Creators Books

Let me first compliment Brenda Lange and Kyle Zimmer on their attempts to disseminate information regarding this prolific, yet virtually unknown, creator and writer of the some of the world's best known juvenile book series. I encourage its inclusion in any reader's collection on the history of juvenile literature and give this aspect of the book, four stars.

However, it is a shame that these authors did not consult Edward Stratemeyer's family or more fully use the considerable knowledge of Syndicate researcher, James Keeline, for their book's research. For this reason, I had to exclude one star from my review. Stratemeyer Syndicate ghost writer Leslie McFarlane's biography and many previously published Syndicate history offerings were a poor resource as they contain many inaccuracies in their data and their personal depictions of Edward Stratemeyer. McFarlane never met Edward personally or even spoke to him on the phone. I am somewhat dismayed at this published repetition of this aspect of such inadequately researched Syndicate material.

Clearly, the full and completely accurate story of Edward Stratemeyer will still have to wait for the comprehensive book my sister and I are writing about the personal history of our great-grandfather, and James Keeline's study of this incredible man and his writing syndicate.

Chelsea House's "Who Wrote That?" biography series features the lives of authors familiar to young adults. They won't recognize the name Edward Stratemeyer right off the bat, though. He began as a writer in his own right and gradually became the driving force behind the publication of a myriad of mystery series aimed at teenagers in the early 1900s. Among his most popular character-creations were the Rover Boys, Tom Swift, the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew. While he outlined the plots, a variety of individuals in his "Stratemeyer Snydicate" actually penned the texts.

Not much is known about Stratemeyer's personal life, so a large portion of this volume is spent in focus on the series books themselves. Lange includes quotes from some of the "real" authors who had initially agreed to Stratemeyer's silent ghostwriter rule. She also summarizes research about the series' popularity over the years and how they were the right publications for the right audience at the right time. For example, the fictional depiction of independent young females like Nancy Drew gave credence to the real-life feminism of the day.

Diehard fans of all ages may find it disconcerting to learn that no Carolyn Keene or Franklin W. Dixon exist. While that knowledge might take away some of the magic and appeal of the titles, it also serves as proof of the success of such a publishing endeavor. Equally disturbing may be the fact that our heroes are all pretty old: Frank and Joe Hardy and Nancy Drew first showed up in print in the 1930s, and the Bobbsey Twins appeared in 1904! And yet they endure and remain among the classics of children's literature.

This is a good overview of the history of modern war gaming, including the politics, egos and military culture generated by this practice. However, it is disturbing to learn that it is not customary for American political Big Shots to engage in these crisis simulation games. When informed of this in the 80s, West Germans generals were shocked. What's the point of all this modeling if the real world people who may have to implement crisis actions never participate? The air of unreality associated with efforts to mathematically replicate an army's actual behavior and performance in war is almost amusing. The author's writing style, while not particularly dynamic, does allow readers to glimpse the mindset of some gamers, who seem to be sensitive to accusations that they're playing Avalon games (essentially they are.) This book was published in 1987, so it's themes of USA-USSR global and tactical war seems a bit like fiction, but the ideas and inherent flaws are the same. What I would love to see in an updated edition is whether the Iraq war was war gamed.

A bit dated now, but a good overview of the early days of the US simulation and conflict modeling industry and its development as computers began to take over. This could not have been an easy book to research but Allen does an excellent job and the notes and sources sections are detailed and serve as excellent tools for further learning. Allen points out that, while the humans had difficulty pushing the nuclear button in the earliest games, it seemed to become easier as the decisions in the simulations were being made by computers.

I've resd lots of Conversations books over the years. Usually the interviewers uncover some sharp talkers as well as some duds. Here the unpleasant event is Jason Robert Brown, who seems like an egomaniacal nitwit with nothing good to say about anybody, who blames the failure of PARADE on the stupidity of American theater audiences, yet allows that there's no reason really for anyone to have a good time while seeing it.

Tommy Tune wins the Congeniality Award for admitting that the later Antonio Banderas revival of NINE was at least as good as the production he had pioneered himself way back when. That took a lot of balls I think, for anyone else might have merely sniffed and indicated otherwise. Some of the participants have been around in musical theater for only five minutes and yet they are the ones who yammer on and on just as fully as if their careers had lasted back into the 1920s. Speaking of lengthy careers, Burton Lane is very mysterious about his problems with Alan Jay Lerner in ON A CLEAR DAY, and the focus is on his Broadway work which precludes him from talking much about his wonderful work with the Freed Unit.

Arthur Laurents seems more balanced here than he did in his memoir, while I felt sad for Betty Comden and Adolph Green who it seems never got over the failure of their DOLLS LIFE musical. They seem stuck on it, like the lion with the thorn in his paw he just can't seem to get out.

The interviewers seem sharp and pretty well prepared. In a couple of cases I felt they had been warned not to discuss certain sensitive issues with their subjects, for there are some gaping holes in the narratives of, say, Sheldon Harnick and Tommy Tune. The biggest laugh? Charles Strouse's insistence that ANNIE WARBUCKS is as great a musical treat as ANNIE. He just doesn't leave it alone. It's his King Charles' head as Dickens used to say.

This lady could have been a great scientist as she was meticulous in observation and wanted to be a biologist. However she was a dutiful daughter and turned her talents first to writing and illustrating childrens stories and later to being an innovative and hardworking farmer and breeder of sheep. Her intense love of the beauty of the lake district and the old villages led into the conservation movement and she helped the birth of the National Trust in England.

Perhaps you're familiar with the name Benton MacKaye (1879-1975); at the very least, you've heard of the Appalachian Trail. You might see the title of this book and say, "Oh, OK, he was the guy who thought up the idea for a footpath from Maine to Georgia. Big deal. I've never stepped on it, so why should I care about him?" Well, without Benton MacKaye, we probably wouldn't have the Trail. We might not have a Wilderness Society, the Wilderness Act of 1964, the National Trail Systems Act of 1968, or the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. We might not have Shenandoah National Park in Virginia or the Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border. We could instead have just interstate highways crowning the entire length of the eastern mountain range. We could conceivably have uninterrupted suburbia from the Atlantic coastline to the Midwest, with little consideration given to the mountains or any natural area in between. Benton MacKaye might very well be one of the most influential 20th-century American environmentalists you've never heard of.

A New Englander with a Harvard graduate degree in forestry, MacKaye spent most of his professional life taking a variety of short-term government or association jobs that dealt with conservation issues. Eventually he carved a niche for himself as an outspoken regional planner. He was adept at writing articles and proposing legislation that included catchy words or concepts: geotechnics, new exploration, townless highways, highwayless towns, watershed democracies, wildland belts, and habitability. For MacKaye was at heart a boy who loved to wander through the natural landscape of central Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. In the early 1900s, he was already worried about increasing numbers of motorists invading those wild spaces, particularly into the region's mountainous areas. He spent the majority of his life fighting to keep those places "sound-proof as well as sight-proof" from the intrusion of contemporary civilization. In some ways, he was the Thoreau of his day.

The formal publication of "The Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning" (included here as an appendix) came to fruition in 1921, and it laid the foundation for the rest of his articles and essays. We who consider ourselves environmentalists today find his words still striking an inner chord. MacKaye wrote in the 1950s: "Verily, the first and simplest rule on earth: Give back to the earth that which we take from her. Return the good we have borrowed; in short, pay our ecological bills. Pay them in dirt, not dollars. It's the only currency the good earth accepts. Too long have we lived on dollar ecology." (p. 336) Yes, Mr. MacKaye, yes. Let's shout that one from the mountaintops, if we can still find them.

Anderson is admirably neutral in presenting the facts and interpreting MacKaye's connections with and influences on more "famous" individuals like Lewis Mumford, Aldo Leopold, Bob Marshall, and Olaus Murie. That must have been a tough job indeed, since the author obviously spent a huge amount of time with his subject. The resulting details are valuable to have compiled into one volume but might limit readership to scholars of the AT or of the environmental movement. With every turn of a page, though, his chronicle of MacKaye's endeavors brings home a basic truth that still holds today: that every environmental debate is a political one. We can be either encouraged or chagrined by that knowledge.

Interesting and novel perspective on management balance between the forces of change and those of continuing operations.
Lew Allyn, Chairman
Welch Allyn, Inc.

Change Creators & Momentum Maximizers provides a fresh and insightful description of organizations and their productivity. This book catalyzes fundamental business structure and operations dynamics to yield a clear description and new perspective regarding the process of change within organizations.
Carl E. Bretko, President/COO - DentalEz Group

An interesting and well presented treatise that can be helpful and thought provoking for top management. Since Momentum Maximizers and Change Creators are relatively new terms, they can be useful in managing an organization.
Albert Duval, CEO & Chairman - Hammermill Paper Co (retired)

Author offers a very interesting premise in the way he segments the activities in a business. It's a logical and rational way to differentiate the various drivers that are present.
James Perry, President & CEO - Global Thermoelectric Inc. (Canada)

William Miller has written a rare common sense guide through the jungle of the supply chain to maximize productivity while also driving change. The book is well written and erudite, unusual in management books.
D.E.I. Smyth, Senior Vice President, Corporate and Government Affairs, H.J. Heinz Company

This is a strong concept, present early in the text...unique and well presented. This is a good, no-nonsense book that should be helpful to those that read it.
Writers Showcase Review

Interesting and novel perspective on management balance between the forces of change and those of continuing operations.
Lew Allyn, Chairman,
Welch Allyn, Inc.

Change Creators & Momentum Maximizers provides a fresh and insightful description of organizations and their productivity. This book catalyzes fundamental business structure and operations dynamics to yield a clear description and new perspective regarding the process of change within organizations.
Carl E. Bretko, President/COO -
DentalEz Group

An interesting and well presented treatise that can be helpful and thought provoking for top management. Since Momentum Maximizers and Change Creators are relatively new terms, they can be useful in managing an organization.
Albert Duval, CEO & Chairman -
Hammermill Paper Co (retired)

Author offers a very interesting premise in the way he segments the activities in a business. It's a logical and rational way to differentiate the various drivers that are present.

James Perry, President & CEO -
Global Thermoelectric Inc. (Canada)

William Miller has written a rare common sense guide through the jungle of the supply chain to maximize productivity while also driving change. The book is well written and erudite, unusual in management books.
D.E.I. Smyth, Senior Vice President, Corporate and Government Affairs,
H.J. Heinz Company

This is a strong concept, present early in the text...unique and well presented. This is a good, no-nonsense book that should be helpful to those that read it.
Writers Showcase Review

I'm a big web-spinning Spider-Man fanboy, no doubt about it. And to that geek, this book rocks hard. It's a 200-page series of interviews with some of the biggest creators of Spider-Man comic books over the past 40 years, from Stan Lee to Todd McFarlane to Brian Bendis. And it's just packed full of trivia, insight and critiques. I really get into these "behind the scenes" comic tomes, and this one's a winner. There's great comments by Lee on the creation of Spidey, as well as really thorough interviews with the writers I grew up on -- Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, and the underrated Roger Stern, who for my money wrote the best Spider-Man stories of all in the mid-1980s. We learn what went on behind the scenes with some classic stories and get each writer and artist's thoughts on what makes Spidey tick.

I particularly enjoyed how "Comic Creators" isn't some glossy tribute that overlooked the bad. It's compiled and the interviews are conducted by longtime "Spidey" writer Tom DeFalco, who comes at the subject with an insider's eye. Creators are pretty free with thoughts here on stories that didn't work, and the late 1990s nadir for Spider-Man comics, the bloated, bleak "Clone saga" and "Maximum Carnage" eras, come in for a well-deserved beating. Everyone involved seems to blame the disaster on Marvel editorial dictates. For instance, David Micheline, writer of "Amazing Spider-Man" at the time when there was a rather lousy storyline involving the possible return of Peter Parker's long-dead parents, reveals that he was forced to bring them back by an editor who apparently didn't even know how to end the storyline himself. The book does a good job showing how Spidey's appeal has kept up through the years, and gives you an insight into the creative process.

It's a interestig book: Tom DeFalco told the X-Men's history throught interviews with his creators: writers, artists, editors...

What an interesting collection of thought provoking poems! The style is cleverly straight-forward and beautifully written from the heart. Loved it.