Canada Books

Having borrowed this book from our public library I wanted a copy of my own to use as a resource for children's programming at our local historical society. It gives so much information and the illustrations are wonderful.

There are times when history books written for the younger set are wonderful sources of information that most 'adult' (or mature) history books do not touch upon. And "A Pioneer Sampler" is one of those books.
It is written in storyform about the daily lives of the Robertson family, pioneers living on a backwoods farm in the 1840's. Throughout this 237 page book we learn, in a fun and interesting way, how this family dealt with the everyday living that a typical family of the time might have lived: their chores, crafts, eating habits, their spare time. Tools used, how to milk a cow, making maple sugar, harvest time, visiting a general store, building a house...so much interesting historical living written in a very simplistic manner.
Interspersed throughout are sidelines of information pertaining to the subject being written. For instance, there is a chapter about a peddler's visit to the family and the families reaction to this traveling salesman. But, at the end of the chapter, there are a few pages thrown in speaking of individual peddler's trades and how they do their crafts.
Most of the chapters are set up in this way, which adds greatly to understanding more fully the chapters.
I would love to see more books in this form for other era's in American history, as this style or history writing can entertain and teach all - kids as well as adults - who have an interest.
Highly recommended.

The Pioneer Sampler

The Pioneer Sampler is a fun and fascinating book. It tells about a pioneer family. Can Nekeek and Willy catch fish by hand? You'll find out. This is a fun book.
I'd give this book a five *...

I loved this book. I read it before I gave it to my daughter. It is a fictional family, but all the information is true to life. Interspersed with the story of the Robertsons, you can learn how to make your own cheese, dip a candle, or learn to tell the time from the sun.
This book will add to your library, and is a nice complement to Laura Ingalls Wilders books. Homeschooling familys will enjoy it, I know we did.

Barbara Greenwood has written a wonderful book that is as much fun for adults to read to children as it is for the children to read themselves. She doesn't just 'tell' about the Robertson's, she 'shows', drawing the reader into their lives...a pleasant place to be. I especially love Granny's story about how she came to America,on a ship, from Scotland.

The book is beautifully illustrated...all the way through...by Heather Collins. The pictures are so well done that, even as an adult, I would like to step into the scene!

There are instructions for simple, fun activities such as growing a potato plant, dyeing fabric using an onion, or making a cardboard jumping jack; pioneer games that will even entertain today's children for hours such as shadow shapes or knucklebones; and recipes that are easy for children.

Reading this book to a child is a great 'stress releaver'...it's like a little escape from the treadmill of life!!!

Pirate's Passage is a great pirate book - especially for kids! Guess I am just a big pirate kid! lol

Argh! Pirate's Passage is a book that suggests a view that some pirate's weren't bad and some hero's were bad. In the story a strange man comes to where Jim is living and teaches him about pirate's. In the book Jim uses pirate strategies to solve problems of his own. His friend, Jenny, accompanies him in some of the lessons the man teaches and in some of Jim's adventure's. If you are interested in pirates you should read this book. It is a very good book that I enjoyed reading. The pirate's in the story were real pirates. It is both fiction and nonfiction combined. It is a great story and you get to learn a little bit about pirates. I highly recommend this book. Happy reading mateys!

Sailor, journalist, and historian William Gilkerson presents Pirate's Passage is an award-winning novel for young adults, combining the history of Western piracy with a tale of adventure and intrigue. When a windstorm forces a small boat to seek refuge at port on the Nova Scotia coast in 1952, its old sea captain changes the life of an ordinary family, and regales a young boy named Jim with exciting stories about pirates. Readers of all ages are sure to enjoy this lengthy and enthralling saga, sparsely illustrated with black-and-white sketches by the author.

As an aged Pirate I be reading many books 'bout priating as can be found. Shipmate Gilkerson has been tell'n tales about his run'ins with local pirates along the Northern coast, and witen't them down fer others to read that be learned an all. Those young at heart be enjoy'n such tales as be written here. Those calloused of heart be hear'n tales that they be creating and might be soften some.

So if ye be like'n tales of the sea woven with with tales of shorelife, ye be likin this here book. Lad's being the center of this tale may be likin' this book better than lass's who have less of a part in the narration.

This book first attracted my attention because of the pirate theme. I was looking for something to read to my son. This book has been great because it is keeping us both very engaged and giving us lots to talk about, tons of new words and concepts for his fertile mind - and mine. If history were this fascinating when I was in school, I would have paid closer attention!

I will warn that while fascinating, the straightforward details are fairly graphic - the non-glorious aspects of a battle and the payment schedules for lost limbs are mentioned, for example. While I do not feel the author dwelled on them, he did mention them which I think is important to portraying a more realistic picture. So, I do not read this before bedtime, instead I read it to my son in the mornings while he was waking up (which I have found makes our morning routine much more pleasant all the way around). Also, I do find myself naturally swapping some vocabulary along the way to make it easier for him to read, but I would rather have it that way. It probably would be more appropriate for a slightly older kid, but I am glad we stumbled upon it - what a true treasure!

By the way, I very much agree with the second reviewer's suggestions about adding a glossary, ship schematic, and such.

The text is technical and takes some work to understand but the effort pays off. The pictures are beautiful and flesh out the text. A wonderful aid to getting closer to some amazing creatures.

This guide is more like a textbook in its attention to detail, and I rate it the best raptor guide I have seen and read. The photos are great, showing various poses and the way the birds look as juveniles and as adults of both sexes, and the text covers all the traits, habitat, morphs, etc. to help I.D. and understand the birds.

This book is wonderfull. With dozens of photos for each bird, this REALLY helps an amateur identify a bird. The best in it's class!

This is the most comprehensive guide available. The species discussions include practically everything you need to know (molts, morphs, subspecies, habits, etc), and covers Western variants rarely covered in other works. The range maps by Economidy and Wheeler are the gold standard and will, it is to be hoped, encourage others to produce such extremely precise maps. It is a reference work, too large to fit in a pocket, but is indispensable. Keep this in your vehicle and Clark & Wheeler's Hawks of North America in your pocket, and you've got our western raptors covered.

Brian Wheeler has created what are likely to be THE standard guides to these taxa for the foreseeable future. Excellent photos, tremendous detail--a heroic effort with incredibly helpful results.
But what is wrong at Princeton UP? First they mess up Olsen's _Gulls_ to the point that the entire edition is pulped; and now Wheeler's text in both books is marred by what you would think would be embarrassing editorial errors. Wheeler's prose, for the most part serviceable, was obviously never read by an editor, and there are entire passages that make no sense (fortunately, they only rarely include identification matters). The very first page of the author's introduction has a shameful printing error, an entire half-line left blank.
This is a great book, I own it, I use it, I recommend it every chance I get; but the editorial and production slips make me wonder if Princeton has given up on its birding program--or whether it maybe ought to.

Rebellion in the Mohawk Valley: The St. Leger Expedition of 1777. Gavin K. Watt. 2002. 429 pages.

I decided to read this book because it has great reviews and it covers a subject I am interested in. Essentially this book is about the Operational Level of Command. The commander in question is LTC Barry St. Leger and his mission is to drive from Canada via Fort Niagara through the Mohawk Valley and link up with Burgoyne and Clinton at Albany. St.Leger's command was in many ways a thoroughly modern version of coalition warfare. His force consisted of British regulars, loyalist militia, Amerindians, and German Regulars.

The book is well researched and even though it is written by a Canadian it is fair and balanced in its approach and in its descriptive language. It is a valuable addition to the literature about this operation and to the Battle of Oriskany as well. It does a very good job of explaining the upfront and the behind the scenes maneuvering on both sides mixing the personal, the political, and the military deftly. How ever it is in that mixing that one of the two problems from my point of view with the text occurs.

This is that there is little warning that we are going to shift our focus from one point of view to another. The transitions from person to person from side to side are helter skelter. It seems to be a case of trying to get too much out in a small space. The book suffers from poor organization of the narrative with in the story as it were. Some readers may have no problem with this but I found it to be a bit distracting. I would have preferred to not do everything across the spectrum at the same time but rather shape it more like a novel. Shape it by following a thread to a point just before the climax of the story. Do this with each aspect and thread and then meld them maybe at the climax of the story. I think this would make the book easier to read and understand and make the story better for those who pick up the book as a casual read.

The other aspect I did not like was that the author has done a poor job of introducing the actors in the drama. At some level he must feel that the reader of this book would be familiar enough with the actors that they need no introduction or perspective. He does several times introduce the actors on the stage and then later on fill in some data as he deems it pertinent to the story. I think perhaps by altering the organization as aforementioned would allow him to introduce briefly the actors for that segment up front. This becomes important when several actors are related and share names and other characters not related also have similar or like names. A relational chart for the various sides or a order of battle with command figures would really be helpful.

Otherwise if you are interested in learning more about the Battle of Oriskany, Burgoyne's campaign, The Siege at Fort Stanwix, or the Northern Operations of 1777 this is an excellent addition to a reading list.

Leave it to Gavin Watt to get the point accross with dash. THe book is very well researched and the research shows in the writing.

We are introduced to many people in such a way that you feel you can shake their hand. The events mentioned are told with such passion that you can feel the action taking lace around you. It is all real.

This is the best book I have ever read about the campaigns in this region of NY. As a serious student of loyalists and a reenactor with the Butler's Rangers, this gives me a better understanding of how a person in my "real" unit would have behaved in the wilds of Ny in 1777.

This book by Gavin Watt marks the current peak of his writings. "Rebellion In The Mowhawk Valley" is but the latest in his series of extremely thoroughly researched histories during the time of the American Rebellion.
This correctly and highly detailed, well balanced book is excecuted so well, that it is extremely readable; and quite a story as well. It was such a marvel to read that I was loath to put it down. I simply consumed it!
It occupies a special place amongst my historical reference books. I can't wait to read it again!

Gavin Watt's latest contribution to the history of the American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley in New York (Rebellion in the Mohawk) is a wonderful account and the research matches that of his previous books. A very well-written, smooth reading account and once again, the author's research is impeccable. What is particularly appealing (to both scholars and the general reader) is the extensive footnotes which provide the little known (or previously unknown) background details that Watt and his co-author/researcher James Morrison provide along with deductive reasoning and especially the interjection of various small details of original accounts that add "spice" and some levity to the book; for example Watt including this rare quote from original documents relating "the Royal Yorkers being ordered not to wear their shoes when fishing!". Such aspects provide one with a true sense of what it would have been like at that time.
Overall, another excellent addition to the library of those interested in the American Revolution, irregardless of the exact phase; again a fine job by the author. I highly recommend it.

The Rebellion In The Mohawk Valley, The St. Leger Expedition of 1777 is the third book in Gavin Watt's trilogy about the turmoil that swept through that region during the American Revolution. There's a certain sense of dread and doom as one reads through the book, especially for Canadians who may identify with the hopes and aspirations of the Loyalists as the 1777 campaign unfolded.
The book goes into great detail about the victory at Oriskany by Crown Forces, balanced with their failure to take Ft. Stanwix.
It is intersting to note how casualty estimates vary according to which side was reporting, and how the Americans have taken the destruction of the Tryon County Militia and somehow cast it into a Rebel victory. There is, however a balance to the book, and people favouring either side can feel at home reading it.
Aside from the military aspects of the book, you get to know Joseph Brant, Sir John Johnson, Daniel Claus, Nicholas Herkimer and many other central figures. Great military history. Well written. Great biography. Definitely one for anyone interested in that time period.

Well written and packed full of good info. No one should go portaging without reading it first!

Beware! This book may get your heart going faster if you love the outdoors! Some of the items he mentions are difficult or impossible to get now, but he does show how to manufacture most of it. Somehow his writing bypasses the brain and goes straight to the heart. And it is not preaching to the converted! He covers just about everything needed with a subtle sense of humor. He simplifies the "how-to" and puts the love back into camping! This might be the only book you need about camping. A must have!!

If you feel that you have to spend every dollar that you earn on the latest outdoor gear in order to enjoy the outdoors, this book may not be for you. Bill Mason communicates to the reader that anyone can go out and enjoy the beauty of the natural world and that some of the more modern day, expensive outdoor equipment may be left at home when safety isn't a factor. Throughout the book I feel as if Bill Mason is actually talking to me while I read his words of personal accounts, lessons learned, and funny anecdotes. I find that this very personal style of writing to be a perfect match with the subject matter. It is a book that that I will read again and again while recalling my own outdoor adventures.

This book has quite a lot of information in it. A little canoeing, camping, shelter making and first aid/safety.

Bill Mason was one of the best writers on canoeing period. He uses humor throughout the book and gives canoeists and campers of all kinds practical tips on the outdoors, canoeing and life in general. I highly recommend this book as an addition to anyone's library. Especially those of us who enjoy canoeing and understanding others' thoughts on the outdoors.

Long overdue, this comprehensive description of an effective proven teaching approach warrants the attention of all interested in education today - authored by one of Canada's most experienced teachers of Direct Instruction.

For those students that are failing to accomplish the skill levels required to occupy a productive role in modern society, Michael Moloney has solutions. He describes these solutions in some depth, and gives you directions where to go to get help. He also describes why these solutions are not available in public school systems. Maybe we can change the school system in time, but meanwhile you may need to get direct help for your loved ones who are not being served in the present system. Unfortunately you have to forsake your tax dollars and find something in the private sector, but the productivity of your loved ones is at stake. All of this is detailed in the book, Teach Your Children Well.

Long overview, this comprehensive description of an effective proven teaching approach warrants the attention of all interested in education today - authored by one of Canada's most experienced teachers of Direct Instruction.

Finally, an up to date documentaion of the research that proves the parallel shortcomings of the public education system in both Canada and the United States, AND the little known proven methods of reform. Parents learn that their children are failing because of the ineffective classroom methods used, not their child's 'learning disabilities'. More, parents are assured that their children CAN learn to read fluently given proper instruction and practice time. Research proves there is a better way and I thank Michael Maloney for compiling that truth into a book that will bring hope and help to the parents and children who know the despair of failing to learn.

It is hard to imagine how such a large segment of our society with such an important task could have strayed so far from its central purpose. Our schools are failing our children to an alarming degree. In the major city in which I live, in nineteen of ninety schools second graders score below the 25th percentile in reading comprehension. Forty-two of the ninety score below the 35th percentile. How do you spell "disaster?" We have a good superintendent who had been on the job for two years, and has done some courageous things to stem the tide. But it might be too late. Providing some hope, the superintendent has looked closely at one of the programs Michael Maloney advocates for in this book, Direct Instruction, and has included it as one of three programs schools have to choose as their reading program. Alas, only ten schools out of ninety chose Direct Instruction. The overwhelming majority chose a somewhat nebulously defined literature approach to reading--whole language all over again, which has gotten the second graders to the achievement I noted above. Where are the credentials of these programs, besides monumental failure as in California? Why are teachers allowed to use faulty tools for learning? Where are the child advocates? This book names a few, and that is why all teachers should read it. Maloney describes educational powerhouses based on strong research that proves without a doubt that the programs work. Take Direct Instruction. It is crafted so carefully that only teacher faulty implementation can cause learning to misfire. Many criticize DI as too restrictive. We wouldn't send a heart surgeon into an operation without an explicit script to follow, with rules and experience to dictate just how to proceed in a particular case. Is a pilot unable to function with detailed checklists, mandatory procedures, exhaustive training for situations that may never occur? But we will send a teacher into a classroom with the most meager of tools, scanty directions and a "wing-it, don't measure it" attitude. Can we expect anything else but a nation at risk? The programs and techniques Maloney describes share the theme, "learning is behavior change." If not all of the programs are based entirely on behavioral technology or applied behavior analysis, they include and are compatible with behavioral principals. Just as Skinner reminded groups of psychologists of the error of their ways, even as they were awarding him their highest honors, behavior analysis varies with the educational mainstream. Even seven years of data which provided clear evidence that Direct Instruction taught children much more effectively than the eight other paradigms studied, could not turn the heads of the educational zeitgeist. Programs proven to retard the academic growth of young children were funded more readily than Direct Instruction. If children had an adequate lobby, they wouldn't be so easily taken advantage of. It is hard to understand what is happening in education without invoking the concept of an evil empire calling the shots. Proficiency tests and charter schools indicate that the public may finally get serious about education reform. When they do, they will find themselves ready to align with the programs in Maloney's report. Precision Teaching, a much under-noticed technique, could solve the testing disputes. Based on timing correct and incorrect responding, it removes all ambiguity from testing. That should have happened when Chester Finn noted that in every state in the union over half the children scored above the fiftieth percentile on standardized tests. In Ohio, the state decided to reduce the required score on the fourth grade proficiency test, because so many fourth graders were failing the test. It was also revealed that the standard for passing was based on nothing in particular anyway. Back to Precision Teaching. Building fluency in skills has been ignored by education and training, when it is the most powerful concept to ever be introduced by Skinnerian behaviorism. Ogden Lindsley seized this notion of his mentor, Skinner, and honed it into a sophisticated technique for building learning and measuring it explicitly. We can easily observe the rate at which third graders can compute various kinds of math problems. We can average the score of thousands of them, if that suits. Then all we have to do is give your favorite third grader a page of similar problems, tell her to "go", and see how many she can do. Why do we have to order sacred test booklets, enflame the fears of the most confident students, send the tests off to the sponsor and get back data that are of limited use, since they are based on mysterious "norms." Again, we seem to have lost the student in the shuffle. The more we can keep the student's actual behavior in focus, the better off we are. That is Maloney's message. Teach Your Children Well was written by a man who has done it himself. We should listen to him WELL

What a beautiful memoir! The setting, a small town in central Canada, was almost exotic to me. The writing is poem-like, clean and meditative. With his gentle voice, Mr. O'Connor takes you to the world of the sensitive boy whose longing and wonder towards his mysterious father is so vividly felt. The beautiful images in the book will remain with me for a long time. I highly recommend this special work.

What a fascinating story! And so well written. It brilliantly brings the author's world to life in all its wonderful and awful detail. The people are portrayed so artfully, both as individuals and collectively, that you feel you are among them. And the central story is beautifully touching.

I work with the author. So much for full disclosure. And I had been told by another colleague before I read it that his book was wonderful. I wasn't prepared, though, to be overwhelmed, and I was: by the richness of its style, the honesty of its emotion, the entertainment of its anecdote, the relief of its humor amid pain and personal discovery. O'Connor travels two paths in search of answers about the emotional chill in his childhood home in Canada and the strange allure of cold climes. This yields on one side beautifully drawn pictures of smalltown life in which O'Connor's growing self-awareness and his tracking of family history coalesce. On the other, its offers perfectly rendered vignettes and lore about famous explorers, plain life and survival in the frigid north. Sometimes the juxtaposition seems impossibly apt, yet never forced. Along each trail run themes in varying proportions of love and hurt, sacrifice and estrangement, distance and intimacy, ambition and constraint. Through it all runs a classically balanced voice, blunt and eloquent and wry in confronting simple or hard truths. There is finally and happily about the book a physical irony in which I regretted its ending so soon but relished the knowledge that I could always find time to return time and again to a book as modest in size as it is grand in reward.

O'Connor's beautiful language is as smooth as ice, as clean as fresh snow. This is a haunting, mysterious story of family secrets, which the author tells partly through direct memoir narrative and partly through metaphorical history and legend of the far north. I found the scenes of O'Connor's boyhood to be particularly well drawn: the ways in which he conjures child logic and perception are magical. Touching, strange, cathartic.

I thought this was just beautifully done. The father, both of the parents, are so well-drawn in it. And the alternation of northern lore with the author's personal story works perfectly: O'Connor's voice is so specific and true, you stay with him as he swings between eskimo legends, a natural history of the northern parts of the continent, and a wildly funny drunken bar room contretemps, easily finding meaningful connections between it all. The main story is wrenching with a beautiful payoff. Read this book!

In War Orphan in San Francisco, Phyllis Helene Mattson tells the engrossing story of her childhood spent in San Francisco where her mother managed to send her in 1940, in the final window of opportunity for escaping the Nazi occupation of Vienna. Initially Mattson stays with an aunt and then in foster homes and orphanages. Her mother, never able to secure the necessary papers that would allow her out of Austria, worked as forced labor. Mattson's father was thrown out of Vienna late in 1939 by the Germans and then spent the war in an Australian internment camp when England, his temporary home, declared war on Germany and he became a prisoner of war.

Mattson found herself as the primary link for the scattered family from the time she was ten until her father came to the US when she was seventeen. She used the treasure trove of letters, long stored in a box in the garage, to help tell her story.

As a woman's memoir writing coach, I read memoirs at multiple levels. I examine each story for its strength in writing, in engaging the reader and in providing ideas to other women who are writing their memoirs. Mattson's book gets stars on all of these dimensions. In addition to being well written and engrossing (I tried to figure out how I would handle a similar situation and could not envision that I would be as strong as she was), I especially liked the way she used her source documents.

If you are working on your memoir consider: Do you have documents or records that may shed light on your story? Family records? Letters? Legal documents? Medical records? How might you use them? As background information? Selected brief quotes? Organizing themes for chapters? Reproduced in full? The Internet offers many opportunities to research elements of your story even when you don't have copies of documents and records.

Mattson writes, "As I told my story, I told it as through it happened to another child, factually without emotion, a way to distance myself from the tragedy that I had experienced..." Again, as a memoir writing coach, I value how this book raises the question: How close or how distant do you need to be from your story in order to tell it? Many women with difficult, even tragic stories, need to find enough distance from the story to write it, yet show enough closeness that the reader shares in her experience. Mattson has gracefully achieved both of these goals.

I loved reading Phyllis's story; it provoked every emotion in me.

She tells her story of separation from her family and living in a strange country with strange people in a very insightful manner with perceptions very mature for a young girl. Throughout her ordeal she grows through lifes' stages well adjusted and content despite experiencing dire circumstances. The love that stretched across the miles held her steady to refute bitter scars and rebellion.

The thoughtful retelling of her youth made me laugh as I had recalled similar attitudes growing up but in much different circumstances.
Her spunk as a teen in San Francisco is high spirited and joyful. The written teasing with her father, so many miles away, .... is truely endearing and inspiring. Her deep love and longing for family back in Europe emanates from the pages. And the answers to her life long questions made me sob.

Phyllis writes her wonderful story of courage and inspiration. Young and adult readers will enjoy her heartfelt story.

Imagine yourself in an old attic. A dusty trunk beckons from the corner and you crawl over to it, aware that the attic and the trunk don't belong to you. But your curiosity overpowers your propriety and you open it to discover it brimming with intimate letters and photographs of a family from a time and place foreign to your own. Such is the wealth of experience awaiting you in Phyllis Mattson's memoir of her childhood surviving the Nazi holocaust.
She sets the scene - Vienna just before Nazi takeover - and introduces us to her humble, but proud Jewish family. As a child she witnesses the march of Nazis into Vienna and hears the "Christkiller" chants. A dark cloud of fear settles over her family and friends as parents begin desperate efforts to get their children out of Austria on a Kindertransport - to the safety of Britain or the US. Through letters and photographs, we wake with Phyllis to the terrors of Kristallnacht, as her family is dragged from their apartment by Hitler's SS. When her father is taken to prison the real horror starts. Her mother frantically pleads with relatives in San Francisco to take Phyllis in and, when they agree, mother and daughter part at the train station, never to see each other again. Phyllis arrives in New York and struggles to learn a new name, a new language, a new country, leaving behind all her traditions. Five days alone on a train, unable to communicate to anyone, finally brings her to San Francisco.
Only letters bind this extended family across oceans and time and Phyllis makes you eager to turn the page, read the next words from father, mother, friends and relatives, and her own letters. In a quiet child's voice you hear the resilience of the human spirit, to not just survive, but to thrive in a new home of challenges.
With a teacher's objectivity, Phyllis recalls world-shattering political events through her own ten year-old eyes. She frequently admits her adult memories either clash with her own written words as a child, or don't exist at all. Her own awareness that she has psychologically buried memories makes the child's letters even more poignant.
I strongly recommend this book to any student of WWII, but I believe all freedom-loving people would be touched by this story of survival and the bond of family.

I have known Phyllis for about a year, have heard her speak to middle and high school students several times, and thought I knew what would be in the book.

I was wrong.

This is a story of a young girl growing up in the most unstable of times. It is written with truth and honesty, and makes Phyllis a three-dimensional person to the reader. I highly recommend it!

You wouldn't expect a war story to leave you smiling, but that is what Phyllis Mattson's "War Orphan in San Francisco" does. It is a surprisingly upbeat story of 10-year-old "stateless" Felicitas Finkel sent to safety in the U.S. by her parents in Austria in WWII. It is drawn from letters and a few photos kept for years in a box in the garage, a box like many of us probably have in a corner somewhere, with stories too sad or scary to bring out very often--but when we do, we find stories of adventure, bravery, growth, dreams, and all the joys of life mixed in with the sad, scary parts.

As an English teacher, I am interested in letters. They record events and feelings and reflect our growth. They catalog our special story and place us in the world. They are evidence that we lived.

As I sit at my computer writing email that is delivered instantly, I appreciate the time and effort people spent writing letters to maintain ties. They wrote during war when paper and pencil were difficult to get, going from edge to edge on pages of thin paper, knowing that the messages might take weeks or months to arrive, and might arrive with pieces cut out, or not arrive at all. They wrote because the connections were important to them. And they are important today because they record the world as it was, with the dailiness and details of how people survived, and suggest where we might go next.

Felicitas / Phyllis's mother told her not to cry, to be brave, and to "write to me and Papa weekly, giving all the details." Phyllis's letter writing started in 1940, when she arrived in San Francisco, and continued through 1946, when her father was finally able to join her in San Francisco. Her mother's letters stopped in 1942, and the reader feels 12-year-old Phyllis avoiding the obvious conclusion, stepping around the larger-world facts, and continuing to write to her Papa, "giving all the details," while avoiding the big picture.

Reflections by the adult Phyllis are wonderfully insightful. The adult wonders why she and her father never mentioned the lack of letters from her mother. Even years later, things hinted in the letters remained unresolved. Sometimes the letters give the bare bones of what was happening, and details are filled in by Phyllis today; sometimes, there is nothing beyond the letter. In her first year, Phyllis went from speaking no English to speaking, reading, and writing English and her mother, in a letter, implored her to not forget her German. Today, Phyllis has published articles and a technical book in English yet had to get a German translator for her treasured letters written in German.

The family always signed their letters with endearments--love, hugs, lots of kisses, millions and millions of hugs; yet other everyday feelings are side-by-side in the letters, as when her father wrote:
"... Much as I like reading your letters, however there is always something in it that I do not like. For instance in today's letter the language used by you ... is shocking... All my love and heaps of kisses from your Daddy."

Interaction at a distance is not perfect but as the saying goes, it beats the alternative. Letters were better than nothing at all. They buoyed the young girl alone in San Francisco as she moved in and out of foster homes. As the adult Phyllis observes, her early success in moving on alone led her eventually to new experiences all over the world. "War Orphan in San Francisco" is a reflection of and tribute to the human spirit finding and upholding values in life, building bridges in hard times, through one of mankind's oldest ways of communication. It will make you want to sit right down and write a letter.

This very fine history of North America covers 10,000 or so years of exploration and settlement all in one volume. It is written in a clear, concise prose, and although it is loaded with facts and anecdotes it is never dry. Morgan starts out by describing the peopling of North America via the Bering land bridge. Then he moves into the stories of the European explorers and early settlers, and how they deal with the Native Americans. After many hardships and failures, the Spanish end up with permanent settlements in the south, the French in the north and the English on the Atlantic Coast. Morgan then describes the emergence of the Americans and how they eventually dominate the continent and displace Europeans and Native Americans alike.

I highly recommend this if you enjoy American history.

Beginning with the passage of people across the Bering Strait, Wilderness at Dawn : The Settling of the North American Continent takes us through the westward expansion of the United States. Carefull attention is given to the Spanish, French and British influences on the American way of life. An excellent and concise reference for anyone interested in North American History. Easy to read, and full of real life history

Breathtaking approach to a well known subject. History from the people's viewpoint. No dull dates, battles, generals, presidents; but living, breathing stories by and of the most unique and most common. Must also read Shovel of Stars, the sequel (also 10)

Ted Morgan's "Wilderness at Dawn" is one of the best of a crop of North American colonial histories published since 1990. Rather than a comprehensive history, it is a series of incidents that add up to a very readable whole. Morgan begins with pre-Columbian history and goes on to relate the experiences of the Spanish, French, Dutch, and various flavors of English colonies. One of my favorite stories is how the godly Pilgrims found themselves neighbors to a riotous colony led by one Thomas Morton. Before Miles Standish put their rivals out of business, Morton's drunken crew traded guns and booze to the Indians in exchange for beaver pelts and sexual favors. Anyone who believes history is boring has not read Ted Morgan's and other recent works about the American colonies. The last section of this book addresses the problems of post-Revolutionary War colonization, including chapters about the appalling dangers of trans-Appalachian settlement and about how the Old Northwest was surveyed.

Reading these first person accounts of day-to-day and moment-to-moment life in pre-Colonial America gave me such an appreciation for what our predecessors went through to make our country the great one it is today. This is the book our children should read in their American history classes. Exceptionally well-written, with a "you are there" feel to it. Makes me want to learn more about the young George Washington after reading about his escape from the center of the freezing river. Well-written, entertaining and informative. I'm lapsing into cliches, but this book is a MUST READ. Just brilliant. You'll admire the everyday people who built our country one day at a time, and never tire of reading about their adventures. I hated to see it end, so thank God there's a sequel!

This book was interesting, and the family dynamics were fascinating. I think a lot of the sex and foul language was not necessary. I wish the title was mentioned more than once in the book. Why didn't the parents sing at the wedding? Just one question I would have for the author. Quick read and will keep your attention, I just thought it could have been better.

This book takes a poignant look at sisters and the Jewish culture. Very funny and very entertaining.

Estelle Zarr dreams of making it in Hollywood as a highly regarded movie director and to find her soulmate, but so far has failed on both fronts. Having never left their hometown of Toronto, her sister Jessie worries about everything involving her two children Levi and Ilana as her marriage fails. The third sibling Erica lives in New York where she dreams of becoming writer, but instead lives her aspirations through her live-in lover, novelist Paul. Their parents also living in Toronto, Lilly and former songwriter Milton, struggle with the ennui of their golden years that seem tarnished lately.

When Milton's former partner Gladys dies, he feels his mortality. His two daughters living in the States join the third sister in Toronto to attend the funeral of a person who was like an aunt to them and to offer their condolences especially to their father. Each of the sisters looks at how green the grass is under the feet of their siblings, how jealous of the attention their mom showers on the other two, and makes decisions about their future. Estelle decides her film career needs her attention not finding a husband; Jessie seeks warmth in an affair that further deteriorates her marriage; Erica and Paul break up as both need breathing room.

This is a terrific family drama as Joanna Goodman manages to keep the five Zarrs and their lovers and offspring unique and totally different from one another. Each of the three siblings and their parents face a personal crisis filled with doubts as to the best course of action. YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU is a strong character study that rotates first person perspective so that the audience gets deep inside of the cast to understand what motivates them. Ms. Goodman has provided a fascinating contemporary tale.

Harriet Klausner

This book was very hard to put down. I would have read it in one day if not for the fact that the next day was Thanksgiving and I had stuff to do! Needless to say, as soon as I could, I picked up where I left off. Very well written, great characters. Looking forward to reading her other books.

This book was thoroughly addictive and I could not put it down once I started. The journey of the Zarr sisters was one to which I could relate as the characters were immensely rich and real. I found myself reflecting on my own life as I travelled their path with them.

What a fabulous story of life, family and the choices we make. Kudos, Joanna! When is your next book coming out?!