Coleman Books

The Thomason family is proud of Joseph, Clyde's big brother, who is a Marine sergeant and war hero. Joseph has been chosen to guard the Freedom Train as it crisscrosses the country with its precious cargo. At each stop along the way, there are huge throngs of people waiting to enter it and view such important historical documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Clyde will recite the Freedom Pledge when the train is in Atlanta, but he suffers from stage fright. Not only has he refused to be in the program honoring the Freedom Train, he hasn't even told his parents that the teacher has assigned the speech to someone else. Clyde's family is expecting to see him up on the platform.

One day after school, a bully named Phillip Granger and his two cohorts confront Clyde as he walks home alone from his friend's house in another part of town. BB grabs Clyde's pet, a barking tree frog, and sets him loose, while Phillip beats Clyde with a wooden plank. The delinquents are chased away by a young African-American boy named William Dobbs and his three-wheely, a slingshot that can fire three rocks at once.

The stunned and injured Clyde is treated by William's father, who happens to be a doctor. He declines an invitation to come inside their house because he believes he would get in trouble. Clyde doesn't really understand why; he just knows that he must keep silent about who rescued him.

Meanwhile, Clyde has his eye on an American Flyer train set that he would like his parents to buy him for Christmas. He knows the family is poor --- with his father working only part-time and his mother earning low wages at the cotton mill --- but still he hopes that this will be the year when he actually gets a present he wants.

One night, Phillip's father and a few strangers round up several white men from the mill town and drive them out to the Dobbs's house. Against his better judgment, Clyde's father is in the crowd, as is Clyde. Ugly words are spoken, and William's family is threatened with harm if they don't move away. Clyde is scared and confused. Why would anyone want to hurt such nice people?

FREEDOM TRAIN is a powerful historical fiction title that illustrates the evils of segregation and discrimination for a younger audience. As we celebrate Black History Month in February, children will want to read and discuss this timely and important book with their parents and teachers.

--- Reviewed by Carole Turner

As we continue to grow in our understanding of the Gospel, not simply literally with our heads but inwardly, deeply with our hearts, there are often friends and companions on the way. Kim Healy is such a friend, who has written this small guidebook, drawing on a variety of Scriptural passages (not just proof-texted verses from here and there), writings and prayers from the Tradition, and personal Experience of the passages. Read this one slowly and often!

This book was very good and interesting. It's sad, funny, realistic, and really makes you think about life in general. Would read again. Awesome book

It claims to be the "first nudie toons collection" and I hope it won't be the last. Even though the price may be a bit on the high side for a cartoon book, it is well worth the money. I was pleased to see the cartoons in full color and on glossy pages. "The Funny Side of Going Naked" is just as it says, cartoons with the nudism in mind, without being overly graphic or sexually explicit. Ron Coleman's cartoons are done with class while keeping true to the realism of what it must be like in nudist colonies. Anyone that has ever been to a nudist colony will surely enjoy this collection of cartoons. Anyone that has not been to a nudist colony will find these cartoons equally hilarious. Mr. Coleman has even broken down his cartoons in chapters for the reader - Hazards of Nudism, Religion, Politics, and even Family to name a few. So, as the book says "remove clothes before reading" and enjoy!! Unless you are on a bus, then I suggest you wait until you get home. : )

As its title suggests, this book focuses mainly on Coleman's battle against nephritis - the kidney condition behind his diminutive stature. I bought it more in hopes of finding some biographical detail, as mysteriously little is written about Coleman these days. The book's first chapter delivered the goods with a satisfyingly detailed biography going up to the early years on "Diff'rent Strokes." Avid fans are advised to seek out the 1996 edition (published only in Wales, where Coleman's popularity is undiminished). This much more recent work details his bitter legal squabbles with his parents, as well as his brief stint on the TV series "227." Rumors that lean times forced him to moonlight as an Oompa Loompa in a Wonka-themed amusement park outside of Manchester are curtly dismissed.

I came across this book while doing research. It is an excellent and thorough assessment of the contribution made by African American women in the history of journalism that has long neglected this population. I would encourage anyone who is interested in historical journalism to read this book.

I have really enjoyed this series of cook books. Everything I've made from it has been good. You don't need to do many conversions for the measurements and they have a chart in the back in case you need it as well as a glossary. Some ingrediants will need to be looked up since they use different names. [...]

What a wonderful collection. I was fortunate enough to see him read some of these poems live and in person and they are probably the finest Southern poetry since Tim Peeler's TOUCHING ALL THE BASES.

Mr. Barks words smell of country air and freshly cut grass. They pull out memories long buried but fine, strong, and clean memories nonetheless. His nostalgia for things long lost in southern country parlors and creaking back porches is incandescent in its description and the mind-pictures are as bright as those projected on the drive-in screen on sultry summer Saturday nights.

Try GOURD SEED or any of Coleman Barks original poetry. You will thank yourself for it.

A wonderful, must-read book if you wish to understand the ed wars and reading wars. It's a guide to the bad policies you might employ if you intend to subvert a civilization, and the good solutions that can save a failing school system. The story is set in the UK, but most of it resonates here.

American educators are almost a secret cult; their weird doctrines ooze from invisible springs. In the UK, however, the Labour Party, often in power, is openly Socialist, and its policies are hailed in the word Progressivist. The basic idea is enforced egalitarianism, ready or not. Whole Word was apparently used as one of many strategic tools, dumbing people down, cutting them off from their culture, and creating inefficiencies in the society. This book notes: "As Progressivism began, progress stopped."

Authors Alice Coleman and Mona McNee are evidently two ladies of the old school, always clear, wise, and indomitable. They have vast experience fighting for better educational practice. It's delightful to see them rap the knuckles of such false prophets as John Dewey, Frank Smith and Ken Goodman.

Toward the end, this book analyzes many quasi-phonics systems and eight "true phonics schemes" (use of the word "phonics" does not guarantee much of anything), and makes the case that Mona McNee's "Step by Step" is as good as it gets. I don't trust expensive, overly elaborate approaches. "Step by Step" does seem to be simple, child-pleasing, and cheap. It can also rescue adults.

"The Great Reading Disaster" can be viewed, pages at a time, on Amazon.com by clicking the link that says "Search Inside." To whet your appetite, here are a few of my many favorite quotes:

"All children, apart from the blind, profoundly deaf and brain damaged, can learn to read within two years, while still in infant school. Reading schemes should not go on forever and after two years children should be capable of choosing their own books."

"Deweyism is inherently self-contradictory. For all his talk of child-centeredness, he really aimed to sacrifice children's individuality to the group...While he derided the traditional authority he wanted to replace, he did not hesitate to incorporate more intense authority of his own."

"Phonics-taught children enjoy considerable school satisfaction as they successively master letters, words, and spelling rules, and come to read fluently...By contrast, illiterates and semi-literates lack school satisfaction and feel humiliated by failure...Clearly, illiteracy is an important factor leading to crime."

"The real villains were not the victimized teachers who carried out the intellectual child abuse but the training establishments that brainwashed them into doing so."

"All the undermining sense of failure and the various anti-social reactions that dyslexia provokes, have been manufactured by Progressivism's wrong-headed teaching techniques."

"Thinking is the brain's latest-evolved, most human function--the least instinctive and the most in need of explicit teaching. It depends upon accurate analysis of true facts but Progressivism reviles facts and praises false opinions, to give 'encouragement.' This pseudo-compassion saps thinking and robs pupils of their educational birthright."

Epilogue: just to be clear, McNee and Coleman advocate stripping away every last vestige of Whole Word. No sight words. No Dolch words. No Balanced Literacy. No phonics but "synthetic phonics." Children must learn the littlest parts first, and slowly build toward fluent literacy. My own research had already carried me to these same positions, so it was a delight to find this book. Here's my sense of it: any given page of "The Great Reading Disaster" will typically contain more sense than any of the books favored by our ed schools.

What a great book,full of helpful fingerings,and notation.The wide selection of songs is sure to please all guitarists. Thanks Mr. Coleman