Nebraska Books

This book is wonderful! The author is exceedingly bright, and writes in a jocular, engaging style, which nevertheless packs a data-rich punch. Plus, she makes very astute connections between her subject, the birth of British (and to a lesser extent, European) Children's Literature, with larger cultural movements: Classicism, Romanticism, responses to both the Industrial and the French Revolutions, class-struggle, colonialism, religious moralizing, gender roles, theories and practices of pedagogy, moivements for literacy, etc. -- and never gratuitously nor dogmatically.

This is a wonderful book, and anyone the least bit interested in Children's Literature -- past, present or future -- will derive *immense* enjoyment and education from it. Plus, it is lavishly illustrated with rare reproductions from the original books, and these are just not to be missed!

A life history of the great-great granddaughter of Sacajewea who was Indian boarding school teacher. The stories were great and left me with the notion of how could this women accomplish so much in one lifetime. A must read.

The Yuchis, a Native American people originating in the southeastern United States, were forcibly relocated to the Indian Territory (along with their neighboring Native American tribes) in the 1830s. More than seventy years later, much of their traditional way of life still survived into the early 1900s and was observed and recorded by anthropologist Frank G. Speck (1881-1950) during the years 1904 to 1908. Speck documented numerous facets of Yuchi culture, including language, subsistence practices, decorative arts, domestic architecture, clothing, religious beliefs and rituals, healing practices, mythology, music, social and political organizations, warfare, games, and life transition rituals and customs from birth to burial. Ethnology Of The Yuchi Indians remains as a seminal introduction to the history and the culture of this Native American peoples and is a welcome and renewed addition to the library of Native American Studies.

This is a major source book of major materials relating to William Ashley and Jedediah Smith and their explorations in the West in the 1820s. Contained are Ashley's narrative of his 1824-25 expedition to the Green River via the South Platte (the first to take the south branch) and his return on the Big Horn River to the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers; Smith's short narrative of his exploring journey to California (1826-28) (his full journal of his trip remained lost to history until 1967 when it came to light; it's also published by Bison Books and should be read in conjunction with this book; see my review of that book for a fuller account of this journey); and two fragmentary journals kept by Harrison G. Rogers, who was with Smith as company clerk, and subsequently killed along with 13 others when the party was attacked by Umpqua Indians in southwestern Oregon (only Smith and three others escaped the massacre).

In addition to this original material, editor Harrison Dale supplies full biographical accounts of both Ashley and Smith, and a thorough review of the fur trade in the west up to 1822. His notes are detailed and complete, among the best to be found in any western book, and he gives a comprehensive annotated bibliography as well. The index is also first-rate and easy to consult for research purposes. This is one of the half-dozen must-read/have books dealing with the early trans-Missouri fur-trade period. Superb history.

Was so inspired by the photographs in this book, I took it with me on one of my visits to Wounded Knee, to compare and photograph pictures from on or near the same place the photographer(s) did at that time, at the massacre site as well as the town itself.There are many pictures that I had not seen anywhere else in this book, and anyone interested in this place in history has got to have it. Textually very good as well.

I received this book as a gift from a nature center where I worked. I have used this guide in Nebraska, Ohio, and even S.Dakota. The book is organized by color of flower which is fast and easy when in the field. The full-color pictures are excellent and accompanied with very percise discription of other common names, family, flowering period, distribution, habitat, description and general information. I would recommend this book to any person interested in indentifying or just finding out a little bit more about the wildflowers of Nebraska.

I wasn't looking for humor per se when I got this. I thought this might be a little glimpse into years gone by and some shrewd cowboy psychology or something - and to some extent, it is that as well. I found myself laughing a lot at some of the stories, despite Cooks attempt to handle some of the topics with "discretion". Great look at a different time and a different mentality. Can't think of a doctor I wouldn't recommend it to - they might learn something!

This new group of Zuni stories (many never published before) is a wonderful testament to the author's ability to translate not only Maya literature (i.e. Popol Vuh & Rabinal Achi) but a North American Indian language as well. There was another prize-winning book by the same name that this author published earlier but it had many fewer stories. This is a better much better book!

Daugherty may be best known for his novels and short stories (Amazon has them all), but this sequence of linked essays on his Red Dirt homeland and the diaspora of its hardscrabble settlers shows us the initial sparks of his fictional fire -- while also proving, in itself, a moving and significant investigation.

The Oklahoma City bombing in the mid-90s -- which this book presents, cannily, as an in-country foreshadowing of the terrible events of 9/11 -- brings Daugherty back to his old family touchstones around that city and then across the depressed Southwest. He interviews eyewitnesses (including family members), digs into pertinent first-hand materials old and new, and arrives at the horrified conclusion that the bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was himself closely akin to his victims, the frustrated and embittered Okies.

With a sensitivity to the criminal mind worthy of Truman Capote, Daugherty demonstrates how McVeigh was brought to his violence by the same forces as drove the hand-to-mouth migrants of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" or Woody Guthrie's "Pastures of Plenty." The sorry cases of the 1930s were as badly used as McVeigh himself, and many, to be sure, teetered close to such destructive acting out. And "Five Shades" uncovers this abiding pain, eating at generation after generation of Westerners, along the same route as the refugees took from Dust Bowl days to the 1990s: Daugherty drives to California, as much as he can on Route 66. Along the way he gets as close as he can to the lives of migrant laborers these days, and finds out how their suffering has taken a toll on him as well.

A book of hard journeys, honest music, and accumulating loss, "Five Shades of Shadow" adds up to a fine and artful darkness. Yet it achieves illumination, in the end, exposing the viciously deepening divide in our country and beyond between the haves and have-nots.

This book contains 12 different chapters, by different authors, each a specialist in their field. I am very interested in the Gault site of Texas and the chapter written by Michael Collins, Phd on the Gault site, is worth the price of the entire book to me! He covers many previously unanswered questions about Clovis, many good black and white photos of Gault -clovis artifacts, and microscopic photos of use-wear on edges of tools. My first good look at the Gault site in print, and I am savoring evern second of it. Collins is a remarkable man, his use of the language is clear, concise and understandable by the average man on the street. I love this book!!