Youth Books

Charlotte's Story, written by Charlotte Arpis Niedhauk, edited by Mary-Alice Herbert, and published by Laurel and Herbert, is a fascinating page turner as well as an important historical document of how a young couple managed to exist alone on an isolated Florida Key in 1934-5. Their survival reminds one of the manner in which people lived before the advent of electricity, supermarkets, running water, or any of the modern conveniences. Their "store" was the beach, where they would look for and find what they needed from raw materials cast forth by the ocean. Charlotte's resourceful husband Russ would make such objects as a dipper from a coconut shell with a handle carved from a madiera limb, a windproof ashtray from the bottom of a shell, fish and lobster traps, kitchen cabinets, and even a jewelry box from a coconut for Charlotte from their "lumber store," the beach. City-bred Charlotte learned to cope with mosquitoes, sandflies, and scorpians, and even how to scull a boat. Their island home was visited by a potpouri of strange, often frightening characters, who threatened theri lives and made off with their property. No one who reads the book will ever forget the couple's experience in the terrible hurricane of Sept. 3, 1935. According to a newspaper report, the barometric pressure was the lowest ever recorded in thehistory of world weather. Excerpts are given from Russ's diary, i.e."Violent wind squalls lasting from 20 to 25 minutes. Sometimes with wind bursts to 70 or 80 miles per hour....Charlotte is sitting on the floor in the open doorway. She saw the tide receed 50 feet before each squall, and then return with a rush. Each time a little higher. No waves visible. The wind has blown the tops off. Afraid for our boat at high tide...The roof of the old house is blowing off in chunks. I can't stop it." After the hurricane was over, the couple decided that being alone on an island had lost its attraction for them, and decided it was time to return to the homeland. At the beginning of their sojourn on Elliott Key, Charlotte seems a naive, somewhat helpless young female. It was a delight to see her grow into a resourceful, independent woman who was an equal partner to her husband. She wrote her story from notes and memorabilia almost a quarter of a century after they left Elliott Key. The first edition of Charlotte's Story was published in different form by Exposition Press in 1973. When the book went out fo print, the clamor for it was so great that Laurel and Herbert republished and reedited it in 1998. This is a book for everyone, Florida Keys residents, tourists, feminists and macho men alike; in other words for simply everyone who loves a good read.

Simply a joy. I loved this book. The setting, the charactors, and the pace. The view of the lifestyle, history, and geography. It was a fun easy read that just couldnt be put down.

While seeking some new Keys Fiction I had the good fortune to have this gem of personal prose proposed by a good bookseller. Normally I like fiction, but I was desperate for a book to read beside the Gulf, and what a read it was. This is the Florida of legend, the roots of Hall, White and Corcoran can be found here. The difference is this is real. Islands with one owner, bootleggers, rum running, customs men, body dumping, good old boys and gals, boat "lighteners," conch lassoing, lime tree tending, chowder cooking and endless beach combing for demi-johns, mahogany, cedar, planks and boxes. All told in simple, straight-forward prose. What I am trying to put into words is that this is an enjoyable adventure in reality for those of us who like the fictional adventure of the contemporary Keys writers. Oh. and the wicked developers are not there yet, but the sense of their impending arrival is clearly here in the devil may care attitude many express who live in this wonderful piece of history.

Hey, I still think this is got to be one of the most awesome books written by a kid. The first edition is out of print but there's a second edition. Check out the writer's website: http://www.wendyisdell.com .

ntorous. The book being a great classroom utensil can teach wonders about science and math. I recommend this story to children who want to learn!

I read THE CHEMY CALLED AL and found it very intriguing on many different levels. I found its references to alchemy and to chemistry both accurate and surprisingly allegorical--the protagonist's journey itself is a journey into deep theoretical parts of the universe and the inner self. I purchased the book for my child, but found myself reading it for myself.

Dr. Turner writes with dry wit and intimate understanding of the beauty, complexity, and mystery of the Eastern Shore of VA.

Loved the book, couldn't wait for the next chapter. Easy to read. Turner has another book East of the Chesapeake and it is a must also. After you read the first one it's nice to check out his museum. In his books he has such an interest in people, he finds something interesting in anyone he seems to meet. Very enjoyable writer.

With the recent purchase of a 1926 farmhouse on Hoopers Island on Maryland's Eastern Shore, I wanted to learn more about life on the Bay. My family and I hoped this book would shed light on perhaps a gentler time, with a return to "the basics." William Turner has written a wonderful account of his life growing up on the Chesapeake Bay in the 40's and '50s. The stories are entertaining, with laughs, as well as gasps, as well as tears. My sons, ages 10 and 6, beg me to retell his stories on our drives to our new Eastern Shore retreat home. From bear sightings to pig butchering to duck hunting adventures to sinking boats in the dead of winter, William Turner paints vivid images in our minds of life on the Chesapeake Bay during a time of neighborly help and family closeness. He is an artist, and shares his sketches in this book as well, which further brings home the true meaning of his stories. This is a treasure!

Alex was an amazing man. I was privileged to meet and get to know him during the last year of his life. His wisdom, his honesty and his heart will never be forgotten my me or, I dare say, anyone who knew him. He gave me an autographed copy of his book and I have read it several times. This is not just a story, it's a remarkable man opening his heart, to share his experience, even though it hurt. He was never afraid of that pain, but faced it with courage, hope and a powerful love of life and the world and the people around him.

I heartily recommend this book, do read it.


Do Svidaniya, Rest in peace, Child of the Kulaks.

this book is sort of sad but it is also very suspicious and breathtaking i think that it is really good but its sad how many people die. two brothers go to china then to australian from russia.one dies but the other then returns to russia for a visit sixty years later!!!!

Alex Saranin's story is a vivid description of the first lost generation of Soviet Russia, millions of children lost their parents into the civil war, collectivization and other soviet human mills and it's aftermath. The great suffering endured by them and the waste of lives and souls is great evidence of these terrible whirling years into which a whole generation was engulfed.

Since I have been a friend of the author, it provided some clues for me as to the origins of his unique personality, but likewise obscured (or referred obliquely) to some of his more curious and no doubt equally fundamental traits. Perhaps contrary to his central premise, the book demonstrates that artists are either born to insight, aloofness, solitude, singularity, uniqueness (take your pick) or, at least, become that way before they are aware of it. Hopes seems to have been a poet from his earliest memory, and it has influenced everything since; I would not credit or fault Akron, Ohio, nor would I invoke the holy spirit. No doubt that spirit (in whatever denomination) exists in all artists. As a result, I viewed the book as a special insight on what it means to Hopes to have been a poet growing up in a fairly unartistic community. I am glad to say Hopes did not bemoan any difficulties he must have experienced as a child in Akron, but instead shows us how his insights developed and were nurtured and tuned.

Hopes slices through his particular, peculiar boyhood down to a quirky, abyssal holiness in Akron, of all places, in the shadows of the rubber industry and a mile high glacier. He transforms Goodyear Heights Metropolitan Park into his "Maytree," a real madeup place where the Mother of Turtles lived and his sister became the Red Dancer, defiance herself rising and wheeling in the bitter rain. Here are the beginnings of a poet and a fierce worshipper of the things of a world most of us do not see, a glimpse of which he brings forth for us here. His prose is slick and quick as a slim-jim. He opens doors to places most of us never knew were there.

This book is a moving, remarkably eloquent memoir, an extended autobiographical essay that describes the author, the poet David Hopes. It is so beautifully written that it is almost a kind of poem. Highly recommended!

This is a spiral bound notebook consisting of 394 pages including an extensive glossary and index. There are roughly sixty pages of checklists that are perfect for photocopying and utilizing on a daily basis.

The formats for these charts are adapted from Children's Hospital Chronic Illness Program. Charts are organized with the student's name, person trained and position in the top left corner. The columns allow for six dates to be entered under the following headings, Name and Procedure, Preparation, Identifies Supplies and Procedure. Located within these sections are numbered specifics anywhere from five to twenty. Many of the lists are two pages with the final line for the parent or guardian to sign and date.

My main purpose in borrowing Children and Youth Assisted by Medical Technology in Education Settings: Guidelines for Care was to learn the correct terminology for the variations used in tube feeding along with the precautions and tools needed. There are diagrams that show the placements of the tubes as well as the pump, feeding bag, syringe and clamp.

Also listed are points to remember, observations and possible problems that require immediate attention and those that are non emergencies. There are step by step guides on how to change tubes, along with the clean up of the area and how to dispose of tools and waste. The pages with explanations have these listed in italic font.

The details and diagrams help to grasp the enormity of this decision while explaining how the education system handles students with special health care needs. This book is the manual to help prepare all those involved in the daily lives of the children and also adults who must utilize these pieces of equipment.

This book is a valuable resource not only for those health care professionals working in schools today, but also for special education teachers who work with children with medical needs in the schools. This boook is a must as more and more students with more involved special needs are being integrated into general education settings. I use this book as one of my texts in the graduate special education class I teach at the university and my students have remarked that it is a resource they will refer to often. The forms are valuable tools that can be used to address the needs of medically fragile children. I hope that the book is being considered for revision since it was first written in 1997.

The Guidelines for Care Manual provides professional school nurses with theory and clinical data, examples, procedures, guide sheets, training for delegation and monitoring procedures performed by school personnel, diagams and much more. A MUST for working with special needs students.

I mistakinly created a wonderful children's sermon/moment that took me 2 weeks to get just right. When I was asked to create another a few weeks later I was distraught! How could I repeat something that I had poured so much effort into! I started searching the internet and found this book. It is exactly what I needed to incorporate ideas, scripture and fun into a children's moment during our worship. Now when I am asked to take another turn at a children's moment, I just ask when?

As the former director children's church at my church, I heartily recommend this book. The lessons are straightforward and easily understood and the craft/visual aids are simple and won't have you running all over town to find the components. If you don't want to weigh yourself down with bulky curriculum every Sunday, give this a try. Great for family time too!

There are several things I like about this book. The every-day, easy to find objects used in the sermons are items that children in my church quickly identify. The stories are interesting to adults and children and I don't have to add much to them. There are also special occasion lessons, such as Father's Day and Super Bowl Sunday. The book includes both a scripture index and a topical index that I found very helpful.

I also read this book over twenty years ago. After a couple of house moves, I have no idea what happened to my copy so I decided to buy another one and read it again. My mother-in-law left medical school to serve as a nurse with the American Army in World War I, and I have always felt that, if she had written about it, this might have been her story also. Along with the stories from World War II and all the other experiences of nurses in the other five wars in the past hundred years, this story should be read and remembered. After the stories of the great battles and heroism and cowardice, the nurses are left to pick up the pieces. This book should be on the required list of every high school and college in this country. Maybe if we saw war from the viewpoint of the medical personnel, we wouldn't allow ourselves to get into the kind of thankless situation our country is in now.

I read this book in 1988 and have never forgotten it. This may be the most moving, heart-wrenching, beautifully-written book I have ever read. It is a diary, from 1913 to 1917. It opens when the author was under 21, on Jan. 1, 1913, progresses thru that year and on into the war. This is a wrenching book, vivid,super-poignant--written with great beauty. I am unable to convey how strongly it affected me and it remains one of the most exceptional things I have ever read.

The actual diaries kept by Vera Brittain, which were the basis for the much better known Testament of Youth. As such they are even more personal and direct in conveying the emotions and experiences of this period during the Great War. One of the only two books I have ever read which when I had finished I went straight back to the beginning and read through all over again. Tony Maynard-Smit

Reynolds Price was born in North Carolina. He has lived here his whole life, excluding four years in Europe. He is rooted in Southern ways and Southern life. With Clear Pictures, we understand how his rural beginnings shaped the life that he has made. We begin to understand the basis of all the wonderful characters he has shown us.

OK, this is yet another great autobio by a writer that I admire: it displays a fabulous power of memory - one of the traits that Nabokov said was a sign of creativitiy - and is written in a secure and elegant style. Its portraits are sharp and unlike any that I have ever read, leavened with enormous subtlety and humor. This makes it a truly unique read.

Interestingly, not a whole lot happens in this autobio outside of personal growth, ambition, and his father overcoming alcoholism. Instead, the author muses over a rich life that started with an average family. There are deep relationships and a great deal of love, ruminations over the racism and sensitivity of his southern upbringing, and the outlines of his concerns with art. It is a bit annoying that he plays the pronoun game with those he loved: obviously, they were either men or men and women, so why not say it?

If you like a measured and calm set of vivid recollections by an individual of great literary talent, you enjoy this very much. Very very much.

Reynold's beautiful memoir contains memorable characters that many readers will find perched somewhere in their family tree. The prose pleads to be read aloud.

Excellent for teaching the basics of soccer to younger players with no competitive pressures.

Extra good for the very beginners. Somewhat applicable to players aged 4-6. Structured practices grow in complexity as skills develop. Great idea for teaching heading skills, don't know why I didn't think of it. Easily understood and can be read in less than an hour.

Great book for the coaching of younger children. Provides a step by step format on how a practice should be run (and make it fun for the kids). Gives a 7 week practice plan where the children learn different skills appropriate to their age level.

I recently attended a coaching clinic for younger children put on by the Soccer Coach at High Point University. I was amazed to find that a lot of his suggestions were exactly the same as what I have read in this book. The kids find the practices fun, and they are learning the fundamentals of soccer.