Minnesota Books

As someone closely associated with the military, though not of it, I found Samet's observations of the military life, thought processes and customs fascinating. It is often difficult for those outside the life to distinguish between our society's idea of a soldier and individual soldiers themselves. We tend to believe that they are all cut of the same cloth -- proud, honorable, bloodthirsty, fighting men -- and tend to forget that the officer core includes poets, dreamers, and women as well.

Many of these ideas about what a soldier should be filter down to us through our literature and our movies. Samel makes a good case that it is possible to use those images to our advantage, by encouraging thought and discussion about where those stereotypes come from, how they differ from actual experience, and what they say about the moral choices officers must make.

Dulce et decorum est indeed.

This book is a true story and it says so in the authors note. This book is very sad, interesting, and violent. It is about a 16 year old boy who heard of a shooting war. His name was Charley. He wanted to enlist for the army but they said that you must be 18 to go and enlist for the army that would take place in the shooting war. Charley lies about his age and gets in without question. He gets training and fights in the army and in the battles he fought in he learns what it really is like to be in the army. He learned that you always think you're going to die. He learned that if someone is having a slow and painful death because of a wound they will want to shoot themselves. Charley learned a lot in the army and that is why this book is called soldiers heart. My favorite part is the whole book because it is so interesting and sad. I don't have a least favorite part. This book is good for people that like stories that can show them a lesson.

I definitely recommend this book to all readers. Gary Paulsen does a great job in showing how Charley feels that he will certainly die, and how he changes from a happy farmer to a man that will kill to stay alive. This was one of the greatest historical fiction books that I have ever read because of all the amazing events that actually took place. For example, Charley and another man use dead bodies to build a wall to stop a vicious wind. This book had a lot of surprises, like when Charley is hit and wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. I couldn't wait to turn the page because of all these horrendous and shocking surprises. Because this book is only 102 pages, it makes for an astonishing quick read.

After reading it in class, this is what the MFMS's 8th grade Language Arts thought of the book:

"We liked the story because some parts of the story were really detailed and seems like you were actually there. Well, not really. It was easy to read because there was not so much hard words, which made it easier and better."
--Colleen and Jessica.

"I liked the story because it was extremely detailed with words to explain everything that happened. The bigger words make it a better book to understand more."
--Tom, Desirae, Juan

"I liked the book because it teach me about history. I think it was kind of hard to read, because all the big words. I think the big words make it hard to read and not one could understand it."
--Man, Diana, Giovanna

"We kinds liked the book because it talked about the war and we wanted to know about the war and the book helped a lot. The book was kind of hard to read, but easy to at the same time. It kind of had big words, but it was better to read the book that way. The book was very interesting. The book was good."
--Kara, Maria R., Maria Z., Angelica

In 1861 Charley is fifteen years old, living on a farm in Minnesota with his mother and little brother. Everyone has heard the rumor that there is to be a war, with those in the North fighting to stop the Southern rebels from doing damage to the country. No one is quite sure if the war is really going to happen, but Charley is determined to be a part of it if it is.

He convinces his mother that he can handle himself as a soldier and tells her the eleven dollars a month he'll be paid will help her out, and she agrees to let him go. He signs up, lying about his age so they will let him into the army, and begins his training.

At first things are horribly boring. The volunteer military spends much of its time sitting around, doing drills that don't use up their ammunition, and eating really bad food. Charley is considering deserting and simply going home, when finally his unit marches into battle.

Their first battle is a bloodbath--his unit tries to march across an open field while rebel soldiers shoot at them from above. Charley isn't sure what he thought a shooting war would be like, but it was certainly nothing like this. As the war continues and Charley is a part of more and more battles, he learns what war really is, and sees more than his share of the horror of it.

I liked that war wasn't glamorized at all in this book--the narrator spoke of the boredom between battles and the horror of the battles themselves. Nothing was made out to be fun about it. I also liked that Charley was so shocked and couldn't get over what he had seen. He was just a kid when he went into war and it wouldn't have been realistic for him to handle it well.

However, this book was a little too simplistic. It didn't give any of the nuances of Charley's thoughts and feelings, and didn't explore the feelings of anyone except this one main character. I would have liked a bit more depth.

As an avid reader of John Sandford's "Prey" novels I read through most of this book thinking "this is his best." The book revolves around Lucas Davenport, a Minneapolis cop and Sandford's most famous protagonist, working with the FBI to catch Clara Rinker, a mysterious for-hire killer on a vengeance run.

What's really great about this book, on top of the great writing and storytelling ability of Sandford, is that Lucas Davenport is unleashed. Normally in the Prey novels Davenport is limited in action by his superiors in Minneapolis, by politicians and rules. In this book, because it takes place in a different town, we really see Davenport unleashed. There aren't rules to follow, actions are made "off the record" and it all adds to the excitement of this thriller.

Even better is the antagonist in this novel is a very sympathetic character whom the readrs can identify with. Normally Sandford's antagonists are so evil and one sided the reader can't help but hope for some horrible death at the end of the book. This time it's clearly different, Clara Rinker is an eye-for-an-eye killer with a sense of justice.

Thus, 99% of the novel is great. However, in the final pages of the book everything falls apart. I won't reveal the ending but it is abrupt and anti-climatic. A terrible disappointment for what could have been Sandford's best work.

This is the first John Sandford book I have read. The author provides his readers with a well written, action packed, suspenseful story. The Clara Rinker character was well developed. I really liked the twist at the end. I am looking forwarding to reading more of John Sandford's books.

This book was very exciting. Very real humor and realistic. I love the characters. Difinitely suggest this one!

I have read just about all of the 'prey' books and have enjoyed most of them. This is another that was entertaining. However, I feel that this series has long since hit a wall and that one book is pretty much like the last. 'Mortal Prey' takes a step in a new direction by setting up a likable villain in the guise of a female hit-person. This is a character who appeared in 'Certain Prey', Clara Rinker. Rinker has killed a lot of people in her time and Sandford sets her up not as a terrible person, but as someone I personally wouldn't mind having as a best friend or next door neighbor. In fact its hard not to root for her as Davenport tracks her down.

A few things that kind of made me not get overly ecstatic about this book; One is that I really was never at the edge of my seat here. This is supposed to be a suspenseful novel but it wasn't. It just sort of goes along and Davenport comes across clues with little effort. Two is that as I said before, Rinker is just way too likable, nice, and the girl-next-door type. Three, Sanford's formula is getting old. and Four,what the heck was Davenport doing in St Louis or all across North America solving this crime? It makes no sense to have a local cop traipse across the globe hunting down international crime figures and taking on the mob.

Unless you have reached this book in the series and want to continue onwards, I would suggest that you shy away from this. 'No Country for Old Men' by Cormac McCarthy or 'Mystic River' by Dennis Lehane are far superior.

I recently finished Mortal Prey and it was a great read from first page to last. Clara Rinker is a great character. Would make an exciting movie; how would Cathy Bates be as Clara??

I needed to listen to this since I had listened to Stripped, the book that follows this one.

It explained a lot that I did not understand. That is the problem with finding a new author and reading a later book.

It was a good read.

My first and last time reading anything by Brian Freeman. It started out pretty good, but then when he got to describing the lesbian Nancy Carver, his homophobia and hatred of lesbians came raging out in his completely unrealistic and stereotypical description of her. From there, the entire book went downhill. He painted every single other adult female as surrealistically beautiful with incredible bodies. Apparently he's never seen an actual female police officer: they don't fit his stereotype. His Hispanic police officer in Las Vegas sounded more like a pimp than a cop. And the ending just cracked me up. His own wife and her ex-husband?? Give me a break!

I thought this book was a wonderfully well-weaved tale of mystery, murder & mayhem.
I'm an avid reader of mystery novels and while I truly enjoy the settings, detective characters and so on - I have always prided myself on figuring out the "guilty party" early in a book.

Not so with this piece of entertainment.

At various stages along the way I had it "figured out" only to discover later that I full of beans and I learned what I wanted to know only when it's crafty author let me.
This masterpiece provided me with hours of entertainment and it was so infused with twists and turns that I constantly felt as if I were riding a rollercoaster of emotions and intrigue.

Be warned that it is an addictive page turner.
The dishes & laundry can and will wait. Time spent reading this one is time well spent. Period.

Let me get straight to the point. If you like crime fiction, especially the novels that really twist your mind in knots while you try to figure out what's going on, then you need to buy IMMORAL. If, like me, you read and enjoy the likes of Connelly, Gerritsen, Deaver, Coben, Slaughter, Connolly and Child you will not be disappointed by this relative newcomer to the genre. He's good. He's very good, in fact.

This novel actually represents the first in a series featuring Lieutenant Jonathan Stride, later to be joined by Las Vegas Police Detective Serena Dial. Stride is based in Duluth, north Minnesota, a town on the edge of Lake Superior that I had never heard of before, and presumably not many others know it either as it doesn't even have a Starbucks (shock, horror). The story revolves around the disappearance of a rebellious, sexy and in many ways mysterious teenage girl named Rachel, whose behaviour affected several people before she disappeared and whose personality continues to influence others - including Stride - years after she was last seen. The tale also involves the love life of forty-something Stride himself, initially a widower having lost his wife to cancer a year before the story begins. His bedroom exploits are a little too graphically detailed for my own personal tastes, but it's fair to say that his romantic asides are very relevant to the plot and are not merely bolted-on to please a certain sector of the readership. Most importantly though the central story of what happened to Rachel is very well told and I was kept guessing right to the end. More than guessing, actually - at times I felt like shouting at the page demanding to know what's going on! The only disappointment was finishing it, because I simply did not want it to end. It more than held my interest at all times, there is never a dull moment and there is a complete absence of gratuitous violence. Brian Freeman has written two follow-ups to this debut novel and I'm going to buy them both. Definitely a crime fiction writer who knows his way around the courtroom and one to watch out for in the future.

The action flowed continually. The dialouge was first rate. This author has got it.

This book pulls you into the dark world of Sandford. It is the best of the "Prey" series. An absolute win!

I was thrilled to have another Prey novel to read. Eyes of Prey lived up to my expectations and was a great addition to the Prey series.

This is another solid police procedural by John Sanford. For me, it seemed to drag in places, but in all fairness, that could have just been my mood and circumstances that made parts of it difficult to stay interested in. All in all, I love the Prey series, and look forward to reading the next one.

John Sandford is not the best of crime novel writers but he's not bad. I've read a couple other Prey books and have enjoyed them. They're good books to take to the beach or to read on a plane. The nice thing about them is that they don't require much concentration.

I am disappointed in this one. In fact, I'm only half way through and I don't think I'm going to finish it. What's the problem? It drags too much. I want a crime novel that is hard to put down. This one is easy to put down but hard to pick up again. Let me give an example. One of the main characters has a drug addiction. Sandford wastes pages (and virtually chapters) describing this guy's drug induced states. I got the idea the first time so I didn't need these descriptions repeated every couple of chapters. In fact, I've skipped those pages and haven't missed anything.

Other parts of the book are equally slow and boring. I'll try another of the Prey novels but will give up on Sandford if I find the same style.

Sandford is a brilliant writer and he shows how Lucas Davenport - the hero of the series - is walking that thin, sharp line between hero and villain right now. Suffering from depression (and likely post-traumatic stress disorder after the events in the preceeding book, Shadow Prey (Lucas Davenport Mysteries)), Lucas lets his temper take control early on while hunting down a young pimp who beat up one of his hookers - a young lady who was one of Lucas' snitches. This subsequently leads to an IA investigation at the worst possible time, because Lucas is then assigned to work on a new case - a well-known doctor's wife (Stephanie Bekker) has been murdered in their home, and her eyes cut out - an anonymous phone call alerted the police. When there is another murder, Davenport begins to suspect there might be a serial killer on their hands - even though he cannot make a connection between the two women.

Things heat up quickly in the novel and I have only given you a very bare bones idea of the plot - I don't want to spoil this novel for anyone who hasn't already read it. I love this series and this book is an exemplary example of why I feel about these books as I do. Lucas Davenport feels like a real person, with real problems that he deals with in a real manner - that is, sometimes self-destructively. I highly recommend this entire series to anyone who enjoys a good thriller, police procedural or murder mystery. You can't go wrong with the Lucas Davenport series.

Never having read Ms. Ray before I found this just delectable. Her writing reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Berg. She knows how women "think." The humor under stress and in dire situations is what made this book so delightful to read. Ruth is a believable character, one you can't help but like. As life keeps handing her lemons, she keeps making cake, her way of dealing with stress.

A husband out of work, two eccentric aging parents living with her (who are divorced and hate each other), a typical self-centered teenage daughter, a son away at college and tuition to pay for, Ruth is overwhelmed, and not a minute to herself. Baking is what brings her comfort, even if it's in the middle of the night.

This has more than just baking and stress relief however, it is a tapestry of emotions - love, growth and acceptance. Both of Ruth's parents are pianists. Hollis, Ruth's mother, a teacher, taught music and specifically piano to support her and Ruth in the early years when Ruth's father, Guy, left them to make a career of playing the piano in night clubs. Now he's injured, no insurance or pension, and no one to help him through his recovery but his daughter, who just can't say no. The love of music was instrumental in weaving together the tapestry of this family in a satisfying way. An uplifting family drama, with a lot of humor and insight into what bonds families (or not) reinforcing yet again, that anything is achievable if one is willing to get past the icing and deep into the cake.

The dialog is engaging, the characters real, and the end result very satisfying, with some wonderful recipes thrown in. I read it in one sitting, and will buy copies for some of my favorite bookworms. Highly recommend it.

Footnote: after reading and reviewing this, I went on to read Ms. Ray's "Step-Ball-Change" (a tap-dancing term) also about women stepping up to the plate when needed. Wonderful characters, I'm not sure which I liked better, both books are great entertainment.

I am so glad that this book caught my eye! As someone who enjoys baking--not to mention eating!--cake, I read this entire book with a smile on my face. It started with main character Ruth's description of her "happy place," the place in her mind that she retreats to when stressed, and continued through her tribulations of dealing with a sulky teenaged daughter, a suddenly out-of-work husband, and two dependent yet still spry parents. To cope, Ruth bakes cakes...and bakes and bakes and bakes to the point that her entire family is sick of cake. Ruth never dreams that cake could turn out to be the solution to all of her family's problems, but that just might be the case...

This was a delightful little book that I finished in only two days. Author Jeanne Ray manages to create characters who seem genuine; they have plenty of faults yet still come across as likable and appealing. Overall, the entire feel of the book is warm and comforting, very much like...well, like a cake. :) Ray includes all of the recipes mentioned in the book--all of the cakes seem complicated but mouth-watering enough to make me want to attempt them. Overall, I throughly enjoyed this book and found it to be a great summer read; definitely recommended!

Eat Cake is a delicious book! I would definitely recommend it to someone looking for an easy read that is full of great humor and inspiration. It had me laughing out loud, enjoying pearls of wisdom, and hungry for cake! Jeanne Ray is an excellent writer, and I look forward to reading more of her work!
AS a gift, this book would be great wrapped in a pretty hat box or paired with a pretty cake server.

This is an enjoyable book, but the characters lacked appeal for me. I wanted to like it more, but something was just missing. The plot was predictible and without any real climax. The best thing about the book was the relationship between Ruth's long estranged parents. With a little more depth this could have been an outstanding book -- even a great movie perhaps. As it is, I'd give it to a friend to read -- but tell them not to expect too much.

There is nothing wrong with sharing a cake with family and friends. But the author wanted to go into SO MUCH detail on the mixing, measuring, making, folding, smelling, seeing, tasting that it slowed the story. I nearly gave up.

Then the family dynamics came into play and that was interesting. But every now and then we had to put up some more baking and really strange combinations of cakes. I found myself saying get on with the story. I just wanted to know the next problem and how she fixed it.

If you could shorten the story by 10%, really cut back on the descriptions of baking I would have given it 5 stars.

This book is the beginning of a set of three books that you will want to savor slowly and thoughtfully. The characters become your neighbors and friends. This book series gently teaches lessons in faith, life and love. The only disappointment in this series is when you read the last page in the third book and realise that you must leave your book friends. The writing style is different as Traci teaches us that we all have our own story of what makes us who we are. If you are like most of the readers, you would love to live in or visit Lake Emily.

I'm sorry, but this book was just okay. It was a very slow read, and the characters were just not developed fully. It wasn't a bad story, but don't expect much to happen. I did not care for the ending. The mood was too stark of a contrast to the rest of the book.

I thought this book was a total snore. I could not even finish it.

Can of Peas was a wonderful book. The first in a series of three. The book makes the reader think about life and relook at what is important. I would recommend it to all.

As a 37-year resident of the Midwest, I loved the authenticity of this book. From the seedcorn caps to the helpful neighbors in combines, it was a refreshing reminder of a simpler way of life and faith!

For the life of me, I don't see what people get out of Kathleen Norris' writing! Her thoughts are jumbled, scattered, rambling, disjointed, and highly self-absorbed to boot!

If you want to read a REAL book about monastic life, I recommend The Genessee Diary. Pass on this one. I feel that I've completely wasted the few hours I spent trudging through this tome.

Book Review
The Cloister Walk
In Kathleen Norris' book, The Cloister Walk, she invites the readers into her life as a Protestant, poet, feminist, married woman who is drawn to the monistic life of the Benedictines. She details the struggles she has with reconciling what she knew as a child with what she is learning today. Kathleen also finds great joy in experiencing life as she does, and seems to have no intentions of converting to the Catholic faith; she is happy being Protestant. While Kathleen takes the reader on her journey with her, she takes time to fill the reader in on her past so that they can fully appreciate her present.
This book was not what I expected when I first chose it specifically from its title. I was expecting a book about someone who is in a cloister and writing about that life, but once I understood what the intent of the book was I enjoyed journeying with Kathleen. I also found myself wanting to know what happened in her life once the pages ended. One of the biggest strengths of the book was that it was engaging and kept me interested in Kathleen's life. The book also shed some light on the Benedictine life and left me wanting to know more. In my position at my parish, I am often asked about good books. I can easily suggest this one as an option, though not as a book to obtain knowledge about the Catholic faith, but as a good summer read, which I think can often times be very valuable.

It's been a few years, but memory tells me this was - and is - a wonderful book. I suppose it makes a difference to have been to the monastery in Minnesota where the author went, and to have met Ms. Norris; nonetheless, she has a lot to say. Her thought-full exposition of the Psalms was particularly helpful, although I would have been happier if she had chosen a more recent translation (such as the NRSV or the CEV)than the often-difficult-to-understand King James Version. I have recommended this book many times, and continue to do so.

This interesting book gives the reader an unusual inside view into the cloistered life, especially for those of us who would dearly love to have the experience but probably never will have the privilege.

One of the elements of Kathleen Norris which makes reading her so fundamentally satisfying is her ability to weave the words and thoughts of others so seamlessly into her own observations of endeavoring to live a life of faith. "The Cloister Walk" seems to do this with greater facility and to greater effect than "Dakota: A Spiritual Geography."

In "The Cloister Walk," Norris, an apathetic Christian turned agnostic turned yearning Protestant, relates her experiences (physical and spiritual) as an oblate with the Benedictines. This is an accessible memoir of one woman's account of opening the eyes of her heart in her search for God and one that can be enjoyed by anyone striving to hear a still small voice within.

All about rape and sex - well, almost all. It does get good at the end.

If what you want from a thriller is to be thrilled, then give Brian Freeman a try. A good thriller has to be character-driven, so that you can actually care about the principals and what the plot has to throw at them. Brian Freeman gives us credible characters, a great twisting plot which actually holds together till the end,(see also : Harlan Coben), and believable baddies with plausible motives. Great Stuff !!

The third book in a series of stories involving Duluth police and politicians. The book delivers rapid-fire action from beginning to end. The plotline is a series of different stories or subplots that the author intricately melds together. I especially found it interesting how the author works current events into the book which makes it near impossible to put down. I almost thought I had the ending figured out too...happy to read that I didn't.

Brian Freeman's 3rd outing after last year's Stripped, take Stride and Serena Dial, his paramour from Las Vegas, back to Duluth. Though conflicts of interest prevent Stride from directly investigating the murder of his former partner, he nevertheless becomes involved. Meanwhile, Serena, adjusting to life in the frozen north, has put up her shingle as a PI and is hired to act as an intermediary for a blackmail drop for a prominent local lawyer. What starts as two disparate cases converges into one before diverging into three (or at least it appears to be three).

I enjoyed the interaction and subtlies of the characters, who are well-drawn and interesting, especially the pseudo love-triangle between Stride, Serena and Maggie. This is a well-crafted thriller/mystery with nice twists and surprises. I deducted one star because Freeman tried too hard to make the apparent 3 cases connect. Some of it, especially the "2nd" climax, appears confusing and hard to follow but nonetheless still satisfying and rewarding. Freeman will need to work hard to top this one.

Another fantastic book by Brian - - i cannot wait for the next - each one is better than the one before - truly talented writer...elle

Mind Prey was a nice change of pace from other books in the series I've read, in that it dealt with getting live victims away from a killer/psychopath, rather than just being another murder investigation. The only issue I had with this one, was the lack of consistent pacing. There were points where it didn't feel like it was firing on all four. Other than that, this was another good read from a reliable author.

My book arrived in a very timely manner and in the stated condition. I have been very happy with my purchases from Amazon dealers.

Entertaining, fast-reading thriller with a little meat on its bones. I like the way Lucas Davenport is a conservative, tough-as-nails crime fighter ("What about the rights of the victim?" would be a perfectly believable Davenport quotation), yet counts as his very favorite people his sensitive nun friend Elle and his liberal girlfriend Weather. Makes for some good character interaction. "Mind Prey" combines the cat-and-mouse plot of a thriller where we know who the psychopath is from the outset, thus letting us get right to the chase, with the puzzle of a whodunit, as an unknown figure is influencing and manipulating the psycho from the shadows. And amid all the chasing and figuring out, Lucas has to decide whether or not to actually give Weather the engagment ring he's been carrying around in his pocket. In other words, lots of fun stuff going on. You really should start at the beginning of the Lucas Davenport series ("Rules of Prey"), but there wouldn't be any huge harm done if you sampled the series with this lightning-fast entry and then jump in at the beginning if you like it. Myself, I can't imagine someone being a crime thriller fan and not reading John Sandford's "Prey" series.

Just got into reading the "Prey Series". This book was a quick read and very well written. Looking forward to reading the rest.

John Mail - the antagonist of this novel - is the sort of psychopath of which nightmares are made. Years after being committed by Andi Mannette, he finds himself again obsessing over her; so, he kidnaps her, and both her daughters. Andi is, however, from a wealthy family with many connections, and her estranged husband is also wealthy with connections, so a media storm is immediately created, leaving Lucas Davenport roasting on the spit as he runs to beat the clock and find Andi and her daughters, before it is too late.

There are many scenes that are disturbing and graphic concerning Mail's treatment of Andi; many might find these difficult to get through (I know I did) however, they are not only important to the story but they also get across Mail's attitude toward Andi, which is very ambivalent.

So much happens - this story is so tautly paced - that it seems the events take place over a much longer time frame than just five days, but that is all that goes by. As I noted in the review title - very gripping story. Highly recommended.

The cover and title itself, at first glance, could lead one to believe this was another in a long line of Oprah-esque literary campaigns designed to scare the crap out of our kids not to mention us....their parents!
Unprecedented in it's examination of past as well as current issues of Childhood Sexuality as well as an almost non-debatable presentation of facts, legal and/or otherwise, this is proving to be the benchmark of books on this delicate subject.
To her credit Judith Levine has taken the proverbial 'Slings and Arrows' for daring to write "Harmful to Minors" and will probably spend the better part of her career defending it's position. This reviewer never thought a book like this could ever be written much less published and I never thought I would be able to say this but ` It's about g*# damn time!'
This is coming from a proud parent and a loyal son. Now before some of you go off on some wild tangent about `sexualizing our kids' understand this. Sex and experimentation happens whether we want to believe it or not. It happens at various ages with various ages at various times in various places with various people. One of the `Bromides' I've always lived by is `I don't care who's wrong or right, I care what's wrong or right!' and after reading her book on this subject, I have come to the conclusion that Judith Levine is RIGHT! I am a proud father of two girls and I am both my girl's `Daddy'. Levine's common sense attitude, backed by her meticulous research of facts will find readers asking questions they were either afraid to or refused to ask before. As expected it had its early detractors. Those detractors could do nothing to prove her wrong. They operated with scare tactics and no facts. What a real 'Halloween Coalition' her detractors turned out to be. The extremists of both parties have trashed Levine. People from America's 'Far Right Wing', including it's most vocal ally, the Christian Right's very own 'Eva Braun', Dr. Laura Schlessinger, to the far Left Wing represented by a cavalcade of forgettable names, closely associated with the frigid/asexual/female chauvinist wing of the radical feminist movement. There hasn't been an alliance of this `weirdness' since the 1992 Anti-GAT/NAFTA campaign!
Ironically what I appreciated first was what I appreciated the most; The Title. A passerby catching a glance of just the books title would certainly come to the conclusion that it was some Pseudo-Clinical study of childhood sexual encounters, chocked full of stories of molestation and violence and predictably backed up by law-enforcement statistics proving things like the site of an exposed female breast to anyone under the age of 18 (check your local jurisdictions for Age-Of Consent) will cause that person to become a sexual predator, a deviant, a nymphomaniac or perhaps even go blind.
After delving into it one finds that it is anything but a scare mongering, painfully statistical treatise. While Oprah Winfrey, Pat Robertson and others continue ranting, all the while, steeped in the paranoia of `group-think and waiting for the call to go on the next witch hunt, you may want to take your hopefully open mind into an area not talked about much these days; The positive effects of childhood sexuality. While not an endorsement for `sex for any age with anyone' she does make an excellent and seemingly airtight case for a relaxation of certain `Prurient American ' sex-laws and attitudes. She also thankfully promotes a long overdue examination of our antiquated thoughts and ideas about sex as it relates to our children. It also may be one of the cleverest title-ings for a non-fiction work in the last 20 years. Whether or not you get the 'dipped in sarcasm' humor of the title you will, if read with an open mind, get a sense of the current state of childhood sexuality with it's almost 'Stalinistic' roundups and persecutions of caring parents and bright kids. She provides a common sense approach to dealing with issues of masturbation, sexual experimentation, child/child contact, adult/child contact and fear of sex as it relates to our views as adults. Reviled in some sectors, revered in others, Levine's major accomplishment is perhaps the one thing she didn't foresee. With the release of `Harmful To Minors: The Perils of Protecting Your Children From Sex', she has cracked open the door to a long over-due dialogue on sex and has done so in a way that forces us to face it, discuss it and finally deal with it.... and that my friends, is the most important thing of all.

Mike D.Jones, Sacramento, California

This excellent book provides the ammunition needed in the fight against those that wish to raise the age of sexual consent to 21. Already thousands of children and adolescents have been forced to register as sexual offenders for committing harmless acts such as groping or even pre-marital kissing.

Is consensually kissing someone a couple years under an arbitrary age of consent is really "sinful"? Is it really the job of government to punish this sin with a lifetime sentence?

All thinking people must not fall for the absurd "save the children from sin" bandwagon movement that is spreading sexual dysfunction and fascism. A fascist police state becomes absolutely necessary when the age of consent is higher than puberty. The natural age of consent is puberty. The ultimate goal of the child purity movement is to outlaw premarital sex. Outlawing premarital sex will criminalize far too many of those that we claim to want to protect.

Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (University of Minnesota Press, 2002)

I have read, over the years, a handful of books that I consider to be truly important, books that look at a particular aspect of our society, how it has damaged us (perhaps irreparably), and how we might change facets of our culture to stop further damage, and maybe heal some of the damage that's already been done-- Stanton Peele's The Diseasing of America, Gina Kolata's Rehtinking Thin, Philip K. Howard's The Death of Common Sense, and a few others. It's a very short list, mostly because these are books that do not fit in with the prevailing norms in the least. These are books that are unafraid to take a stand against the stupidity of our current culture. They are unpopular, and it's very hard to get them published. That, of course, makes them all the more important. And of them, perhaps, Judith Levine's Harmful to Minors is the most important. While all of them address very important topics, this one attacks the most wide-reaching subject I've found in one of these books: how America's puritanical attitude towards sex has resulted in generations of increasingly oversheltered, and dangerously uninformed, children, and how that oversheltering and lack of information have pushed America to the brink of disaster and allowed a number of social ills (of which AIDS is only the most visible) to fester unchecked.

When I started thinking about how to write this review, the obvious place to start, it seemed, would be with an extended quote from the book. Problem is, I couldn't come up with just one quote; so much of this book needs to be quoted, so much of what Levine has to say needs said, that singling out one or two paragraphs from the book seemed to be doing the rest of it a disservice. With one short exception (we'll get to that later), the entire book is quotable. Obviously, reprinting a 270-page book does not make for a good review, and yet if I could have done so here, I'd have done it in a heartbeat; this is a book that every American parent, or anyone who was raised in the increasingly oppressive anti-child culture that began to foment in the 1950s, desperately needs to read. Some will find validation in these pages that their embarrassing, socially unacceptable, or "morally repugnant" thoughts are universal. Some will come to understand that their beliefs about how they should be parenting their children are shared by many others. The majority, I think, will find that they are not alone, or nearly as rare as they had believed. It's the people whose voices have caused all these insane "protect the children" laws to be enacted who are in the minority; they just scream louder and know what buttons to press. When Levine traces the raft of onerous laws involving day-care workers (especially male day-care workers) not being allowed to show affection to children to the long-discredited McMartin case, the obvious reaction is, "well, since none of that actually happened, why do we still have the laws?" Indeed. And yet, somehow, we do.

I was prepared to stick this book far atop my list of best reads of the year for 2008, despite us being less than five months into the year, before I hit the epilogue. Levine stumbles a bit at the very end of the book; where she spent the majority of the book completely on-point, in the epilogue she suddenly starts lashing out at things that seem to have nothing to do with her thesis, drawing the most tenuous of connections at best. But this is in no way to say that the rest of the book is not well worth your time; in fact, were I drawing up a curriculum of must-read books for every American, this would most certainly be on it.

Children, especially those who are suffering between the onset of puberty and the so-called "magic age" at which we are all supposed to gain maturity overnight, are the last subclass of people it is considered socially acceptable to repress in America. Judith Levine is outraged by this, as we all should be, and Harmful to Minors is the result. The trouble she had getting the book published, which she recounts in the prologue, should set off major warning bells to everyone reading it. This is a deeply, deeply important book, and I strongly suggest you read it as soon as you possibly can. For in the six years since its release, not surprisingly, things have only gotten worse. The arm is already lopped off; the more of us who read this book, understand the consequences of our culture's actions, and speak up about them, the better a chance we have to stanch the bleeding. For if we don't, the patient may not survive the operation. **** ½

I'm almost all the way done, and I absolutely adore this book. The author sets up and supports very firm arguments against the neo-cons and overprotective parents who seek to push their morality on the rest of the nation. This is a must-read for those who wish to understand how our system got to be the mess it is today concerning sex.

I would say this is one of the 5 most important books I've read in my life.

Finally...FINALLY someone has the courage to stand up and say what needs to be said. Our society is dysfunctional. Parents don't know how to talk about sex and earn their children's trust in sexual matters. They pass their ignorance and fear right down to the next generation. Children who do not trust their own parents are definitely more vulnerable to abuse from others, especially when they learn to trust others.

There is so much hysteria, paranoia and flat out ignorance about sex in America. It is astounding!!!

The controversy that this book generated is mostly due to the repressive, morally righteous environment in this country. But Ms. Levine is also sex-positive. She goes beyond simply providing objective information about sex or our dysfunctional ways of dealing with it, she actually advances many of her own opinions about the positive nature of sex and the negative consequences of repression.

To me, sex raises many questions. I don't have all the answers. The only criticism I could make of the book is that Ms. Levine is a little too opinionated and like a race horse at the starting gate. She comes on a little strong for the majority of Americans, many of whom are still struggling to understand how people can be gay. I'm sure many of these people are not yet able to fathom that children can enjoy and benefit from sex with adults. So that part created a lot of controversy.