Youth Books

I haven't much to say except that I think that Richie McMullen's pair of memoirs, "Enchanted Boy" and "Enchanted Youth", are two of the most beautiful, painful, and hopeful autobiographical volumes I've ever read. I was greatly saddened to read of his death online several years ago. It's remarkable that he survived what he details in these books to become the social activist he became as an adult.

I am Richie's cousin, a year or so younger; we were close in the early teen years, going to the same youth club dances and to pubs along Liverpool's dock road where Richie knew they allowed underage drinking in the backroom. We had fun; even took girls on dates to Formby beach together (still got the photos!), and I had absolutely no idea what Richie's real life was like. But Richie was charismatic and it was always great to be with him.

About 35 years later I recognised his voice instantly on a BBC radio interview and I got back in touch. I read his books and, as the university literature expert I'd since become, I recognised the brilliance of his literary talent. More than that, I recognised the integrity of his writing which exactly matched the integrity of the personality I began to rediscover. Richie had been a rentboy, but he transformed that experience not just into literature, but in his own daily life. He became a counsellor, and co-founded a charity to support others caught up in the underworld of male prostitution. But more than that, even as he was dying with HIV-Aids, he oozed love, compassion and saintliness in the most disarming, unassuming and matter-of-fact way imaginable. If there are saints, he was one even if he didn't know it: those who loved him did. And those who read him will share in the abundant love he had, in the wonderful way he had of ennobling and dignifying the human condition, however sordid it might have seemed at first blush. Read his books;do yourself - literally - a favour.

Richie McMullen has so expertly employed the English Language to draw his readers into his struggle for survival as a 15-year-old London rent boy. Once I got started reading I was so drawn in that I almost believed that I was there with him observing first hand as a friend of his. I felt the love, the deep friendships, the fears, the frustrations, the hatred and the soul-searching that Richie experienced and it tore my heart apart. But, I glowed with elation as I read the last words and concluded it was all worth it.

This will be the first book I have ever read twice! In fact, I feel compelled to try to contact Richie directly to express my admiration. VERY good reading! Highly recommended!

Dr. David J. Jackson implodes our basic ideas about seperation of entertainment and politics. His mix of logical arguments with easy readin' anecdotes will make you sweat the future of this country more than any terrorist ever could.

Dr. David J. Jackson implodes our basic ideas about seperation of entertainment and politics. His mix of logical arguments with easy readin' anecdotes will make you sweat the future of this country more than any terrorist ever could.

Look out -- Professor Jackson has done it again! "Entertainment and Politics" is a tasty analysis that you won't put down until it is completely digested; rarely has entertainment been so political, or politics so entertaining.

"We are Hitler's children," Jack Engelhard's mother once sadly spoke, explaining the family of four's desperate poverty as they all crowded together in the one room of a house they were allowed. Explaining the loss of so much of the rest of their family in Nazi ovens. Explaining finally, their gratitude for life as only people who had to struggle for it every minute could know. "Lech Leja" intones the Biblical commandment. "Go forth!" And indeed this family had...straight out of Hell.

This little book in its wise, humorous, and slightly sarcastic tone shows what awaited them on the other side. It is primarily an autobiographical sketch of Jack's life through his adolescent years, spent in Montreal. The book can easily be read in the course of a day, but while you're reading you'll be riveted by the stories, with their unique combination of pathos and humor, laughter and tears...their unique JEWISHNESS...their uncommon WISDOM.

Everyone who has known the privilege of being born in a land with no war and raised in peace and freedom should read this book. It tends to remind you, as you share this family's appreciation of their blessings, just how great are your own. Five Stars

John W. Cassell
John W. Cassell is the author of five novels on the American Counterculture of the 1960's-1970's including Crossroads: 1969 and Odyssey: 1970 and numerous "Amazon Shorts" short stories primarily in the genre of military fiction, including Armageddon: 1973 and Leap into Darkness Part 1: Not my Best Birthday

Remembrance Enters Eternity
Escape from Mt. Moriah
Jack Engelhard (ComteQ Publishing)
118 pages, hardback
Reviewed by Eugene Narrett
(Eugene Narrett is a writer and a Professor of Literature at Cambridge College in Massachusetts).

Remarkable lives, lives filled with chiaroscuro, make for great literature, fiction or non-fiction, and Jack Engelhard's remarkable life has led to a notable literary gift. He has demonstrated this with novels so taut with ideas and action that they find their way to Hollywood (& inevitable simplification -- Indecent Proposal) and more recently, with a volume of memoirs whose succinct evocations of person, place and mental process allow worlds of sentiment to stand silently present without crowding or directing the reader's own thoughts and response. Impelled by his sensitivity to the ambiguities of motive, to empathy, ambivalence, & striving for a saving certainty, Engelhard is a master of the telling moment and phrase, of the summary comment (though his characters often get the last word) that implies even more than it clearly states. In evoking the fullness of a human person he has the simplicity and deftness of a master: a sharp mind, self-awareness, and a deep & feeling heart.

The author knows that the roots contain the essence of the tree and its fruit, and that they live in its seeds, however far the winds of circumstance may carry them. And so in this volume, vignettes about his root, his father, are frequent for the man was an exemplary figure of loss and spiritual richness. Noah Engelhard was one of those immigrants who never adapted to the wrenching culture shock of his forced transplantation (from France to Canada during WW II). Originally a youthful Torah scholar & leather cutter in Poland, wars in the east brought him to France where he prospered as a master designer of leather handbags, and owned a factory in Toulouse. But the Nazi occupation destroyed that, and his generosity to other refugees exhausted the remainder. In Canada, his classic designs were out of fashion and he, Noah ben Yakov became "Joe," the guy who fetched Cokes in another man's factory: "Joe! Joe! Where's my Coke!"

Like many immigrants, the author's father was a Jew too gentle and ambivalent to impose his teaching methodically on his son; he was an uprooted Jew who carried the House of Study within him and who searched every Sabbath for a synagogue in which the Rabbi was not a shallow positivist, affirming his congregation's attenuated Judaism; who searched even for a serious argument that would revive the world of Torah that had been violently uprooted.

Left to his own choosing, the life of a scholar would have suited my father fine. He belonged in a House of Study, secluded from the turmoil of business, removed from the urgencies of daily cares. In a Yeshiva his knowledge of Torah could be stimulated, his wisdom put to the test -- and his worth as a scholar and a man could be recognized and appreciated.
But that never happened.

In that clarity of description, in that gift for succinct summary and alertness to pathos, in that sensitivity to the emotional demands and language a culture imparts, Engelhard's literary gifts shine.

Along the way, in brisk but loving detail he sketches another world, a distinct culture not merely remembered but felt so fully it is reconstructed in spirit:

Approaching the [factory] landing you could hear the roar of the sewing machines. Closer, you smelled the adhesives and the leather. Cutters were bent over huge tables slicing up giant stretches of animal hides. They were grinding in frenzy, never gazing up from their machines, as though somewhere in their urgency of livelihood they had lost the human sense of wonder and curiosity.

As Engelhard paints it, the world of exile extends from the fashionable and also the back streets of post-war Montreal, from two-bit backbreaking jobs, to tenuous status as low-rent tenants at whim, to country vacations paid for by nerve, worry and improvised labor. Always aware and happy with what he's gained in the New World, especially as an American, he is keenly aware and deftly sketches the soul-wrenching loss & distortions that emigration, especially forced emigration, imposes on the individual and on relationships.

But these experiences -- with rats in the weeds at a garden-nursery, with Jew-hating city toughs, with relatives, rich and poor, who couldn't relate, with eviction and frequent poverty -- did not defeat but aroused and deepened the author's sense of awe at the variety and mystery of human motive and deeds. His insight was quickened by seeing his parents various and imperfect efforts to adjust to the loss of one world and immersion in another in which he moved almost effortlessly; but like many first genera_tion Jews, never with a sense of fully belonging; always with a sense that something essential had been left behind.

This volume's attention to up-rootedness (so like the masterly paintings of Samuel Bak, of whose art, and whose own memoir, this work reminds me), and a lifetime reflecting on the many facets of this experience, enable Engelhard to offer several wonderful epigrams about the singularity of three millennia of Jewish experience, so awesomely recapitulated in the past 60 years, the years of his life (born July 1940, as the Nazis overran France). In discussing the nearly untranslatable Jewish expression, "nu," a word that carries bemused acceptance within it, Engelhard speaks of the paradox of Jewish survival, of belief in or memory of a pure flame inside a soul repeatedly buried in dust and ashes. What results when filtered by centuries "is a kind of hopeful resignation," he writes; a will to live and somehow taste some of life's sweetness that always carries "both hope and hopelessness." The mind sees and the heart feels the defeats and impossibilities of realizing the dream; yet the flame in the soul still glows. As the Hassidic saying puts it, "the soul of man is the candle of God." And though God is only mar_ginally present in these stories, one senses that Engelhard is always ready, even eager, for Him to speak.

Many of these short vignettes have a clarity so vivid in detail and sparse in evocative diction that they shine, filling the everyday prosaic world with the spirit of the world to come. In this they are like Hassidic folk tales transposed to the cities of suburbs of the new world in the 1940's and '50s, tales whose traits kept their wonder for someone who saw one world in the context of another. This quality is very palpable in memoirs like, "Relatives from America," "A Sabbath Drive," "A Telegram from Isr_ael," and "A Sister from the Past." Mystery and ambiguity fill the unspoken spaces of these simple tales. Needing a lift into town on a Sabbath afternoon in the country, young Jack gets a lift from a friendly French Canadian driver though neither understands the other: one has no English; the other, little French. But the vignette is not one of simple goodness or trans-cultural compassion. Though seemingly no one knew or saw him riding in a car on Sabbath, a few weeks later the Rabbi of Jack's Yeshiva summ_oned him and his father to meet. "You were seen hitchhiking on the Sabbath," he charges. "When?" his father asks. "Where was this?" There's no answer, just the unexplained fact. Hadn't he learned over and again that "One sees"? That "on the Day of Judgment, even the walls will testify against you..." Was the kindly driver a tempting demon? Is it possible that just as was believed in the vanished world of Jewish Poland, nothing is hidden, not even in suburban North America for a family that is sporadically _religious; perhaps especially for those who are sporadically religious?

Wonder arises from those simple moral dilemmas everyone finds as they walk their daily lives, or simply gets the mail. One day a telegram comes from Israel: Jack's father's mother, whom Jack himself has never seen and with whom his father has scarcely communicated in half a century, has "at age 102, been gathered to her people," in Israel. Why should his father, who treasures the memory of his mother's saintliness, know such a sad fact, one he cannot change? So the youth conceals the telegram until the ban_al routines of a laundry day bring it to light. And then, a guilty revelation dawns: "I had committed a sin; I had interfered with the mitzvah of sitting shiva and saying kaddish. My sin could never be undone." Walking the streets of Montreal that evening, the dark sky suddenly opened to reveal an intense brightness, as if in supernal confirmation of his thoughts. And yet, consoling the penitend, his father's forgiveness comes like a benediction: "You meant well; what's done is done." In the meantime, wonder and the Beyond have asserted themselves in a heart formed by millennia of exile and the imperative to remember and hold on. Common sense and the commonplace do not negate, Eng_elhard suggests, but serve as vessels for retaining wonder and faith. Assimilation is never complete; it too becomes a medium through which transcendenc will emerge and shine, layering people and events with eternal meaning and dignity.

And these are remarkable people, teeming memorably in a book so spare and easy in its telling one reads it in less than two quick hours. And then one returns to reflect, to reflect on the warm-hearted but officious sister, whose loneliness makes her needy, and whose finely honed sense of shame leads her to depart as suddenly as quietly as she arrives. On a middle-aged man, a holocaust survivor, weeping at the sight of a newspaper photograph, of a Jewish soldier, finally; of a talented, bullying choirmaster_, and the shame of muddy boots at a wedding; of an adolescent watching the World Series at a malt shop while the local Romeos flirt and then go out back with the beauty behind the counter, taking the TV with them. These anecdotes are rich with a range of initiations and a broad palette of moods, insights, and memorable encounters with Truth packaged simply for our wonder.

The collection ends with an anecdote in which Engelhard, remembering an annual visit to an Orthodox synagogue, finds himself among men of his father's generation and culture, looks at himself as a new father in the context of what kind of Jewish tradition, and what sources of Jewish strength he, an externally assimilated Jew, will be able to bequeath to his own son. As he listens to the chanted prayers and ancient melodies, he writes

It occurred to me then, that I was now 42, and when my father was that age, he was an old man, one of the old men of the synagogue.
He also knew everything.
Years from now I wonder, who there will be to show me the right page? And will there be any old men left for my son? He is only two years old, and the old men cover him with love.
To them he is the flame. He is their eternity.

In his doubt, sense of loss, and in his love, Engelhard affirms his caring and his faith for the threefold intertwining of his son, his people and tradition. In the above question, his succinct but poetic description answers itself in an ancient verse. "In Zion there will be a remnant, and they will inherit..."

These wonderfully readable memoirs have the vivid reality of a lived dream; they sparkle like the islands of an enduring world amid the dazzling, distracting sea-spray of our everyday lives that immerse us in the present. We know there is more to us: that there must be a living soul. He intentionally shaped his reminiscences into eighteen memoirs, explaining that the number '18' in Hebrew spells "life," chai, and also the affirmation, "he lives!"


Memory and sensitivity, like self-restraint and shame, are branches of love and of
understanding the mysterious beauty of life. To offer another metaphor, they are a well of soul distilled into generations of Jews for millennia by unique paths of suffering and hope. Beyond what the mind believes or reason can show, the vivid descriptions and memories in this book are forms of honoring this tradition, sparkling simple facts attesting to its endurance.

This book is a winner within its own niche of brilliance, almost like the universe was holding a sun spot open for this author's childhood chapters, for precisely his, "Memoirs of a Refugee Child's Triumph."

The book felt almost like a child's book, but not like the sometimes silly stuff which is presented as children's literature. Instead, this book felt like it was meant for the children among us who were born adult, in the good sense of the word, born wise, born serious, born knowing there's much work to be done here; not work of the body, but work for the soul of humankind, which has been lost, ignored, pushed down, and choked.

What most makes me want to read Engelhard's books, especially after The Bathsheba Deadline: An Original Novel (see my review), is the pleasant environment of his easy-flowing style, which percolates with a subtle sense of joy, possibly the result of his deep love of writing surging through every inspired or perfectly chosen word.

The next appeal for reading this author's books is that I know I'll find truths in them I've looked for in print but have rarely found. The soul craves the freshness of finding something new, something regenerating, solidly hopeful in a quiet way which comes from facing ugliness without flinching, then moving forward again because there's still something of value ahead, something worth knowing. Nu, nu, nu (see the book's introductory essays for an explanation of that saying).

I'm thankful that Jack Engelhard honored his resistance to attempting an overwhelming research project to write a different, redundant angle on this story. As he implied in his introduction, all the book needed was for his memories to be convinced he was dedicated, at that time, to collect them on paper.

Having received two of Jack Engelhard's books together I couldn't decide which I wanted to read first. When I was ready to begin one of them, I thought I might decide by reading a few paragraphs of the opening story of each. By default, I began with MORIAH, thinking I'd stop after a page or two, then do the same with INDECENT PROPOSAL. But, I didn't quit reading MORIAH.

By the following morning I had read the whole of that balsamic bible of a book. I loved it. I was impressed as much as I hoped I would be...

When I first saw the book's cover, I had puzzled at the biblical scene. I didn't immediately recognize it as the Rembrandt representation of God's request of Abraham to offer his son on Mount Moriah. I appreciated having the factual details presented inside the cover as well as on it. I was intensely intrigued about that event being said to have led to the creation of the Jewish people. I wanted to know more.

As I opened the covers of ESCAPE FROM MOUNT MORIAH, I was deeply curious about the childhood of a person who has come to write as Jack Engelhard has.

As I read further into the flap copy and introductory remarks, I began anticipating reading something special, not just a book I would welcome getting lost in, living in as a refreshing contrast to my daily routines; but a book in which I would find something worth knowing, something new, different from the repeated density in the majority of books available to readers, maybe something of actual truth.

The heart craves that, especially when it's rarely found.

Usually, I'm not attracted to short story collections, even knowing they might be true, significant, and well-composed. But, I was immediately attached to the chapter titles and blurbs here, especially the appealing Jewish feel of them. The meaning and number of Chai was magnetic to me, as were the type styles.

The book felt to me to be more of a bible than the established ones.

-- Jack Engelhard may not have been the same type of prodigy as his father was (I have no doubt that his father, Noah ben Jacob, has gone to peace and is still there).

-- Jack may not have assimilated every holy word and underlying truth in the Books of Moses, as his father had, but, with Jack's light touch, he has written his own holy words of truth, and has honored his father in the process.

Jack wrote Noah as he was, as well as how he appeared to Jack in Jack's efforts to know him in both his dark/wounded and bright/spiritual exposures, and Jack related to his father to the best of his straight-on, eyes-focused nature.

My favorite chapter was "A Telegram From Israel," conveying a holy moment confirming compassion, even though it kept Jack's father temporarily in the dark about his mother's death. Describing the moment of that sacred omen, Engelhard writes, "... from utter darkness came incredible radiance." The father's response to Jack's act of compassion was perfection, as was his father's conclusion about the coincidence of the experience of brilliance breaking through dark clouds.

That situation made me wonder if God might have wanted Abraham to say "No" to His request of offering. I want to believe that Abraham's God was a loving one and would have made right either choice for that unique, splitting-of-universes decision.

Possibly my second favorite chapter was Engelhard's holding to his words, "I resign," (the chapter's title) instead of damning himself with, "I quit."

Or, was my next favorite the respect awarded to young Jack by the druggist, Mr. Roberts, following Jack's successful grappling with fears surged in "The Purple Gang" territory.

The core of sadness for my empathy was in the uncle's reaction to love from a nephew in "Relatives from America," and the brutality trials Jack suffered in "The Fairmount Synagogue Choir."

Jack Engelhard is the one who conveys emotion without emotion. (In his review of my Amazon Short, DARK DIAMOND TWILIGHT, Engelhard had said that of my writing style).

After finishing MORIAH, I felt great admiration for Engelhard's father, and was devastated that Noah wasn't allowed to live his life as the highest, holy Rabbi he could have been.

Yet, maybe he accomplished more, for his son, for himself, and for his world, through those dedicated times in the synagogues, in which he grew from a polite, quiet discounting of the officiating Rabbi's inaccuracies in reading scripture, into a bold countering of the corruption of truth. Maybe the reason Noah never found his equal with whom to argue into the truest interpretations of the holy books, was because he had no equal in that. He had only the truth of the meaning in, under, and above the words. I would bet that every Rabbi Noah encountered with his corrections never forgot what Noah had said. Maybe those Rabbis went forth percolating with the right vision from Noah, somehow radiating that cleansing of misconception into our future, the future of rightness to come.

Through his books, Jack is continuing Noah ben Jacob's legacy of synagogue interruption, contributing his literary voice, which I believe has surpassed the golden choir boy (Jack's honed skill Vs the darling golden boy's luck).

As I had read through each chapter, I noticed a flickering in the voice Engelhard used in MORIAH. He seemed to speak as the child he was, with flashes opening onto a voice of the present of his writing the book. One of my favorite uses of voice would be like that, the child writing about the child, except for those few cracks through time when the present heart slips back, sending wisdom gained through time, to heal the child that was, and still is.

To the child in each of us, living eternally,
Linda G. Shelnutt
Shelnutt is the author of several books on Amazon Kindle and Amazon Shorts, including QUARTER MOON DUES.

"Listening," "Learning to See" and "Finding a Voice," Eudora Welty entitled the three chapters of her autobiography "One Writer's Beginnings," the concluding entry in this collection, one of the two Library of America compilations dedicated to her work. And while these may be steps that most writers will undergo at some point, Welty's compact autobiography is notable both because it allows a rare glimpse into the celebrated writer's otherwise fiercely protected private life and it illustrates the roots from which sprang such extraordinary protagonists as "The Ponder Heart"'s Edna Earle and Daniel Ponder, Miss Eckhart and the Morgana families in "The Golden Apples" and, of course, the anti-heroes of her Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Optimist's Daughter," Judge McKelva, his second wife Fay and (most importantly) his daughter Laurel.

A native and - with minimal exceptions - lifelong resident of Jackson, Mississippi, Welty received her first introduction to storytelling as a listener; and early on, learned to sharpen her ears not only to a story's contents but also to its narrator and its protagonists' individual nature: "[T]here [never was] a line read that I didn't hear," and "any room ... at any time of day, was there to read in, or to be read to," she notes in "One Writer's Beginnings," adding that the discovery that all those stories had been written by someone, not come into existence of their own, not only surprised but also severely disappointed her. Equally importantly, family visits to relatives brought out the born observer in her; each trip providing its own lessons and revelations, each a story onto itself - the seed from which later grew the literary creations collected in this compilation and its companion volume. At the same time, her father's interest in technology introduced her to photography as a means of capturing visual impressions, one moment at a time; and when traveling around Mississippi as an agent for a state agency (her first job) she learned to use that camera as "a hand-held auxiliary of wanting-to-know" and discovered that "to be able to capture transience, by being ready to click the shutter at the crucial moment, was [then] the greatest need I had" ("One Writer's Beginnings:" Not surprisingly, her photography was published in several collections which have found much acclaim of their own.)

Thus, from early childhood on, Eudora Welty not only had a keen sense of the world around her but also, of words as such: of their existence as much as the interrelation between their sound, physical appearance and the things they stand for. Encouraged by her mother, a teacher, and over her father's worries (he considered fiction writing an occupation of dubitable financial promise and, worse, inferior to fact because it was "not true") Welty embarked on a writer's path which would lead her to award-winning heights and to a reputation as one of the South's finest writers, with as abounding as obvious comparisons to fellow Mississippian William Faulkner in particular; a literary debt she acknowledged when she wrote that "his work, though it can't increase in itself, increases us" and "[w]hat is written in the South from now on is going to be taken into account by Faulkner's work" ("Must the Novelist Crusade?", 1965). The Library of America dedicated two volumes to her work; one containing her novels, the other - this one - her short stories, essays (some, like her autobiography, based on a series of lectures) and her autobiography.

An approach that Welty developed early on was to consider the publication of her stories in periodicals merely a step towards each story's final shape, and she generally revised her stories before including them in collections. This compilation brings together all her short stories in the versions intended to be final by Welty herself: the 1941 edition of "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories" (her first short story collection), the 1943 edition of "The Wide Net and Other Stories" and the 1949 edition of "The Golden Apples" - each collection suffered substantial editorial revisions in subsequent publications. Included are also two stand-alone short stories ("Where is This Voice Coming From?" and "The Demonstrators"), the first one inspired by the 1963 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers and revised by Welty over the telephone after having been accepted by "The New Yorker," to avoid a potentially prejudicial effect of its original ending on the then-impending trial.

A keen observer, Welty was also a writer endowed with a sharp sense of humor and satire, and with the gift to brilliantly use location, localisms, accents, patterns of speech and customs to make a point. Not a single word is wasted: "Marrying must have been some of his showing off - like man never married at all till *he* flung in," we're told about King MacLain in the opening story of "The Golden Apples," "Shower of Gold." And you don't have to learn anything more about the man, do you? Equally as instructive on Welty's writing are the eight essays included in this collection, all taken from the 1978 compilation "The Eye of the Story" and dealing with particular aspects of her own fiction as much as, more generally, with "Place in Fiction" (1954) and the fiction writer's role ("Writing and Analyzing a Story," originally published in 1955 under the title "How I Write" and substantially revised for its inclusion in "The Eye of the Story" and "Must the Novelist Crusade?").

"There is no explanation outside fiction for what its writer is learning to do," Eudora Welty maintained in "Writing and Analyzing a Story;" explaining that each story references only the writer's vision at the moment of the creation of that story, and the creative process itself: nothing that can be "mapped and plotted" but a product taking shape in the process of creation itself, giving each story a unique identity of its own. And while her fiction, alas, can no longer grow any more than Faulkner's, she has left us enough of those unique creations to cherish for a long time to come.

At the time of her death, Eudora Welty was widely regarded as America's single greatest living author. Although she produced several critically acclaimed novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER, Welty achieved her greatest fame through mastery of that most difficult of all literary forms, the short story.

Welty's skill with short stories is amazing, for she possessed a talent that combined a remarkable ear for the spoken word, meticulous observation of physical world, and the truly mysterious ability to slip almost effortlessly into the very marrow of the characters she depicts. Her comic stories are perhaps best known to the public in general, but she is equally at home with provocative and unsettling material, and although her tales are most often firmly rooted in America's deep south they have a sense of humanity that transcends the limitations of purely regional literature.

In addition to stories previously collected under the titles A CURTAIN OF GREEN, THE WIDE NET, THE GOLDEN APPLES, and THE BRIDE OF THE INNISFALLEN, this Library of America publication also includes the independently published stories "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" and "The Demonstrators," nine selected essays, and Welty's memoir ONE WRITER'S BEGINNINGS. A chronology of Welty's life up to 1996, textual notes, and general notes (including Katherine Anne Porter's introduction for A CURTAIN OF GREEN) are also included. This book (and its Library of America) companion, EUDORA WELTY: COMPLETE NOVELS) are essentials for any one who admires Welty's work and wishes to possess it in handy, collected form; those who have had limited exposure to Welty's work, however, might be better served by smaller collections.

Each new volume from The Library of America, the non-profit publisher that has become the de facto literary hall of fame, is a cause for celebration. Its goal of preserving in an enduring format the best fiction and non-fiction is a significant bulwark against the encroaching tides of cultural relativism that attempts to render any value judgments meaningless, as well as a consumer society that insists that if it ain't new, it ain't good.

In the case of Eudora Welty, we're given two volumes: a collection of five novels ("The Robber Bridegroom," "Delta Wedding," "The Ponder Heart," "Losing Battles" and the Pulitzer-winning "The Optimist's Daughter"), and another of her essays, her memoir "One Writer's Beginnings" and her short stories. From her first published short stories, "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies" in 1937, to her last novel in 1972, Welty captures with her highly readable style and sharp eye and ear the varieties and eccentricities of Southern life.

But while the South claims Welty as one of its own, she may not necessarily return the favor. Teh cause is both geographic and a matter of choice. Although she was born in Jackson, Miss., in 1909 and lived there all her life, her father was from Ohio and her mother from West Virginia, a state created by the Civil War that went for the Union. This isn't Margaret Mitchell we're talking about here.

Then, in her essay "Place in Fiction," she stresses that while it is important for a writer to capture the feeling of an area, it is not the paramount goal in fiction:

"It is through place that we put out roots ... but where those roots reach toward ... is the deep and running vein, eternal and consistent and everywhere purely itself, that feeds and is fed by the human understanding."

But what pedigree does not provide, her environment probably did, for her work contains those elements poularly associated with Southern fiction. "Delta Wedding" celebrates the Southern family through the sprawling Fairchild clan and its passel of sons, daughters, cousins, aunts, great-aunts, nieces and nephews, all involved in each others' lives to a degree rarely seen today.

Many of her stories revolve around characters marginalized by society, struggling to exist and reach out to others: the simple Lily Daw who tries to evade the determination of the town's ladies to either marry her off or send her to the asylum; the generous, slightly retarded Daniel Ponder who would give away everything he has at the drop of a hat; the demented Clytie in "A Curtain of Green," who rushes about looking in people's faces until, seeing her reflection in a barrel of rainwater, dives in and drowns.

Eudora Welty was a sharp, perceptive writer, and her enshrinement by the Library of America is most welcome.

i came across this book some years ago and i have to say it has touched me in a way no other book has. this poor women must frist live threw the pain and guilt of her ex husband shooting himself to death in her own home. then has to go threw the living hell of her only son doing the same a few years later. she goes in to great detail about the guilt she lives with and all of the what ifs. she tells of how she feels her job and boyfriend maybe took up to much of her time. this is a book that all mothers should read ..i still dont know how susan white lived threw this and went on to write other wonderful books god. bless her and her family. this book is so well written i read it in one seating and twice more over the years she tells you all aboyt her sons short life how he would bring her wild flowers his bike raceing the gris he dated and the one who broke his heart. if only someone had come forard and told her of his threats of killing himelf but i myself who as a young gril also tried to kill myself but by the grace of god a stomick pumping and a stay at a wonderful mential hosptail over came and recovered completly .and have become a mother myself of the most wonderful little boy.who i hope has the toos to deal with lifes pain unlike susan son and myself.

Susan's book about her son's suicide is a must read for all parents. It is heart breaking, but in her intensely personal story, she reaches out to help others understand what so many of us do not know. What you find out reading this book could save your child from possible self destruction. As a mother of three sons, I have read this book several times, and learn something about this courageous woman and her family each time. The untimely death of her son touched me deeply, and I feel some of her pain. As I said, it is a must read for parents, and I am pleased to see it available again.

When I first read Susan's book ,many years ago, I wondered how she managed to write a book exposing every raw nerve in her body. But I know why...she saw a chance to shine light on the very complex problem of teen suicide and to help people prevent and understand this tragedy. As far as I am concerned every young person and parent should read this book...it is well written and deals with this problem in a very human and honest way. The lady shows great courage in letting the world see her pain so maybe insight can be gained.

I can think of only one word to sum up what I thought of this book: Fabulous!

Honestly. Last week someone on my staff gave me this book. Although I have a creative streak, usually my administrative tendencies crowd out that part of my personality. Knowing that Willow Creek highly values and usually sets the standard on using the "arts" in ministry... I initially wasn't interested. I figured this would be a book I would skim. No, really. Any book that is purposelyfilled with funny and wierd sketches on almost every page is enough to make we want to sit in front of CSPAN all day. I think my deal was that I just don't like using drama and arts in the context of children's ministry because from my experience, it is usually crappy! So, I wasn't really interested.

That very night I was up late doing some work. It was 1:00 AM (yes, I don't have kids yet) and I wasn't quite ready to turn in for the night, so I pulled out this book. Finally at 3:30 AM I put the book down because I knew I was going to be trashed the next day if I didn't get at least 4 hours of sleep. One word... AMAZING! Totally not what I expected. Yes, the book is full of information about drama and the arts... but it's so much more than that. Simply put, it's completely about the most important part of what I do every weekend, the 20 to 25 minutes when I take God's word and give it to the kids who attend my service. This book is about maximizing that time, ensuring that it is a moment that will stick with them for longer than 20 minutes after they leave. Never have I read a book like this. It's theoretical, it's practical and man is it funny. I caught myself laughing out loud time and time again. Aaron (the author) has definitely been there and done that as I identified with many of the moments us children's ministers live on a regular basis.

Content covers everything from setting a stage, great prop ideas, lighting secrets, rehearsal plans, critique forms, sound ideas and so much more. As a speaker who constantly wants to get better, Arron gave me great new ideas of what to do with my hands, where to be when I'm making my big point, and what to do when those infamous 5th grade boys start a secret conversation of their own in the back. If that weren't enough, Aaron filled the pages with examples that he's used that put you right there in the middle of the application. He's also included a huge appendix filled with great resources so that I can do what he wrote about.

I just finished reading this book. I plan to read it again next week. Yesterday I bought 15 more for my staff and some key leaders. If you work with elementary kids (preschool too... there's a great section on preschool programming), you must have this book. Read it, soak it in and then put it into practice. I feel that this book will be one of the most influential books in the children's ministry at my church.

I run a children's program at my church. This book is full of great ideas and particle ways to build the confidence of your teachers in the class room.

Aaron Reynolds has a great passion for helping kids apply God's Word to their lives. I had the wonderful opportunity to sit in on two of his children's ministry workshops, hosted my Willow Creek Community Church. Every time I have applied his techniques to my teaching, the kids LOVE IT! They hang on the edge of their seats, they don't interrupt, they're completely quiet, ready to participate on my signal. I don't have to stop teaching to tell someone to pay attention, not anymore! I have used Reynolds techniques on small and very large groups of kids, the results are the same...TOTALLY AWESOME!

Aaron's teaching style is unforgettable! And now, he's put it in a book for us to look on time and time again.
I highly recommend reading The Fabulous Reinvention of Sunday School for EVERYONE who teaches preschool to elementary age kids.

Reynolds techniques can be applied to teaching any subject, as well as God's Word. If you want the lessons to stick and have an audience that hangs on to the very end...you need this book. The kids will love you for it! They will remember what you taught them long after you will. Be prepared for kids to come up to you asking you about a lesson you taught two months ago. It really happens, trust me.

I bought this book for my boys in the 70s. My husbands first comment was, "I wish I had had this book when I was growing up."

My boys got a lot of use from it and I am sure they shared it with their friends.

I believe the reason it has not been updated is that the anti sex nuts have tried to get every copy of it burned. In Arizona people were checking it out of the library to destroy it. They were offended by the drawings of developing boys and girls and upset by the statement that masturbation is good practice. Since those nuts were proselytizing my child with a lot of lies, it was good to have the straight scoop.

Even though this book does not give any information about AIDS I still think it is valuable and will give it to my grandchildren when it is appropriate.

I bought this book in 1978 when I was 13. It opened my eyes to sexuality in a away I never thought before.

The book is illustrated with drawings so realistic you would swear they were photographs. The drawings are of children clothed and nude, in sexual situations or just having fun.

The information is very liberal given the times and it pre-dated AIDS so no mention is given to the subject.

I doubt that this book could be published today as the drawings are very frank, but if you can find it read it. It is currently in the Vancouver Public Library.

We bought this book for ourselves and our children; gave it to them to read (when they were pre-adolescent) and to discuss with us. They did. We also know they shared it with some of their friends. We were confident that their friends got FACTS about sex and sexuality and its role in life and living. Exceptionally excellent at taking into account the values of family, community, religious orientation, etc. Also excellent at encouraging discussion between parents and child. Although it is dated regarding AIDS, especially, it is still excellent. One would wish it were republished with updating. We would hope that our children are able to give the book to their children.

The Christian allegorical elements of the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia, THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, were rather straightforward and easy to understand even for young children (as long as they've had some Biblical education). Lewis was adamant that the Chronicles are not allegories and he was quite right. The stories are not allegories. They are enchanting stories full of Christian themes and morals that though not full-fledged allegories, do contain allegorical elements.

PRINCE CASPIAN is a darker book than its predecessor and many of the Christian elements and themes are not as apparent to readers as they were in THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE. For a parent or educator this can sometimes be quite frustrating because though the novel is darker, it is also deeper and richer. The frustration comes in trying to explain some of these themes to children or get them to extrapolate the ideas from the text themselves.

A FAMLY GUIDE TO PRINCE CASPIAN does a wonderful job in assisting parents and educators with this. The book is basically divided into three sections. The first section is the exposition. This section of the book includes an introduction to A FAMILY GUIDE TO PRINCE CASPIAN and how it was written, a synopsis of the life of C.S. Lewis, a cast of characters, an introduction to PRINCE CASPIAN, and a map of Narnia.

The second section of the book examines each of the chapters in PRINCE CASPIAN. Ditchfield does an excellent job of parsing Biblical truths from the novel and giving practical life applications using those truths. Each chapter includes passages from the Bible that connect to what has happened in that chapter of the story as well as questions. After every two or three chapters, there is a section that ties together the main messages of what took place in the previous chapters.

The last section of the book is a collection of activities based upon what has been read. Included are a recipe for making fried apples and ice cream or applesauce; how to make a mosaic or mural like those in Aslan's How; ideas of how to start writing your own story; as well as the explanation of why there are different ways The Chronicles of Narnia are now being published.

Overall, A FAMILY GUIDE TO PRINCE CASPIAN is a great resource for anyone who has or works with children and wants to explore the rich and deep themes of PRINCE CASPIAN with them.

With Disney's adaptation of Prince Caspian just weeks away from release, we are seeing a flood of Narnia-related books hitting the store shelves. Readers who searched for books to coincide with the release of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will be familiar with many of the authors and their books. Devin Brown's Inside Prince Caspain is written in the same style and format as Inside Narnia. Leland Ryken's and Marjorie Mead's A Reader's Guide To Caspian is the sequel to A Reader's Guide Through the Wardrobe. And Christin Ditchfield's A Family Guide to Prince Caspian is a follow-up to A Family Guide to the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

A Family Guide to Prince Caspian is a guide to discovering the story within the story. Where the other titles tend to focus on the books and movies as literature, analyzing the literary elements, Ditchfield's books seek to highlight the biblical truths underlying the stories. Each chapter of the book, which is parallel to the chapters in the original, offers "Biblical Parallels and Principles" and some applicable Scriptures. Throughout the book you'll also find devotional readings, trivia, reflective questions, a few projects that will continue the adventure with children, and a map of Narnia that features all of Prince Caspian's most significant sites.

As a guide to the film and the book that is applicable to the family and that will help children see the significance behind the story, this book is a success. In fact, read in conjunction with one or more of the other titles, this book will enhance your enjoyment of the series and show you both the literary and theological depths contained even in such a simple story.

If your family is has seen the movie or read the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I'm sure you will be wanting to see the upcoming Disney movie Prince Caspian that is due out in May. I recommend you get this book to be your guide.

Children and parents alike will find deep, Biblical truths come a live in the Prince Caspian and Ditchfield's book will help you as you search for these nuggets. It would be helpful to read the book before the movie so you will be able to see the sometimes subtle truths that author C.S. Lewis weaves throughout the entire Chronicles of Narnia series.

I breezed through this little volume in no time and in that small amount of time I learned so much about the Prince Caspian story as well as the author himself. It was easy and enjoyable reading.
I recommend you get a copy and share it with your kids.

Why is this generation different? This book will tell you as a very intelligent and very spiritual man (who doubtless has spent hours upon hours in broken prayer before the Lord)shows us what the coming revival will look like. Not like the false "revivals" that we see now. This will come and be world-changing and generation-shaking. I recommend it for youth leaders and youth alike. Get serious. Seek God. Read the Word of God after that read this book, too!

In a year full of Christian doomsayers cranking out books about Y2K and the "last days," it's so refreshing to find a Christian author like Winkie Pratney, who expresses hope for this generation of young people. Winkie Pratney's passion for young people is evident throughout this very readable book, as is his sense of hope for the future.

As Pratney says in this book, "This is not your father's revival." And he's right. We in the ministry can benefit from Pratney's wisdom and prophetic insight to do what we can to guide young people -- while understanding that this is their revival, not ours.

Everyone involved in youth ministry -- or in *any* ministry, for that matter -- should read this book.

Mr.Pratney is a intinerant evangelist, speaking to thousands of youth yearly. Winning Decision magazines contest "Why I believe in God," Winkie is a gifted communicator.

This outline is from the official website (moh.org) The Shape Of A Twenty-First Century DISASTER MOVIES

1. Outbreak & the Hot Zone - Disease AIDS, Ebola, America.

2. Armageddon and the Avengers - Hell From Heaven On Solar Flares, Heat Waves and the Weirding of the Weather

3. Medicine Man - The Day Of The Locust Environmental and Ecological Destruction

4. Titanic 2000 AD - Why 2K? Monetary Meltdown Economic & Technological Judgement

5. Saving Private Ryan - Global War International and Internal AWAKENING

WHAT IN HEAVENS NAME IS HAPPENING?

1. Prophecy Teachers or Prophetic Preachers?

2. Seeing The Present In the Past - Historical Revival

3. Seeing The Future In The Present - Contemporary Fire

2. Losers Into Leaders - The Ugly Duckling Story

3. Inundated By Hell - Burned By Everyone and Everything

4. Ignored by the Church - Odd Shamed and Trash-talked

6. This Is Not Your Fathers' Revival

7. Get On GENERATION DIFFERENT?

1. Survivors - Death, Divorce and Whatever. Unthinkable Even For God - Child Sacrifice. Dark Link To Child Death - Reversal for Power, Pleasure and Wealth. Cleansing Fire - Holy Destruction; Defiling The Sites of Demons.

2. Orphan's Freedoms - Just Another Word for Nothing Left To Lose. Survivors Of A Holocaust - Always a Hidden Deliverer. David's' Family Secret - Two Sisters With a Different Dad. Wall of Fire - Blowing Up Bridges To The Past

3. Worshippers - Convictions, Commitment and Abandonment Core Chart-makers - Ability to Express Conviction A Hunger For Reality - The No-Bull Generation dgement In The House Of God - Truth Will Out

4. Dreamers - From Play Stations to Prophecy Before Videos There Were Visions - Visual Communication Fear of the Lord and the Fiery Presence; One Fire Never Forbidden - Altar Devotion

5. Believers - Post-Modern Snow White and the The Lord Is Not In The Fire - Tests of Deception God Owns The World - The Rights Of the Lord

6. Cocooners - Hurt Shelters and Holy Cyberjacks Fourth Man In The Fire - Christ Cares for His Own A Biblical Reason For Strength From Another World

7. Edgers - Gattica, Braveheart and Extreme Everything "You Are Not Radical Enough!" - Edge is not a Style Nothing in Between Radical Solutions To Radical Battles - Dealing with Sin in a Careless Culture

8. Lepers - Marilyn Manson Missionaries A the Final War

feel free to email the author at winkprat@aol.co

Food has always been a major preoccupation of humankind. The "agricultural revolution" (14,000 - 10,000 BC)changed the world and since then, the majority of the people in the world have been farmers. At least until the 1990s. In that decade, for the first time in the history of the planet, urban dwellers outnumbered rural/ agrarian dwellers. The trend continues, and at the moment, the number of people in prison in the US outnumbers the people who list "farming" as their primary occupation.
This decreasing percentage of farmers producing increasing amounts of food, is thanks to changes in technology. Simply stated, technology, especially petroleum related technology, has increased agriculture's per-capita output many-fold. Pre-20th century agriculture was solar-powered, whereas 20th and 21st century agribusiness is increasingly petroleum powered.
Never before has so much food been available for so little to so many people who are unaware that a carrot grows in dirt! Because so few people are farmers now, especially in the West (USA and Europe), few people are aware of the true costs of food production.
These facts make this book of great value. REading it will help you understand the basics of agriculture and will inspire you to teach others. The illustration of using an apple to demonstrate the limited nature of top-soil is alone worth the price of the book.

Food has always been a major preoccupation of humankind. The "agricultural revolution" (14,000 - 10,000 BC)changed the world and since then, the majority of the people in the world have been farmers. At least until the 1990s. In that decade, for the first time in the history of the planet, urban dwellers outnumbered rural/ agrarian dwellers. The trend continues, and at the moment, the number of people in prison in the US outnumbers the people who list "farming" as their primary occupation.
This decreasing percentage of farmers producing increasing amounts of food, is thanks to changes in technology. Simply stated, technology, especially petroleum related technology, has increased agriculture's per-capita output many-fold. Pre-20th century agriculture was solar-powered, whereas 20th and 21st century agribusiness is increasingly petroleum powered.
Never before has so much food been available for so little to so many people who are unaware that a carrot grows in dirt! Because so few people are farmers now, especially in the West (USA and Europe), few people are aware of the true costs of food production.
These facts make this book of great value. REading it will help you understand the basics of agriculture and will inspire you to teach others. The illustration of using an apple to demonstrate the limited nature of top-soil is alone worth the price of the book.

Sara Coblyn has written an excellent manual for teaching kids (and all of us) the importance of knowing where our food comes from, what's in it, and why that matters. Recommend highly!