Arizona Books

This is a wonderful book about kids who go to a one-room school in southern Arizona in 1938. There are twelve of them, most from Mexican-American families; a nice young teacher, Miss Byers; and her dog Chipito, who lives at the school with her. The school bus is a beat-up old car that bumps over dirt roads from one ranch to another picking up children and sometimes breaking down - and once running over a rattlesnake, whose 5'7" skin hangs on the schoolroom wall next to President Roosevelt's picture.
Monchi, a fourth grader, tells about the big events of the year, like Miss Byers' swell idea to start a newspaper, and the Halloween party and roundup on the ranch. And everyone writes stories or draws pictures for the "Coyote News" paper, which is printed in the book, so we can read about the nurse's visit and Christmas wishes and Miss Byers' radio and Loli's lost tooth and the school's float at La Fiesta de los Vaqueros in Tucson.
Joan Sandin weaves these events into an absorbing story that easily incorporates some Spanish words (a glossary is provided.) Her bright, detailed pictures tell even more about ranch and school life and about the twelve children of Coyote School. To look at their group picture on the last day of school and then back at their first-day picture is to see how well we have come to know each one, and how pleased we are at how they've grown.
This lively story should fascinate kids, who will discover that in spite of the unique setting and the long-ago time, Coyote School children aren't all that different from themselves. The range of the children's ages makes it a great book for family read-alouds. And it's just the kind of book a good teacher looks
for: it's full of information, but first of all,it's a good story.

Crime & Punishment in Early Arizona promises a comprehensive view of illegal activity and law enforcement in frontier Arizona, and it delivers that and more. The book covers the period before and after the traditional "wild west" era by presenting every aspect of the subject from the time the area came under U.S. control until the arbitrary date when Arizona became the last continental state. If the reader wants to know anything about the enforcement of law, prisons or prisoners they'll find it here. Many of the vingettes are exciting and well written, but the real value of this book seems to be the reference value of the historical detail. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the old west or early Arizona, and to anyone searching for their roots in that region of America.

I bought this book based on this quote in the Preface: "Wise men and women say that the greatest spiritual challenge facing "civilizd" human beings today is to regain knowledge that has been lost -- knowledge of our oneness with each other and nature -- and to return to lifestyles that reflect this oneness." In my thinking: therein lies the answer for personal peace and happiness and the hope for peace in our world. The author -- who is an acknowledged authority on different cultures -- explores through the venerable Hopi people of North America their cultural code words that anchor them to the spritual side of their nature and also the world at large. He masterfully weaves the information to provide a "prescription" that we can utilize to learn to align our lifestyles and be in accord with our own nature. In so doing, we can learn to live as close to spiritual bliss as our inner selves will allow.

I am a fan of this author, and love this book. Boye De Mente, an acknowledged expert on different cultures, continues to provide us with books that enhance our understanding of ourselves and others, and are current with the needs of the human spirit in this space and time. By plumbing the depths of the anient Navajo culture and its multi-dimensional language, he deciphers key code words that reveal the heart, history, wisdom and traditional customs of the Navajo people. In the process we are led once again to the eternal wisdom of seeking to be in harmony with each other and the world around us. A must read and definitely a book to own.

Of all the books written about the Lost Dutchman's mine, this book offers a believable tale to the possibilities of the existance of Jacob's gold mine in the Superstition Mountains.

Entering this review for Kit: She says "I loved it! I couldn't put it down. I felt like I was right there riding in the wilderness. The imagery was incredible and the story was intriguing. I'm going to recomend this book to all my horse loving friends!

As novice birdwatchers, this book was indispensable for planning our birdwatching trip to SE Arizona. It gave specific locations to visit for birds that you could expect to see there. Directions were clear and concise. With help from this book, we saw nearly every bird species we had hoped to see. This book is a must for this region!

This is a great book for day hikers. The hikes are organized by area, the descriptions of the hikes are accurate, and the directions to the trailheads are complete. If you are someone who likes to take your time on a hike or stop and take lots of photos add an extra hour or so to the time listed for the hikes. I like to hike very early - there were some trailhead parking areas that did not open until 8 or 9 am! There was no place to park other than the trailhead parking so we had to scramble to find other hikes. Check out times the night before if you like to leave for a hike at 6am.

This book is intended to be nothing more than a refutation of Richard Walker's "Human Cost of Communism in China." It is clear that Shalom succeeds brilliantly in picking apart Walker's study and demonstrating that it is nothing but right wing propaganda. But why should we read Shalom's monograph? Since Shalom wrote it in 1984, our understanding of the Maoist era has changed so much that everyone would dismiss Walker's book. Out of the 60 million or so deaths Walker estimates, 15-30M come from killings in the early 1950s and 15-30M come from the anti-rightist witch hunts directly preceding the great leap forward. On the other hand, 1 million deaths are estimated for the great leap forward famine, which is as much an underestimate as the previous two are overestimates!

However, while Walker's study can be relegated to the dustbin of poorly done anticommunist histories even without Shalom's meticulous debunking, there is still good reason to read this. Right wing Mao haters like Jung Chang or R.J. Rummel can maintain a sense of superficial realism in their death estimates, but they borrow from the same bag of tricks as other propagandists like Walker. And of course, Shalom's book makes it easy to see their sleights of hand and gives one the tools to refute them. For example, the best chapter by far is Shalom's discussion of prison camp death rates. The main original contribution of the book (unrelated to merely debunking other accounts) is his estimation of death rates in these camps. There is really no data on this, but Shalom discovers an ingenious way to make an estimate. We know how many "rightists" were arrested in the 1950s and how many were released in the 1970s. Even if one assumes that everyone who didn't die in prison was released then, the death rate is still much lower than that posited by propagandists. Of course, there were many survivors released earlier or later, and this group's death rate was probably higher than the average prison death rate as they were in during the GLF. Rummel, The Black Book of Communism, and others make use of ridiculously high death rates without any evidence. Jung Chang and John Halliday don't do any analysis of statistics, but assert that descriptions of conditions imply a 10% annual death rate! This seems reminiscent of the flawed comparisons to the USSR (whose prison camps have better statistics) that Shalom debunks.

Also of interest is his discussion of language used by officialdom when discussing deaths. Most historians assume that when officials (or Mao himself, in one famous example!) say someone is "liquidatd" they have been killed. Shalom marshalls in a number of cases in which someone who has definitely NOT been killed is refered to as "liquidated."

This book is a treasure. Mr. Van Dyke obviously has the soul of a poet, and within his graceful prose he paints vivid and soul-stirring pictures of some of the most beautiful places on earth. He describes in fine detail observations he made on a long trip, on horseback in 1898/99, over, around, and through the lower deserts of Arizona and California. He leaves no stone unturned as he describes the magnificence and beauty of each aspect of the desert, and pulls no punches in his criticism of man's destructive intrusions. To Van Dyke, the play of light and shadow, the star-pocked night skies, the ragged and jagged ranges of mountains, the perfectly adapted plants and animals, the sometimes shifting sands, and the silent river barrier known as the Colorado are each part of the unique sum which is, in its own harsh and angular way, a paradise of color, form, and life: "The Desert."

Speaking as one who has lived on and wandered through this same desert for nearly forty years, I can attest to the accuracy of Van Dyke's physical descriptions and, perhaps more importantly, I can note that I've found here both the magic and the majesty which he so ably describes. Still, this isn't a book for everyone. Those who prefer the gleam of glass towers and the roar of jet planes to flaming sunsets and yapping coyotes, save your money. Van Dyke wrote, "Not in the spots of earth where plenty breeds indolence do we meet with the perfected type. It is in the land of adversity ... that finally emerges the highest manifestation."

He was right, and he leaves us "The Desert" as evidence.