Washington Books

I picked up the novel at a garage sale a few years ago and read it only this summer on a whim. From the opening paragraph I was hooked. Set in the summer of 1939, the book portrays a privileged Midwestern family in the minutia of daily living. The storyteller, eight-year-old Tommy MacAllister, is surrounded by such an array of well-drawn characters, readers will want to jot notes as they meet each one. The book is strong for its depiction of everyday events and the subtle interactions within the boy's mind as he contemplates the grownups who comprise his world.

Reading reviews of Seamus Deane's new novel about growing up in Derry reminds me of how I haven't yet gotten over the disappearance of this brilliant book from the publisher's active list. Tommy McAllister, the main character, reads his upper midwestern world and people in it. He uses both heart and mind to probe each word he hears and gesture he sees to map out his world of loving, dangerous, sensible, and eccentric people, most of whom try to keep him safely in the dark

I bought this book a long time ago but it's still on my bookshelf (I don't save many books when I'm done with them) and I am pushing it for my book group (if we can find enough copies). I've read it many times and it never fails to grip me. The story is pretty simple -- a boy growing up in a small midwestern city right before WWII -- but what's great about this gentle book are a)the characters -- each one a believable, fully-developed, eccentric (but not cutely so) HUMAN, even the minor characters, and b) the wonderful sense of time & place. It's not a lovely place -- it's rife with class, race and other perennial American problems -- but it's full of life, humor, love, hate -- and it has fantastic women characters. Another plus for the book is that it takes place in (I think) someplace like Duluth MN, not the usual East, South or West coast location. The novel also features Native Americans in contemporary roles (circa 1936) -- how often do we get to read about regular old people who happen to be Indians?

In 1985, Arte Público Press published Helena María Viramontes' first book, "The Moths and Other Stories," which has become a classic in Chicano literature. Since then, her short stories have appeared in more than 80 anthologies.

Viramontes published the novel "Under the Feet of Jesus" (Plume Books) in 1995, about a makeshift family of migrant workers. It was met with great critical acclaim and now graces many high-school and college reading lists.

Now, fans of Viramontes' writing can delight in the publication of her new novel, "Their Dogs Came With Them" (Atria Books, $23 hardcover). It possesses Viramontes' trademark poetic grittiness, with well-drawn characters who almost leap from the page.

The novel is a heart-rending but hopeful portrait of lives that are rocked by the turmoil and violence of East Los Angeles during the 1960s.

Asked whether she saw some form of redemption arising from her mostly female protagonists' struggles with poverty, bigotry and governmental abuses, Viramontes responded with characteristic candor:

"If I didn't want to recognize the redemption of their everyday ordeals, why write about them in the first place? I marvel, truly marvel, at the everyday, ordinary ordeals of human life, and I want to give justice to an existence that very few people or readers acknowledge."

In many ways, this sentiment is emblematic of Viramontes' perception of writers and their role in society. She asserts that "serious writers have the responsibility to try and disrupt patterns of thought and behavior that damage the integrity of life. That's why most writers do their best work while living on the fringes of a society."

With respect to writers of color such as herself, Viramontes provocatively adds: "Because our communities are constantly bombarded with inhumane violence and racism, I think we writers write with greater urgency." She takes this role seriously: "The greatest compliment to a writer is if a reader is disturbed enough to begin questioning his/her own beliefs."

In choosing the setting and era for her new novel, Viramontes did not need to stray far from her roots. She was born in East Los Angeles into a large family that always extended to relatives and friends who had crossed the border from Mexico to California.

While attending Immaculate Heart College, she worked part time at the bookstore and library to help pay for her education. Viramontes eventually earned her master of fine arts degree from the University of California at Irvine.

She has gone on to win many awards, including the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, a Sundance Institute Fellowship, and the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature.

Today, Viramontes is a teacher and mentor to many young writers. She is a professor of creative writing at Cornell University.

Despite well-deserved acclaim, Viramontes does not pretend that writing is easy. "Their Dogs Came With Them" was more than a decade in the making because teaching and life's other demands often devoured her attention.

When Viramontes could make time to return to her novel, she sometimes suffered from writer's block. But she did not give up:

"I just kept my fingers close to the keyboard, walking distance close, just in case something would happen. I had to pay close attention. I reminded myself that a novel begins by one word following another."

Viramontes also observes: "Writing novels is certainly not for the fainthearted, and writing them on a university schedule can be brutally challenging."

We can be grateful for her perseverance. "Their Dogs Came With Them" establishes that Viramontes is simply one of our finest chroniclers of the ordinary but heroic ordeals of human life.

[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

As a graduate student at Harvard in literary studies, I was shocked and saddened to read such an ill-informed review of Viramontes' second and astoundingly luminous novel.

Not only was the review factually incorrect--for this is Viramontes' second novel (not her first, as the reviewer claims), but, far more gravely, utterly incapable of appreciating the artistic power of a truly original and monumental novel. American literary scholars have already heralded Viramontes' new work as the "Middlemarch of Los Angeles," justly comparing it in power and scope with the greatest works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature.

Viramontes stands out among the even most talented of contemporary writers, and her work (including her first novel, "Under the Feet of Jesus," and her many wonderful short stories, including the widely anthologized "The Moths") has already earned her an unforgettable place in the canons of American and world literature. Her work is regularly taught alongside that of Joyce, Steinbeck, and Cisneros, and she is legendary for her innovations in prose and poetic intensity. "Under the Feet of Jesus" has been cited as a "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman," and is now an indelible part of our literary heritage and one of the most groundbreaking novels in decades.

"Their Dogs Came With Them" is Viramontes' "Ulysses"--a contemporary, multi-lingual, prismatic epic that bears no resemblance to the flat, one-dimensional easy-read novels that Publishers Weekly review seems to favor. The Publishers Weekly review seems to have read the novel haphazardly or perhaps not at all, as it gives no sense of the Viramontes' careful construction and dynamic interweaving of multiple narratives and perspectives--the novel is not 'loosely constructed' (a complaint that was, incidentally, often leveled at Joyces' "Ulysses" when it first appeared), but rather innovative, unconventional, and poetic in the best sense of the word.

Viramontes' novel grows out of its characters and the brute materiality that affects them, and its style is as complex and materially present as the story of Los Angeles life that it tells. The alleged "difficulty" of the novel lies in its challenges to the traditional tropes and characters of American literature--in its original voice, unique form of storytelling, and in the brilliance of its form. Viramontes' rich language demands our attention and, like other great writers, challenges the conventional ways in which we have learned or become accustomed to read.

While Viramontes' first novel was a lyrical tour de force, this current work is of a darker and textually different tone. The depth of the novel lies in its ability to characterize and describe in ways that surprise and illuminate, to render without merely 'reporting.' Traditional tropes of American and Latino literature are displaced, meditated on, and reworked, while Viramontes' lucid and ever-metamorphosizing style evokes the unique subjectivity of each of her characters and the fractured temporality of their experience. Any serious reader seeking unconventional beauty and innovative form will appreciate the texture of "Their Dogs Came With Them," as well as its refusal to conform to conventional storytelling.

Yet Viramontes, like Joyce, never sacrifices content for form, or a powerful portrayal of characters for her ever-deepening linguistic artistry. In its texture and intricately imbricated layers of narrative, it is constructed with genius and care. The ethical and esthetic value of this novel lies in its refusal to sacrifice or to romanticize the baffling, 'frustrating' and incomprehensible violence of urban life in twentieth century. The novel's form demonstrates and reenacts the violence it describes, revealing and rehabilitating the difficulties and frustrations of trying to tell stories about the ignored and the oppressed.

To read and review this novel with no ear for artistry or innovation, and with utterly no appreciation for Viramontes' rich legacy in American literature, as Publishers Weekly has so unfortunately done, is not only to do a great disservice to Viramontes and potential readers, but also to miss what may be the first true masterpiece of twenty-first century literature.

In her two previous books, Helena Maria Viramontes stuns readers with her precise language and uncompromising insights. Their Dogs Came With Them has been long in coming but worth the wait. With this novel Viramontes has certainly created something new and powerful. She offers up the talents and gifts of her first two books and adds a breathtaking use of structure, all of this in the service of a striking story. Many writers are defeated by Los Angeles when trying to write about the city because it suffers, for sure, from muliple-personality disorder. But Viramontes is a master, and in her hands, she turns L.A.'s kinetic energies into a tool for her own purposes. In this vision, the city and the characters are scarred, but not hopeless; battle weary, but resilient. Indeed, Viramontes has written a novel for each of us who have fallen to our knees, but knowing we would stand again, and taller.

The title of this wonderful novel is taken from The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel Leon-Portilla. Specifically it refers to the dogs that came with the invaders who destroyed the Aztec culture.

The major themes of Helena Maria Viramontes's novels and stories are informed by her childhood experiences in East Los Angeles, and the impact of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers on the life of her family. Strong female characters, and child protagonists are important in her work.

This novel tells the interwoven stories of Ermila, Tranquilina, Ana, and Turtle; orphan, charity worker, concerned older sister, and homeless gang member passing as a man. The women are connected by neighborhood and to an extent their own interactions. Plot is less important than the aura of East Los Angeles and most importantly the complexity of the four main characters.

Freeways are a structural theme for the novel, and these four characters the essence of the novel. Viramontes interviewed in "La Bloga" said: "I realized that the structure of the novel began to resemble the freeway intersections ... And like the freeways upheld by pillars, I realized I had four pillars in four characters of which most other characters orbited around."

Viramontes is sympathetic to the underdog., The freeway isolates the neighborhood and the characters. The characters struggle to build their own communities on their own terms despite the fear of dogs, the isolation of their neighborhood, and the fictional Quarantine Authority. Throughout, Viramontes is a master at creating mood through detail:

"The storm left the night bleak and all raw nerves. The bottles chink-chinked as she continued her aching walk. The run-in with the cholo chilled her into a wintry mood - she felt the loneliness of a last leaf awaiting its fall from a bare sprig. Her mental compass gone awry, she resolved to depend on her instincts. The woman found herself following a slavering dog that suffered a rash on its flanks. Sniffing and pawing around the storefront doors, parked cars, abandoned metals and throwaways, the dog resented the intruder, looking over its shoulder periodically to make sure she kept her distance from any edible discovery."

Altogether this novel captured my imagination. If you have any interest in Chicano culture, it will do the same for you.

This book is one of those rare gems that, if you're really fortunate, you come across from time to time. I received it as a gift from one of my mentors, Charlie Jones, who had, for some time now, been speaking of Booker T. Washington as one of his heroes. Having only a very surface knowledge of Mr. Washington - knowing that he was born a slave and went on to become founder of the famed Tuskegee Institute - he was a hero of mine, as well. After all, one could only imagine what he had to overcome to have achieved all he did.

However, after reading this book by Pastor Stephen Mansfield, the greatness of Mr. Washington simply came alive for me. He was a man of character, a man of faith, a dreamer and a doer; a man who moved mountains and moved hearts.

He had a plan - he had a dream - for taking his people from a horrible situation and helping them to move up and become successful in every way.

Unfortunately, as the author points out, he was fought every step along the way - often most by those he was trying to help and, in time, and long after he died in 1915, was disparaged by many as simply naïve, foolish, a misguided optimist, betrayer to his people.

Of course, none of this is true. Reading the story of Booker T. Washington in 2007 we can look back in hindsight and see that everything he taught - regarding the importance of character, thrift, knowledge, wisdom, forgiveness, love, persistence, delayed gratification, humility, etc. - is the way to build oneself, one's people and one's nation.

Only now is this man's wisdom and greatness beginning to once again be recognized and embraced. This book should be read by anyone and everyone looking to achieve greatness in their life. Read this book and you'll have the roadmap for doing so.

Booker T. Washington was a wonderful man; a hero. And the author, Pastor Mansfield, did a superb job in telling the story.

P.S. By the way, if you get an opportunity to read the booklet, "Character Building" by Booker T. Washington it will also be WELL worth your time. It's a reprinting of a number of his "Sunday Evening Talks" to his students and faculty members. The advice and wisdom that Mr. Washington shared is simply amazing.

Then Darkness Fled is a celebration of the life of Booker T. Washinghton and tells of a man who dined with heads of state and became the first Afro-American to receive honorary degrees from Harvard and Dartmouth. Chapters survey both his achievements and his life in this lively coverage.

In another sterling volume of the Leaders in Action series, Stephen Mansfield here outlines the life and character of Booker T. Washington. In vivacious voice and moving magniloquence, Mansfield traces Washington's path from slavery to his founding of Tuskegee Institute. He shows the difficulties Washington surpassed in reaching his goals, and the principles that helped him make it. In the words of Washington, "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succed." By this standard, Booker T. Washington was an astonishingly successful man.

Washington wrote his own autobiography, _Up From Slavery_, which must certainly not be neglected. But Mansfield's biography is also a criticial read because he includes facts that the autobiographer was too modest to mention, and he highlights wonderful aspects of Washington's character that humility prevented him from including. This biography doesn't contain the wonderful self-analysis and insight of Booker himself - but it does contain all the benefits of a third person account.

One thing I really appreciated about this book was its terrific analysis of slavery and inter-race reconciliation. Expounding Booker's opinion, Mansfield blames both whites and blacks for the problems that cropped up after the Civil War. Whites needed to repent of their brutal treatment of slaves and actually begin considering blacks more than mere animals; and blacks needed to repent of their spirit of bitterness toward their white enslavers, and begin working hard and leaving no excuse for disrespect of blacks. Too many books on reconciliation have practically advocated bitterness, hatred, and laziness when what is really needed is Washington's outlook of forgiveness and hard work. This book offers relief from such pride.

To wrap up, this is a great biography. Good history, good style, and good content. Buy it.

I live on the east coast, but am originally from the Pacific Northwest. This book is a great, fun way for my daughter to learn about my hometown. I hope that the authors will do more children's books from other regions of the country (and even international). It is a great idea, well-executed.

Both my children loved this book, they are 5 and 8. I bought the book to give them an idea about where we are going to move this summer. They are excited to visit the places in the book, especially to see the shrunken heads at "ye olde curiosity shoppe." It was a perfect start for my 5 yr old to practice reading since it came with a downloadable audio file, helping him sound out the words and keep pace. Overall it was entertianing and a good buy!

We just visited Seattle and Mt Rainier with our children for vacation and found this wonderful book. Not only is it a great learning for our kids, but also an awesome souvineer from our trip. Our kids were so excited that "Tony" vists some of the same places we did. This book keeps on giving every time we read it and teaches us all about the neat things in the great state of Washington. Go Seahawks!

Earl J. Hess's new "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign" is as good a piece of Civil War scholarship as I have read in years. It is at the most fundamental level a narrative history of military operations in the Overland Campaign of May and June, 1864: the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor, but it is a narrative history that focuses particularly on how field fortifications evolved over the course of those six weeks of heavy combat and it details how the use of field fortifications influenced the course of that campaign. In his earlier volume, "Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War," Hess dispelled the old myths that such entrenchments were a direct consequence of the power of rifled-muskets or that their use suddenly sprang into being in the spring of 1864 (he documented three years of field fortifications, although not on such a scale as became standard by the end of the Overland Campaign) and that these entrenchments were somehow merely the fruit of the teaching of Dennis Hart Mahan at West Point. Or to quote the author: "The use of field fortifications evolved during the Civil War not due to some irrational fear, but due to a real and potent threat: the continued presence of an enemy army within striking distance. Their use was a rational and logical response to that threat."

Hess reserves most of the technical details of entrenchment and breastwork design for an appendix, leaving his main narrative fast-moving and compelling. "Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee" is an important contribution to Civil War literature and should find a ready spot on the bookshelves of any serious student of the era. I look forward to his planned third volume, to examine field fortifications during the Petersburg campaign.

Inevitably, it must be asked how Hess views the Overland Campaign in balance. Was it a Union or a Confederate success? Although Hess does not absolve Grant of errors in too hastily ordering attacks or in failing to recognize the power of impromptu fieldworks, Hess concludes: "Grant's most significant achievement in the Overland campaign was not in capturing territory, or in positioning his army close to Richmond, or in reducing the fighting strength of the Army of Northern Virginia by 50 percent; rather it lay in robbing Lee of the opportunity to launch large-scale offensives against the Army of the Potomac. In laying claim to the strategic initiative, Grant won an important physical and emotional victory over Lee, and he did it with fewer losses than his predecessors had suffered in attempting the same goal ... Most important, he did not give up the strategic initiative and thereby brought the war to an end. The Overland campaign was as much a watershed in the strategic course of the Civil War as the Seven Days."

By the time of the Overland Campaign, the star of Earl Hess's second volume on Civil War fortifications, the idea of bravery that most soldiers had when hostilities began had just about fizzled out. In that more innocent time, soldiers and officers thought it cowardly to hide behiind entrenchments, or anything else for that matter. Battles were about sticking out your chest and, in plain view of the enemy, marching and shooting. (For a good account of this transition, see Linderman's Embattled Courage.)

Three years of the harsh reality of war changed all that, and by the time of the Overland Campaign, troops on both sides were digging in fast and furiously whenever they got the chance. Aside from the Vicksburg and Petersburg campaigns, nowhere was the entrenchment so obvious as in the Overland one. Most Civil War buffs know about the entrenchments at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. But many will probably be surprised (as was I) that entrenchments were also dug in The Wilderness and at the Bermuda Hundred.

Hess' account of the evolution of fortifications in this stage of the war is well-written and entirely accessible to the nonspecialist. He tends to protect Grant from the general's worst critics, arguing (much as does James McPherson) that the huge cost of federal lives in the Overland in fact did succeed in strategically defeating Lee.

The photographs are priceless. I've actually never seen most of them before. Moreover, the line drawings of fortifications and entrenchments are brilliant. All in all, highly recommended.

This is the second book in a series on fortifications in the eastern theater during the Civil War. The first book covers the war up to this point, while reading the first book is not required; it is worth taking the time to do so. 1864 produced a major revision in how digging in and fighting behind entrenchments is viewed by both armies. Open field battle gives way to fighting from behind entrenchments as both sides maintain close contact for months. The war is no longer open fields with a mile between the armies. Both sides dug into the earth often closer than skirmish lines were in 1862. The book details this change and the impact on the commanders and men.

The author continues working fortifications into the overall campaign giving the reader an excellent history of the Overland Campaign in the process. This presentation keeps the subject fresh while presenting the nuanced tactical differences in a logical sequential manner. This is very much a battle history but the emphasis is on how fortifications changed the campaign even as the campaign changed fortifications.

Earl Hess is one of our best authors. In this series and this book, he manages to give the reader a rich learning experience coupled with an enjoyable read. This is not a beginner's book but can be enjoyed by anyone with some knowledge of the Civil War.

If your after a book on the Capitol Building, then go no further than this beautifully photographed and well layed out book. Full of rich detail and architectual illustrations.

This building is the perfect imbodiment of the American Democracy, it is an iconic symbol of America the world over. This book does this great building justice, the images are crisp and vivid and the text is almost scholarly. Everytime i enter this building i get a shiver and feel the tingle of goose bumps, and am reminded of what a spectacularly beautiful building it is, and how the building seems to hold the most awesome power. The history in its halls and the majesty of its presence makes the most incredible impression, if you are not moved by this building then frankly you need to check your pulse. If you have any interest in this iconic building or just appreciate beautiful books then i cant imagine you being disappointed in this book.

This is a wonderful book for a number of reasons: its beautiful illustrations, its wealth of detail delivered in a reverent and infectiously enthusiastic narrative, and (most of all) its unabashed defense of classical architecture and passionate call for a return to the style in our great buildings. One has merely to open this book to thank his lucky stars that most of monumental Washington, DC was built before the Marxist-inspired so-called "International Style" and its degenerate stylistic descendants inexplicably washed away centuries (nay, millenia) of Western art tradition. It's appalling to read the sort of vindictives that were hurled against the last exponents of the classical style, men like Bacon, Russel, and Gilbert, by so-called "modernists" when they designed stunning masterpieces like the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, and the Supreme Court Building. And it's galling to see what "modernists" offered the nation as an alternative to classical design: can anyone look at the Museum of American History on the National Mall and not shake his head in sadness? The place looks like an annex to a New Jersey shopping mall.

Reed is a wonderfully able partisan of the classical style, and dismisses so-called "modern" architecture as the "Anorexic" style for its lack of decoration. That may be overly harsh; great architects can indeed produce great buildings even in non-classical styles - the Kennedy Center in Washington is a fine example of non-classical yet non-Anorexic design. But Reed has one undeniably true point: we as a civilization have allowed ourselves to be cheated our of our millenia old Western art tradition by so-called "artists" that have translated their lunatic fringe political views (the International Style was nothing but applied Marxism, designed to reflect the "means of production" to quote standard leftist gibberish) into drab design originally meant for "worker housing" and now applied (ironically) to US government and corporate structures. This "artistic" rabble still to a large degree indulges its proclivities towards lunatic fringe politics, and continues to so savagely attack the classical style (because they in fact hate Western culture and all it stands for) that it has become unthinkable to build a classical structure in the US today. Some are ignorant enough to claim that the classical style makes them "want to throw up," but the best they can come up with is the travesty of soulless design that is present day Houston or any number of Asian cities like Seoul.

The closest we are allowed to claiming our Western heritage anymore is the so-called "Stripped Classical" applied to the new WW2 Memorial in Washington. I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that that we at least got "Stripped Classical" instead of some appalling metal and glass gimmick that - like most "modern" structures - would rapidly deteriorate into a shabby pile of rusty metal, stained concrete, and peeling paint. But like Reed points out, "A building without decoration is like the heavens without stars." Why is "stripped" all we are allowed to enjoy anymore? Because leftist "artists" that can't stand the West, can't stand America, and most of all can't stand the culture from which it sprang browbeat us into standing glumly in "modern" museums looking at unintelligible and ugly "art" (a melting toilet at the Whitney comes to mind) and won't allow us to erect magnificent Corinthian or Ionic columns anymore. Really, it is sad. This magnificent book, at least, shows us what we once had, and what might have been. Let's hope future generations of Western civilization have more courage than we do, and spend their days recovering their own cultural heritage. Perhaps they will once more build for the sake of beauty rather than that of Marxist anti-Western hatred.

Very comprehensive guide for those of us who love to haunt used bookstores in CA (et al). Useful information such as inventory sizes, specialities, phone numbers, special services, and more. Organized by state, city, and also several indices.

An invaluable take-along tote for any who consider a used book store visit an essential part of the trip. Choose the revised, expanded Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States if traveling in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska or Hawaii: it includes number of volumes, store specialty, and candid comments if the store was visited.

This newly updated and expanded addition of The Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States continues to insure its preeminence as the most comprehensive and important guide to the used bookstores and dealers in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. Featured are 1,500 used book dealers conveniently grouped by location and category; a Specialty Index to help locate dealers specializing in a particular area of interest; easy to follow travel directions for getting where you want to go; twenty-four city, regional and state maps to aid in planning book hunting trips; and practical comments about shops based on the David and Susan Siegal's personal visits. If you are a true bibliophile or antiquarian book dealer traveling the area, don't leave home without your copy of The Used Book Lover's Guide To The Pacific Coast States!

Vanity in Washington by Peggy vanHulsteyn, published in December 2000, couldn't have been more purr-fectly timed. Yes, it was making its way to booksellers just as gift-givers were making up their minds about what to get the cat-lovers in their lives. But it was the embattled race for the White House that made anything with a Washington, D.C. dateline in demand...

VanHulsteyn's cat Vanity provides both the inspiration and the voice. Vanity's trials and tribulations of touring a particular city are from the feline's unique perspective. Through Vanity's travels, we humans get a tour of our Nation's Capital's hot/top spots. One of my favorites is when Vanity coughs up a fur ball in the cab when the fare seems excessively high because the driver didn't understand English and took them needlessly out of their way. She also pokes fun at bureauCATS and fat cats and other political animals...

Vanity in Washington is light-hearted, and vanHulsteyn's humor makes this a fun and funny read...Its 112 pages make it an easy one- or two- sitting reading for the cat-lover in your life -- you or someone you know. Susan Bard Hall, Pet Times

This delightful book is my choice of a gift for every one of my cat-loving friends. Van Hulsteyn knows cats, their idiosyncracies, their foibles, and their lovingly inattentive ways. Cat owners will readily see their own pet in Vanity and her antics. Upon receiving the book as a gift from me, my friend in Seattle, a 3-cat owner, e-mailed, "I can really relate to her description of Vanity getting into her suitcase that's open on the bed....Just what mine do before I go on a trip. They camp out in it and leave cat hair all over whatever I have already packed!"

And cat owner or not, everyone will spot their favorite bureaucrat in the Washington characters van Hulsteyn deftly delivers, along with enough cat puns to keep them in puurrspective. Her eye for distinctive details, as well as the charming illustrations, enhanced my pleasure as I chuckled through her droll descriptions of Vanity facing the frustrations we all deal with daily, from weather-challenged traffic to rude parking attendants to power-hungry "friends." Few of today's manners, mores and tastes escape her sharp wit.

I had met Vanity in van Hulsteyn's first book about her, "Diary of a Santa Fe Cat," and was pleased to find I could continue my acquaintance with this witty kitty--and have a second round of gifts that please my friends so thoroughly!

"Vanity in Washington" is just the prescription to laugh our way out of our recent national political quagmire. (Shall we at least all agree we could use a good laugh about Washington?) Imagine "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" with a feline cast. No, it's more sophisticated, more light-hearted than that. OK. Imagine "Auntie Mame" as a cat. That's closer to the level of hilarity. Readers will be "amewsed " (this book is chock-full of cat puns) no matter which political party has their support.

"Vanity in Washington" offers up a charming view of our nation's capitol through the eyes of an adventurous calico named Vanity (thus the title) recounting her attempts to navigate the metro, take in an Orioles home game, attend a formal state dinner, and become the Czar of Snooze as the new director of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Inertia). It's a timeless send up of bureaucracy and a great gift for those who accept that cats already run the world and we humans are just here to open cans. Recommended.

Though 4 years younger than the author, Frank Wetzel, I knew many of the people he talked about in Victory Gardens & Barrage Balloons and experienced many of the same places and events he writes about. The girl used as the model on the cover lived not too far away from my family during WWII. I would definitely recommend this book for all Bremertonians but especially those living there between 1930 and 1945. Others may enjoy it as well

Former editor Harwood of The Post has written a 3-page review of the book in the health section re: the importance of oral history. Good reading

I was not too familiar with the life of Marian Anderson, so it was
with some degree of anticipation that I listened to THE VOICE THAT
CHALLENGED A NATION by Russell Freedman . . . it did not
disappoint.

Anderson began her career, singing in church choirs . . . because
she had to quite school after her father died when she was in
eighth grade, she did not get to complete high school until
she was 24 . . . yet she continued to sing, helped along by
members of her church who constantly came together to raise
money for her lessons.

She eventually sang to sold-out concert halls throughout Europe . . . yet
the book's most moving part described her return to this country in
1939 . . . when she was denied permission to perform in Constitution
Hall in because she wasn't white, she staged--with help from
Eleanor Roosevelt--a breathtaking outdoor concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

I would have liked this CD to have contained some of the performances
of her actual songs . . . yet for that, I guess I'm just going to have to
spring for another CD of her music . . . it will be my pleasure to do so.

Writing a biography of a private person who led a public life is, by definition, difficult. So it only stands to reason that writing a children's biography of a private person who led a public life would be ten times as hard. Children's biographies cannot speculate over the sex life of the subject. They can't delve into shoddy rumors or dredge up conspiracy theories related to the person's sordid background. None of this is to say that Marian Anderson had such sketchy rumors floating about her person, of course. By all accounts she led an exciting life, had a fabulous career, and is regarded as a great American hero. But she was also a private person, which places Russell Freedman in a difficult position. As the author of, "The Voice That Challenged a Nation", Freedman's job is to tell Anderson's story while relying on as many good, strong, clean facts as he can get his hands on. Fortunately, we're talking about the premiere biographical children's author here. Alongside fellow genius James Giblin, Freedman knows exactly how to present a life this interesting and detailed. The book will not charm every child assigned it in school. But if you've a kid who's open-minded and able to get into Marian's struggle, this is an excellent resource. Even if, prior to this book, they couldn't tell Marian Anderson from Ella Fitzgerald.

The book opens with what is inarguably Anderson's greatest moment in the public eye. She stands on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with a crowd of 75,000 people below her, waiting to hear her sing. The date is April 9, 1939, and Anderson has been refused the chance to perform at Constitution Hall. Anderson is black and the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) is inherently racist. With this concert, under the shadow of Lincoln himself, Anderson gives a heckuva performance that stands as a dignified response to racism in America. It goes very well and from here we shoot back and see Ms. Anderson's life in full. From her early days as a choir member in Philadelphia to her triumphant European tour in the early 30s. Certain aspects of Marian's life repeat themselves. She was wholly dedicated to her mother and took her everywhere. She was uncertain of her own talents at times but continued to sing and conquer. Freedman expertly weaves fascinating aspects of Marian's life (example: her high school boyfriend waited some twenty years to marry her) with factual information about the times in which she lived. Kids who read this book learn just as much about Jim Crow laws and deeply imbedded segregation as they do about Ms. Anderson's life. By the end of the book you find yourself emerging with a fascinating look at a truly great woman.

Freedman follows up this book with an extensive bibliography (which gives props to fellow fabulous child biography, "When Marian Sang" by Pam Munoz Ryan). There's also a discography, a series of picture credits, and a wonderful index. It seems petty to demand that an author (or publisher) bend even farther backwards after producing such a gorgeous book, but I was a teensy bit sad that "The Voice That Challenged a Nation" didn't have a small cd accompanying it. When you read a quote, like the one from opera and concert singer Jessye Norman saying that, "If the planet Earth could sing, I think it would sound like Marian Anderson", you want to hear that voice. Not just read about it. But as I said, them's small potatoes. As it is, this may be one of those few children's books that inspire kids to search for Marian Anderson recordings on itunes (which has a lovely selection, by the way).

With some authors, you know to trust them. You pick up their latest work without a smidgen of doubt in your mind that what you're about to peruse is going to impress you. After Freedman won my respect with his glorious, "Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery" (Eleanor shows up quite a lot in this book as well, I'm pleased to report), I expected nothing but the best from his Marian Anderson bio. And the best it is. A fine selection for any library, whether personal or public, anywhere.

"This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, 'My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'
"And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

"Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

"Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

"But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

"Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

"Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring..."

--Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963

Dr. King must surely have had a thought or two of Marian Anderson as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on that historic afternoon and delivered those words.

Many of us know Marian's basic story:

Marian Anderson was a helluva singer.

Despite being celebrated in Europe as the voice of a century, and despite having the strong support of the President's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marian Anderson was denied the opportunity to perform in Constitution Hall in Washington, DC because it was owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and those ladies didn't allow no black folks to be singing in their hall. That refusal led to Marian performing instead from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for a crowd of 75,000 people on the Mall and a nationwide radio audience.

She stood up tall where Martin would stand a quarter-century later and led off her performance with a rendition of My County 'Tis of Thee.

Her performance is seen as a historic event at the dawn of the modern Civil Rights movement.

Two years ago, Pam Munoz Ryan and Brian Selznick created the stunningly beautiful 40 page picture book, WHEN MARIAN SANG (Scholastic Press, 2002), which won all sorts of awards including a Sibert Honor.

Now Russell Freedman has written a beautiful and more detailed biography of Marian Anderson which will similarly captivate readers with its engaging text and its clear, oversized photographs of the singer herself and of supporting characters in the story of Marian Anderson.

The most precious of those supporters were also some of the earliest. Through the chapters focusing on her earliest years, I was moved by Freedman's portrayal of how Marian's childhood community came through time and time again to insure that her dreams would not be in vain:

"Again there was no money for lessons. Most of Marian's earnings from concert appearances went to her mother, who was still taking in laundry and scrubbing floors, and to her sisters, who were still in school. And again the congregation at Union Baptist Church came to Marian's aid, organizing a benefit concert that raised $566 so that she could study with Boghetti."

Equally moving is the subplot of her life that involves Orpheus Fisher:

"I don't wanna wait in vain for your love" --Bob Marley

Having had to quit school after eighth grade in the wake of her father's death, Marian did not complete high school until she was twenty-four. It was during her delayed high school years--back when America was engaged in the First World War--that Marian met Orpheus Fisher who, "like her, was still in high school. He fell for the shy singer with the soft laughter and huge sparkling eyes who was almost as tall as he..."

Decades later, America was midway through the Second World War when Marian finally relented and married Orpheus, who has tirelessly and faithfully pursued her all those years, while she was single-mindedly focused on her career.

And what a career it was:

"During one ten-month period she gave 123 concerts in fifteen different countries, performing a repertoire that included over two hundred songs and arias in German, Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, and other languages."

It must have been amazingly disheartening for Marian Anderson to return home from entertaining European royalty and once again come face to face with Jim Crow. Like black sports stars of that era, Marian faced dangerous and humiliating conditions when traveling and performing around some regions of our "sweet land of liberty." And yet, in photos, she appears both to have left that all behind and to be channeling some kind of higher power as she sings.

" 'It was music-making that probed too deep for words.' "

Marian Anderson remains a symbol of the historic fight to let freedom ring for all Americans. In VOICE THAT CHALLENGED A NATION, Russell Freedman goes far beyond the symbolic to provide us a memorable look at the life of a singer whose talents knew no bounds.