Lincoln Books

Read this book almosts a decade ago, and still remember it vividly. Life in a small and very emphatically segregated Southern town just before WW II (but it might as well be 1890). C. Eric Lincoln is an academic type, and his knowledge of Black history informs the book without turning into a textbook.

How one man's personal fight for freedom helped to start a chain reaction that helped to bring an end to slavery. Show's a relationship between Scott and Lincoln in that they shared the same dream. The universe chooses Dred as a champion to bring an end to the unnatural state of Slavery and how Dred's personal fight for freedom helped Lincoln become president and thus end slavery.

"Did you know

* that the first Negro to land in the New World was the navigator of the Nina, one of Columbus's ships?

* that the first crop of wheat in the New World was planted and harvested by Negro Explorers with Cortez?

* that the founder of Chicago was Negro?

* that 5,000 Negro soldiers served in the Continental Army?

..." -- from the back cover

The walks are well written and there are a number that I have repeated. Salters Road is a good starting point for the experienced walker. Try the Schill its a wonderful adventure and keep your lunch until the Hut. The Usway burn in winter really brings out the beauty of the Cheviots. The border ridge is not for the foolhardy. We started the walk at 0700 and finnished at 1700 and that was without a diversion to the Cheviot. We were well pleased with our effort and a meal in Kirk Yettom sealed the day but needless to say the recovery took a number of days.

As with most Joseph C. Lincoln books, it takes time to get used to how he writes the regional dialect. The story then takes off, describing the classic tale of young love springing from a pair of long feuding families and how that love affects old enemies.

Fans of Bleak House might enjoy this book as it clearly takes inspiration from that Dicken's classic. There is the decades old law suit, the family secrets, the young woman sent to live with her guardian, etc. The Big Mogul though takes these story elements and puts them into 1880s Massachusetts culture.

I went to the library to charge out some books and happened to come across this book. I pre-read it and liked what I was about to read. I charged it out and read it. I liked it and I thought it was a great story. Billy and Belle prevents sibling rivalry because the main characters are prepared for the arrival of their new sibling. Belle knows the right way to give a newborn a bottle and Billy is eager to share his pet hamster with the baby. I did notice that Billy and Belle's family is bi-racial and it shows up more in Belle than in Billy, because Belle's complexion is lighter than Billy's. What's more exciting is that Belle gets to go to school with Billy and the hamster as well because of Pet Day. Belle was very excited about going to school but she was not pleased with the procedure of getting dressed or having her hair combed. Belle did not feel comfortable about going into Billy's class without a pet so Billy told her to get the spider on the floor right by her foot. The teacher put the pets out for some fresh air so the children can remember how many legs their pets had. Belle did not know any better when she let the pets escape because she forgot how many legs her spider had so what can you expect from a small child, she went outside and looked in the boxes of the other children's pets and let them out because she thought her spider would have been in one of those boxes or jars that spider crawled on her as she looked for it and it crawled on her sweater where she could at last see it. She brought her spider back into the classroom and counted how many legs her spider had and drew it. The children did get their pets back and took turns to show their drawings of their pets and tell about them in their own words. School was out and Billy and Belle got the news that they have a new brother named Adam. Billy and Belle were very exicted to see him. That night Billy and Belle saw their new brother for the very first time and Billy's hamster woke up. I think Sarah Garland should write a sequel or an addition to this event where Billy and Belle can watch their baby brother grow and develop.

Gayle Martin has done it again. For the second time she has written a perfect mix of fact and fantasy in "Billy The Kid And The Lincoln County War: A Luke And Jenny Adventure". As with Gayle's first book; "Gunfight At The OK Corral", I believe she has written what will soon become another classic in childrens/young adult's literature.
Gayle's writing style is crisp and the story will hold everyones attention with its fast-paced chases and wild west gunfights. It also contains little known facts about all of the historical characters.

Congratulations to Gayle Martin on another fine work of literature. I eagerly await her next adventure.

About This Book

Ben Buck and his family spent four years clearing the wilderness to build a new home in Pennsylvania. They fought the Indians and the British, and made sacrifices most people wouldn't have been strong enough to make. All so they could be independent and free.

Now someone's trying to take everything away from them: their land, their home, even Ben's best friend, Joe.

But the Bucks won't give up without a fight, and Ben knows his family will have to win a war to stay free. But what he doesn't know is that wars sometimes last a very long time. And even if you win in the end, you can lose almost everything along the way.

I came across this book by accident, I think at a library sale. However this book is one of the best in my sea story collection. This book is about the rewards of simple life and simple pleasures. If your are looking for a complex plot and story line, this is not the book for you. If, however you are looking for a realistic story about honest and simple characters then this book would be a great addition to your library.

William Corlett is now perhaps best known for his children's fantasy quartet "The Magician's House", which starts with "The Steps Up the Chimney" -- a mixture of Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising", Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows", and John Masefield's "The Midnight Folk" -- a story where modern children who move to an ancient country house find themselves caught up with the animals of the surrounding countryside, and the living spirit of a Middle-Ages magician who is battling evil forces. Strong stuff.

If Corlett had written nothing else after his first three books he would have been a children's writer to reckon with -- a Young Adult writer of great power, working before the term "Young Adult" gad been invented. Perhaps the fact that this trilogy, or triptych, starting with "The Gate of Eden", concerns a teenager at the end of his Secondary schooling, and then the same person as a man in his twenties, and then as an old man in a futuristic England rife with social collapse, explains why the three books have been neglected.

Yet the middle book "The Land Beyond" is extremely powerful: a modern-day story with a time-slip or time-blend with Ancient Delphi and the famous Charioteer -- a story where the ancient god Apollo is recognised by a modern sceptic as a great force of life. And the first of the three is a powerful exploration of the relationship between the central young man, an old and rather dubious English Literature teacher, and the young man's girlfriend. Subtly told, and moving, with hints of poetry, much play with language, and post-modernist narrative devices, all used decades before post-modernism was thought of.

"Bloxworth Blue" is less experimental, perhaps reminiscent of William Mayne or Robert Cormier or Robert Westall when they write strong stories about families in crisis. As with other Corlett books, haunted by forces from the past, legendary imps (mini-demons) that were a curse on medieval Lincoln cathedral, and were turned into gargoyles, come to life in the Twentieth century. They are released, to wreak their own kind of havoc, when a family visits the cathedral, each member carrying a burden, a secret, an urgent need. An elderly uncle, the marriage difficulties of the mother, the first sexual encounter of the teenage daughter, the son's exploration of the cathedral and discovery of his uncle's bitter secret -- these narrative threads weave together, with glimpses of the larger outside world, including a rare blue butterfly, the Bloxworth Blue.

Corlett is always a strong writer, seeking new territory, striving for the precise image, the words that express extreme feeling, the tension that conceals ideas that can only be inferred. As with "The Secret Line", a story of teenage breakdown, and the healing bond s that develop between young person and old person, "Bloxworth Blue" repays careful reading.

Well worth finding -- like a rare butterfly, or a suddenly discovered stone face in an unexpected and startling place.