer, the ACLU and the Sempervirens Society, which saves California redwood forests. I’ve reciprocated in the same way.
Then last year I read Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortensen’s saga in the mountain villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This physician-mountaineer, aided by the people of a remote village, promised in gratitude to build a school for them—insisting only that girls as well as boys attend it. He refuses US government aid, sure that the tribal leaders would reject him if they thought him an agent of our government. What he is doing seemed to me to be a ground level solution to many of the world’s problems.
So last Christmas I gave all my kids copies of the book plus a contribution to Mortensen’s donor-funded Central Asia Institute. (One of them probably hasn’t gotten around to reading it, but he said he liked the concept and was happy with “his” present.)
This may be my way of celebrating for some time to come.
Poetry
By Edward Carson
Suggested by Joanna M. Weston
To give this book to a friend, spouse, lover, is to admit one’s love
for them, to acknowledge that the exploration of love is as great
as the living out of love. It is a treasure of thought and wonder,
an offering of gentleness that “begins to look like the glory of light returning,” a touch, a look, a shared experience, and a love letter.
Carson uses wind as one of the metaphors to explore the secrets of love, where it comes from, where it goes, its invisibility, and how much we learn from it.
“In coming together there is no shape of things to keep in mind,” he says, knowing that “one thing is now another,” for “we think of a love that becomes the wind.” He comes to no conclusions, but points always to love’s enigmas, teasing and tantalizing.
This poetry is a treasure, a gift for someone loved: it is a probing of the mysterious dimensions of love.
By Pablo Neruda
Suggested by Julie McGuire
I am a long-time fan of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Before we were married, my husband, on our first Christmas together, gave me Neruda’s Book of Questions. (He had been paying attention when I mentioned my favorite poet). My husband is not a fan of poetry, but he is a great gift-giver. With this gift Book of Questions, he stole my heart.
Published shortly Neruda’s death in 1973, Neruda’s Book of Questions is a series of poems in question form. The question-poems are haunting, provocative, funny, and sometimes absurd. Consider: “What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?” or “Whom can I ask what I came to make happen in this world?” and one of my favorites, “Why don’t they train helicopters to suck honey from the sunlight?
Book of Questions is a perfect gift for fans of Neruda and poetry lovers of all kinds. It is also wonderful for those leery of poetry (these are simple, elegant, and fun), and as a gift for the young people in your life—many of the question-poems are great conversation starters. My copy sits on the desk at my office, a reminder of that first Christmas with my husband, and a testament to the power of words to transform.
Children
AIKO
By Kim Bundy
Suggested by Nell DuVall
Aiko, with sketches by Sally Less, the first book published the Sprite Press and my personal favorite. The loving relationship of the old couple and their willingness to share what they have with a homeless girl. Aiko retells the Japanese tale of the crane. A poor fisherman finds a trapped crane and frees it. A hungry young woman comes to his home and begs shelter. The fisherman and his wife take her in and feed her. In gratitude, the girl weaves fabric and gives it to the fisherman to sell. The money from the cloth improves their well-being. When the fisherman discovers the secret of the cloth, Aiko must leave. I cry every time I read it. The beautiful pen and ink sketches have an oriental flavor. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
BEETLEBOPPER
By Peggy Hanna
Suggested by Nell DuVall
Beetlebopper, illustrated by Loretta Jacobson, describes the rejection a colorful bug receives from the other bug. They consider him a danger because of his colorful appearance. Most bugs scare children, but Beetlebopper scares no one, not even Baby. Children laugh at him and admire his colors and tricks. He discovers being funny and admired works for him. Jacobson’s pictures add character to the story. I especially like the one of Baby and Beetlebopper.
CANNEH THE RELUCTANT
CHRISTMAS CAMEL
By Margaret Leis Hanna
Suggested by Nell DuVall
Canneh the Reluctant Christmas Camel, illustrated by Dave Weltner, describes how a contrary camel is forced to carry a king and the gifts he bears. In a charming story for the Christmas season, the other two camels teach Canneh a few lessons on the way to Bethlehem. Weltner catches the spirit of the camels with insight and a touch of whimsy.
THE TOAD PRINCESS
By Tenaya Jacob
Suggested by Nell DuVall
The Toad Princess, illustrated by David North, reveals how two less than beautiful people find love and acceptance. Looks aren’t everything, and even an unattractive prince and princess have a right to happiness. A fairy godmother helps the princess in her quest. North’s illustrations add color and dimensions to the tale.
By Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Suggested by Ruth Douillette
I bought The Jolly Christmas Postman 17 years ago. It enthralled my three children and became a Christmas favorite we put away with the decorations in January and rediscovered with delight each December. It’s been shelved for many a year. Recently my four-year-old granddaughter discovered it and reminded me of its magic.
The jolly postman sets off with a pack on his back to deliver Christmas cards to familiar nursery rhyme characters. Each section of text is followed by an envelope, addressed, stamped, postmarked, and containing a card or some sort of greeting.
Humpty Dumpty of Wincy Ward, Cock Robin Memorial Hospital, receives a jigsaw puzzle that says, ”Humpty Dumpty falls to bits. Put him together—see how he fits.”
Baby Bear’s card from Goldilocks, postmarked at Banbury Cross at 1:15 PM on 23 DEC 1988, arrives at Four Bears Cottage, The Woods.
Billed as a children’s book for ages 4-8, this is full of small details that will charm adults too. In fact, it would make a great gift for your own postman or postlady.
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