Missouri Books

A comforting book for me and a good gift for ministers and shut-ins. I have enjoyed the devotional section on prayer.

Collections strong in women's issues and literary history will find Writing The Pioneer Woman to be a very fine college-level reference which focuses on a series of autobiographical texts both published and private examining the writing of domestic life on the American frontier. From records of recipes to descriptions of domestic chores, this examination argues that the texts contain important examples of emigration patterns and experiences as well as domestic history.

The book describes how the Republcians in the late forties and early fifties used the accusations of treason and appeasement of the Soviet Union at Yalta by FDR to discredit the New Deal and to claim that no negotiations with the Soviet Union was possible. However, Yalta only recognized the facts on the ground in Eastern Europe since the Red Army had already liberated and occupied Eastern Europe including Poland and the only way the U.S. would have been able to drive back the Soviets would be through another World War.

Yalta is still blamed by many conservatives for the creation of a Communist bloc in Europe and even today those who advocate negotiations with hostile states are accused of appeasement.

Maney holds nothing back in this devilish tale of the man we love to hate, Young Bob La Follette. Although Maney could have praised him, he totally ripped him a new one, and I thought it was totally awesome. Ultimate Warrior rules!

Zagat always does a great job of pulling together reviewers information on great restaurants... this one is small, but very useful. This is a great guide on where to eat--even locals can find some great new places to try. A few restaurants are missing here, but the information that is here is very reliable. Well worth purchasing!

I somehow tragically managed to make my way to adulthood with never reading anything but the kiddie version of this book. When I found this book for super-cheap in the teachers' lounge book sale and I figured "hey, why not?" And thus I picked it up and immediately fell in love with the sheer Old-South charm that only Twain can deliver. Really, people, it is no wonder that this book is such a classic! It may not have the soulful human reflections of "Huckleberry Finn", but in the solemn concern for the pleasures of boyhood it certainly makes its own mark.

Mark Twain tells the story purely from a storyteller's view. No deep analysis of character that takes you right inside of Tom Sawyer's psyche, nothing blatantly philosophical. It is as if Mr. Twain lives to simply tells us into what trouble Tom is getting. He does not go out of his way to give lengthy, dull descriptions or even fully flesh out the details of just what Tom and his friends are doing. It gives it a charming, folksy style that allows for plenty of plot and action. Even, so the writing is unparalleled.

And it truly is a great story. It's fun! I don't know how many poor students have been tricked into believing it is not. It has all the great elements of a good boy story, what with the murders and buried treasure and faked deaths and hoodoo--not to mention the delight taken away by discovery of bacteria.

I'm also a huge fan of this Whole Story edition. It's beautiful, easy to carry around, and I guess I'm a sucker for the documentary feature.

Fantastic, fun story. Everyone should read it.

These audio books help children that are having trouble with the written word. I also use them in the car, so each trip we hear more of the story. The kids love them and I think it makes them interested in reading.

To understand America in the nineteenth century, you must understand Tom Sawyer. His life, so full of adventure set amidst the bustle of a changing nation, is in many ways the dream of nearly all male children. To spend your time swimming in the creek, gathering "treasures" and eating goodies is truly the good life. Tom's romance with Becky is also the way it is with most boys. Girls are universally considered to have some kind of contagious disease, when I was young, they had cooties, until you see that one perfect girl that you will share everything with.
The wonder and mischief of Tom and Huck are captured in this book, superbly illustrated by Michael Ploog. Tom is wide-eyed, freckled and has bulbous cheeks. Huck has a pointed nose, bright eyes and a suitably scruffy demeanor. With the exception of Sundays, the boy's clothes consist of a series of patches sewn over rags. This book is an excellent introduction to what is the tale of American youth of the nineteenth century, very appropriate for classes in English. Of course, after covering this book, the students should be required to read the original.

This book is a great example of what makes Twain one of America's most belvoed writers. Twain's unique sense of humor and his keen insights into human nature shine through in this book. Twain's style is wonderful, the characters are dynamic and the plot never hits a snag. Twain has created a novel here that is light enough on the surface to entertain young readers yet contatins enough substance to speak volumes to an adult audience. You are sure to love this one is you have read any of Twain's other works. If you haven't read Twain, delay no further--this book is the perfect starting point.

Ever since my dad first read this timeless classic to my sister & me as kids, while camping in our trailer during the summer, it has left its indelible impression upon my imagination. How I too wanted to shove off from shore on my "skiff" and have my own adventures down the Mississippi! I know of no other book that so wonderfully captures the essence and joy of carefree boyhood.

When I say "carefree", however, I am not forgetting the grim and serious elements of the novel. But these work just as well as the sunnier and funnier parts. In fact, just when the narrative needs it, a murder comes along which boosts the plot most effectively, giving it a shot in the arm. And speaking of the darker aspects, does not Injun Joe have to rank highly on the list of greatest villains in the history of literature? I can assure you that as a boy listening to the cave chapters, his menace was palpable and unforgettable.

Unfortunately, literary snobs have often found it fashionable to belittle Tom Sawyer as inconsequential and a 'lightweight' seen against the towering greatness of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". I couldn't disagree more. (I love Huckleberry Finn dearly and plan to review it soon as well). I read a quote in a foreword that I thought was very insightful: "Huckleberry Finn is a greater book, but not a better one." I think this is exactly so. Extol the greatness of HF by all means, but don't make the mistake of downgrading Twain's other masterpiece, just because its theme is not so weighty and grave. In fact, the episodic nature of the telling of Tom Sawyer fit Twain's particular brand of genius perfectly (whereas there were some sub par stretches in Huck Finn).

Loved it as a boy, love it no less as a man. Thank you, dad, for imparting such an enduring gift.

Easy to read and a very sweet story. I am a busy Mom of 2 little ones and I was able to read this and enjoy it between diapers and bottles and choo-choo's. It is an easy read with a nice story.

Lifeline Online: A Memoir
Joy School

So simply written, yet so full of knowledge. Katie, a young girl wants to grow up, fall in love and be noticed by her peers. She learns and grows the hard way through rejection and trying to be a circle that doesn't quite fit the square. Like most of us at the age of thirteen, she's awkward and full of questions. With each hurt and sorrow, Katie learns life's lessons, the hard way. She learns of herself.

Berg, not only speaks to the young adult in this story, but to the adult. Her philosophy on life is insightful and speaks straight from the heart. The world would be a better place if we all did this. What a wonderful way to pass on what you believe and Berg has done just that.

Katie, a lonely 13-year-old living alone with an emotionally distant father, longs for friendships which just don't seem to be happening. Just having moved from Texas to Missouri, Katie waits for sporadic letters from Cherylanne, her former "best friend" who isn't much of a friend at all; and without any provocation, the twins across the street leave nasty notes in Katie's yard.

Then one fateful winter afternoon, Katie decides to ice skate in a small pond behind a gas station. She falls through the ice, and nearly succumbs to the cold wetness when she is helped by Jimmy, the 23-year-old station manager.

Katie immediately falls in love, although there is over a decade between them, and she knows that Jimmy is married with a young son. All that matters, she decides, is that she loves him and he must love her back in the same way.

As the months progress, Katie continues to visit the gas station. She tells both Cherylanne and her new friends Cynthia and Taylor about him, and it's obvious that Katie truly believes she has a chance at a future with Jimmy. He is, as she dubs it, her "joy school," her opportunity to finally learn to be happy for once.

There comes a time, of course, when Katie is forced to realize what's really happening -- and as painful as it is, she realizes that the experience has caused her to mature, just as all the other people in her life have been slowly changing all the while, without her noticing.

While Katie's story is simple (and, one might say, fairly predictable) it's still poignant and engrossing. Who among us can't relate to being thirteen and feeling the pangs of first love, of being surrounded by others yet lonely? Berg is a talented storyteller.

When one is 13, every feeling and emotion is utterly and deeply heightened. The world becomes wrapped around one person and that person happens to be the 13 year old narrator. In this case, the teenager is Katie, whom falls madly in love with a 23 year old Paul Newman look-a-like, whom happens to be married.

But love is only one segment of the story. Katie moves to a new state and is meeting new friends--one who is strange and awkward--and one who is beautiful and 13 going on 30. Of course, being a girl, one knows three is a bad mix, so Katie juggles between the two.

Berg, once again, creates irresistable characters, such as Nona, the weird old Italian grandma "When you-a-come over again. Bring-a-me-a- some whiskey, no?"

And the priest who listens to Katie's concerns about coming of age. He is absolutely lovely and I want him as my preist, only I'm Baptist! Katie describes him as bent over and old, but seeing everything, looking you in the eye,really listening.

"Joy School" is deliciously delightful. Berg's insights and wisdom is continually right on, witty, and thought provoking. I love this woman. I understand her. She is a true woman's author. "Joy School" and most of her other books make one feel as if they are eating a sweet bowl of chocolate ice cream--savoring the sugar upon their tongues until they turn the last page.

We first met Katie in Durable Goods, now she's back.
It's the late 1950s, and Katie is living with her father and a housekeeper in a small suburban home.

Her teenager neighbors love to tease Katie by leaving her mean notes in the hedges beside her window. The kids at school also tease Katie, and her father is still strict and mean.

One day Katie decides to go iceskating behind the Mobile station. She gets a little to far to the thin ice and falls through. Somehow she managers to pull herself out of the water, and walks freezing cold into the Mobile station where she meets the twenty five year old manager, Jimmy. Katie developes a crush on Jimmy, despite the fact that he is married.

With her new secret crush Katie begins to have more confidence in herself, and begins to stand up to her neighbors, the kids at school, as well as her father.

I honestly think this is a great book. Written in the usual Elizabeth Berg fashion. If you have ever read an Elizabeth Berg book you will know what I mean.

I wrote the author as to why a man emerging from a fall into a raging river would not first receive medical documentation of injuries. His broken hip would have been noted right then. Maybe this was brought up in the civil suit Tom filed later, but no mention is made in the book.

Tom would have been screaming for the truckers to call an ambulance, as well as police, had he known what was coming at the station.

I thought it reads very well in the third person, except for being a bit awkward when Tink is present. Those parts might have read better in first person. Perhaps mixing them would not work well, since she's actually reconstructing Tom's story, as told to her.

It's a valuable story that needed telling.

As one reviewer has noted, this is not a typical addition to the true crime genre. It shares much in common with Strange Piece of Paradise in that both are attempts by a victim/family member to depict the aftermath of a crime. Where Terri Jentz had to confront years of not knowing who her attacker was, Jeanine Cummins and family had to face having a beloved family member being accused of killing two other beloved family members.

It's hard to review a book such as this without a certain amount of sympathy entering into one's judgment. It is for me, at least. This is not the best written non-fiction book you'll ever read, nor is the prose in it the most fluid. It is also, because of Cummins' decision to tell this in the third-person, the most emotionally wrought. But it is better written than most first person accounts I've read. Cummins takes considerable pains to bring Julie and Robin Kerry to life, to make the reader feel the loss Cummins and her family felt. The horror of their deaths (and the nature of their deaths) is compounded when Cummins' brother is accused of their murders.

This is the story of the death of innocence, both literal and figurative. By the time the murders are caught, turn on each other and three are sentenced to death there little sense of justice for the family. Two girls have been gang-raped and murdered, one of the bodies has never been found. The survivor of the attacks has been first branded the likely suspect by the press then must relive the events over and over, in the trials and the subsequent parole hearings. As if this isn't enough agony, they must endure having the convicted murderers still claim their innocence and blame one of the victims. The question of Why? remains unanswered by the perpetrators and possibly unanswerable.

I had this book on my book shelf for a while and hesitated to read it because I knew that it would be painful and depressing. This is the first book that I have read regarding true crime where you really feel to the core the effects and aftermath on the living. This book is excellent, well written, and one of the few books you read that will stay with you and effect how you process stories that you read and watch in the future. After reading this, you truly comprehend the pain and lasting effects that violence has on everyone left behind.

I have little to add to the other reviewers here. But as one who has written about victims myself, I believe this is the best account I've ever read of the devastation criminals leave in their wake.

Read this not merely to learn about a heinous crime or evil men. Read it to meet two wonderful young women, or maybe three -- Julie and Robin, the victims, and Jeanine Cummins, the author.

I went to high school with Robin and Julie. I can't drive over the Mississippi River without thinking about them. The newspaper articles, and TV interviews in St Louis were mainly focused on Tom's (the cousin) guilt, and these "mystery 4 men". I was glad to hear a book had been written from "their" point of view. When I say "their" I mean Robin and Julie. Robin and Julie are gone, and no longer have a voice for themselves, so Jeanine did the best she could to capture this horrible moment in time, and the aftermath it caused.

I feel that as much hatred that she COULD have to the four men that murdered her cousins, and let her brother be blamed for the crimes, Jeanine was fair, and kind to the men. She did not make excuses for their actions, but she did explain how a fun night out, a decision to rob, could turn so dangerous and deadly in minutes.

From the minute I opened this book, I loved it. I love books about women who live in the country and master the land in which they live. This is a beautifully written book about Sue's long-term marriage that has ended and she lives in a cabin in the Ozark's. The book captures the spirit of the Ozarks with all its beauty and poverty. She focuses on her life during a single year period where she delicately outlines the seasons, her thoughts, her struggles and what it is like to live in the country. The book is well written, articulate and when the book ended I was left wanting more. I wish she would write a sequel. An excellent read.

"A Country Year" is an absorbing bucolic, understated tale of life as a rural beekeeper in the Ozarks. Sue Hubbell offers naturalist lessons without a whiff of pedantic as a shrewd observer of animal and plant life. Her story of the hard work needed to farm undercuts any idyllic fantasies of rural life, though there are compensations. "Green Acres" this aint!!

Hers is a tale of plucky self-reliance as an (aging) but still spry single woman. Sweet honey in the rock, indeed.

Hubbell's description of nature at times is so lyrical that it soars to the threshold of poetry.

Worth reading and savoring for its understated charms.

This is solely for the pedantic review by "Urban Naturalist". This book is simply a look at a person who is making observations of the world around her. It does not need an over analyses or pretentious display of book learned education. It is a book written by an individual about simple things that make up her life and the feelings she receives from this experience. It is a nice read. You do not have to memorize the scientific name (genus species) of a critter for it to give you a unique memory. I write this as a field biologist working in Alaska who sees daily the awe in recent college grad eyes when they witness nature in person. There is nothing analytical about it, just visceral. This is what Sue writes about. For those interested in nature, I would recommend a search for the book "The Abstract Wild". Urban is Urban and this recommendation may give insight to that. Enjoy your reading time.

Sue Hubbell's voice is true. She shares great sadness so matter-of-factly that whole years are communicated in short paragraphs. 'Lyrical' almost applies, but does not, which in this case is a beautiful thing.

I came upon this book belated, more than 20 years after it was published, in the discard bin at my library. That is a shame, because this book is a gift, both in the pleasure it provides the reader and the way it so effortlessly connects us to the natural world.

Half way through, I googled Sue Hubbell to see if some lucky man had found her, and sure enough, he had. I hope he deserves her and has made her blissfully happy.

Then I googled 'farms for sale' and 'dogs for adoption'. I will probably continue my urban life, but when I surrender to sweet dreams of farm and country, Sue Hubbell's voice will be telling the story.

Everyone should read this book. It's lovely, and at the end, you will know some Latin names for plants and animals you did not know before. (You may interrupt your spouse to ask if he knew that some snakes are so evolutionarily advanced they do not lay eggs but give live birth to their young.)

Sue Hubbell writes in a very easy to read fashion. I enjoyed this book. I thought it read like a diary, as it details the authors life in the Ozarks in Missouri on a daily basis. I grew up on 500 acres in the Ozark mountains and I found myself relating to many of her experiences.

In 'Living the Questions' the author literally takes time out to smell the roses and journals what she observes. She takes time to watch nature around her & notices how God made everything to work in conjunction with everything else. Usually, I find scientific talk dull, but Ms. Hubbell made it interesting. The drawings made it feel like a well-read personal nature journal. This is a book you will enjoy it's an easy take on life and nature.

This is a very compelling story. It's uncanny to think how Ken McElroy could get away with so much. I think small town living is different and Ken McElroy knew just that. What he didn't know was the bond that small town people have. This book also made me question the "laws of Missouri" especially since I live in Missouri. Was mind boggling how he got away with so much. Whenever I hear "Skidmore, Missouri," I'll always think of this book! Great read!

It is a book that compells you to dig deeper into the legal system in Skidmore, MO and surrounding areas during the late 70s and early 1980s. Generally speaking this book is one of the best true crime books I have read up to this point. THe way in which it is written makes me wonder if there was any motive for Ken McElroy to act in such a way towards his victims and if there was any real reason as to why the townsfolk retaliated towards him in such a manner and did not get charged for it.

This is a very intriging book. I was raised in this little town and the author Harry MacLean has captured all. McElroy was all described. My husband has read the book twice!

I picked up a well-worn paperback copy of In Broad Daylight at a used bookstore. I would not have purchased the book had it not won the Edgar Award as the best true crime book of 1988. Finding in Broad Daylight was a lucky break because it's a page turner that really makes you think.

One of the most interesting aspects of reading this book is learning the story of Ken McElroy. Ken was an absolutely horrible human being by Harry MacLean's account. And yet, he was interesting. Though illiterate, McElroy somehow knew just how far he could push the law - if not his fellow citizens. McElroy's life story makes In Broad Daylight difficult to put down.

McElroy's ability to evade justice will also draw readers into this book. You will feel outraged as McElroy's escapes charge after charge - even though the police are well aware of his crimes. I'm still not sure how McElroy got away with it all.

In Broad Daylight will also make you think. Is vigilante justice ever justified? Would the law have ever caught up with McElroy? Was getting rid of McElroy worth the harm it did to his children and family? Of course, there are no answers to these questions. But the fact that you will ask them makes In Broad Daylight "deeper" than most true-crime books.

There are a few drawbacks to this book. I would have liked an updated version. What happened to all of the characters? I would especially like to know what became of McElroy's children. Also, is there any new evidence? Does this author have any new theories as to what happened - and why?

On the whole, however, In Broad Daylight is an entertaining book that will make you think.

This book is an excellent account of the events that led up to the McElroy shooting, and, it also shows a true flavor of how small towns operate, and how people behave. This combination of factors make this book a must read. This newer version also has an epilogue from 2006, so the town of Skidmore, MO is revisited.