5 comments about Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib.

1. As the white mother of 2 black boys and a white biological son, I found this book to be extremely powerful and educational. I use it as a reference - I go back to it as they grow and change and I learn more about myself as a mother. I am called to be deeply honest about my own thoughts and feelings while trying to honor and respect the unique experiences of all my sons - from their perspectives. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is considering adoption - of any kind, but particularly transracial adoption.



2. Jaiya John shows immense courage as he gives the early details of his life's journey. His sensitivity and honesty triumph as he describes childhood illusion, confusion, and isolation. The way he tells his story, anyone can easily understand and relate to, regardless of background. The poetry throughout is brilliant. I read this book hoping to learn about the perspective of adopted children and children in foster care; I gained the perspective and insight I was seeking, but received much more in the reading of this memoir. I am grateful for the opportunity, and encourage others to experience this compelling story.



3. This is truly an inspirational book which gives a clear demonstration of how a young black boy grew into a mature black man in a positive manner despite the serious emotional and painful struggles that occured due to a lack of required sensitivity around race. Jaiya's message is important for all adults involved in making critical decisions about the future of children. It provides a hightened awareness for birth parents, foster and adoptive parents and social work professionals. Jaiya's ability to share his experiences is a true blessing for others.
   
   Selena M. Simons
   Coordinator of Foster Care - BERMUDA



4. Honestly, I only made it half way through the book before I could not stand it anymore. Although the author is a very eloquent writer, his pity party over his life was more then I could bare. He was raised by wonderful loving parents who did the best they could to raise him with all the opportunities, guidance, love and affection they could. He had extended family that loved him and treated him with respect (and by his own admittance, some overcame huge prejudicial upbringings to fully love and accept him as their kin). He had friends that accepted him, and loving siblings. He had a better life then I would say the majority of children growing up in America do. He had enough food on the table, family traditions, safe housing, wonderful memories, and most importantly loving family bonds. Although he was adopted by white parents (the author is black), he himself admits that they rescued him from a neglectful foster home. He came home to them so neglected that his head was flat and his muscles weak. His parents nursed him back to health. He waited 9 long months for a family, and because there were no black placements available, he was adopted by a white family. ANY family is better then living in a negectful foster home. FAMILY is the most important thing! Just ask the children that age out of the foster care sytem without one, 50% end up homeless and on drugs. Yet, this author does nothing but complain about how hard it was to be black in a white family. He gives no real evidence of this, no one treated him badly, he did not have major negative experiences within his family, he just was sensitive and felt insecure. Just think how insecure and unloved he would have felt if he were never adopted. Or stayed with his birthmother who was in no condition to raise another child? His parents moved away from their families to raise their black sons in an environment that was not prejudice. They did the best that they could. But all the author felt was sorry for himself. He was insecure and was always convinced that people did not truly love or accept him, despite their actions. He blamed things like having to share the back, cold room (a room his parents made several attempts to heat and make more comfortable) with his brother because he was black. Please, my husband who was the biological son of white parents slept out in the camper when his family got too big for their home, not because he was unfavored but because he was the eldest boy! I think the author needs to get a life! And realize the blessings that he was given. There is a huge orphan crisis in the world. Millions of children are going to bed hungry with no one to kiss them goodnight. Should we allow them to suffer or should we look beyond race or culture and bring them into good homes, in which they will be loved and valued? Which is the bigger sin, to love someone unconditionally who looks different from you or to allow someone to suffer alone because they are different. This author needs to get over his insecurities and look at all the good things that he had in his life, see how others have to live, and thank his lucky stars. I for one, do not feel sorry for him.



5. I was excited to read this book, but was very dissapointed and personally feel it is way overrated. The language used is supposedly "poetic", but I just found it pretentious and esoteric. More importantly, however, I feel that the author basically took his own experience as an unhappy, isolated child and searching, hyper-sensitive adult (which seemed to me to be more a function of the author's innate personality than the fact that he was transracially adopted... or at least a combination of the two) and used it to negatively represent/unfairly characterize all trans-racial adoption. It seemed to me that this author's emotional difficulties and struggles growing up would have existed even if he had been raised in a same-race home (not that they weren't exacerbated by his racially-based experiences). The impression given by the author is that he speaks for all trans-racially adopted children, and I do not think this is fair or at all accurate. There are of course some things that will apply to others, but his experience, being an unusually intense, emotional child raised in an isolated all-white environment 30 years ago, is completely different from that of a child raised in a more diverse environment in 2008. It would be fine if he simply presented the book as a personal memoir of his own specific experiences in life and left it at that. But that is certainly not the impression the book leaves... and I think it is being presented in some adoption circles as a universal reflection of the experience of any trans-racially adopted child, much to the detriment of today's trans-racial families and waiting children. I hope potential trans-racial adopters will not be so frightened by this one person's experience that they allow themselves to be discouraged from this path. As long as you are prepared to be culturally sensitive to your child, honor his heritage, and commit to making sure there are plenty of same-race role models in his life, trans-racially adopted children can indeed grow up to be healthy and happy and fully attached to their adoptive family. If you are looking for a more balanced view, two much better choices are "The Color of Water" by James McBride or "In Their Own Voices, Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories" by Rita Simon and Rhonda Roorda.

5 comments about Please Stop Laughing At Me: One Woman's Inspirational Story.

1. Writing a book about one's own bullying is a real challenge, especially when writing in the first person. Understate the experiences, and the reader will be tempted to say, "Kids will be kids"; render the bullying in melodramatic detail, as this writer does, and one's audience is likely to roll their eyes. And why was the author bullied? Because she stuck up for the underdog, or tattled when there was a real danger and out of the purest motives; either way, she was always in the right, and those sociopathic classmates of hers, in every school she ever set foot in, never, never forgave her. It's not that I don't believe Jodee Blanco (even to imply that I don't feels like bullying), but somehow this book misses its mark. Like the majority of people attracted to this book's title, I was bullied myself, and therefore more than ready to empathize with her; yet I found this story less than engaging. It could have used a sterner editor's hand (portentous lines similar to "my fears would be well founded" and "little did my parents know how wrong they'd be" abound), and it could have used some distance. A novel, or a nonfiction book tackling the same subject but incorporating the experiences of others (such as the author's next book, perhaps, which I haven't yet read) would probably work better. The book also has a decidedly juvenile tone, though I don't think it's targeted to young adults specifically, and if today's bullies (Blanco apparently grew up in the 1980's) are assigned this as part of their rehabilitation, I doubt they'll appreciate it in the way the author intended. Though Blanco's tormentors were as often boys as girls (something else that left me skeptical), a more enlightening book on bullying, and what motivates it, is Rachel Simmons's Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls.



2. This was one of my favorite books. I was one of these kids in school that was terribley picked on because I was a bit smarter than the rest and I wasn't the most attractive kid alive. This story reveals a brave tale of what types of torments children live through everyday and that their stories aren't much different than the next child.



3. My husband is completing his Masters in school counseling and he bought this book for a paper about bullying. He knows how I love memoirs, especially ones with themes of triumph over adversity, and from what he'd heard about this book he thought it would be right up my alley.
   
   While it was a compelling enough read (I couldn't put it down and finished in a day), when hubby asked how I liked it my gut instinct was just "Eh. I didn't think it was so great. What's all the fuss about this book?"
   
   Upon introspection, these are the reasons I wasn't "wowed" by this book:
   
   1. It wasn't that believable. I am positive that the author is walking that fine line between exaggeration and fabrication when it comes to certain details, specifically with regards to the bullying sequences. Even when the facts are believable, she presents them in such a one sided, self centered way.
   
   Yes, perhaps when it happened she percieved it from an egocentric point of view, as most teens would, but the story was written 20 years after the fact, when hindsight and maturity should give the story perspective and objectivity. This is just not the case with this author.
   
   2. Jodee is not that likeable. Although I cannot condone the bullying, it was obvious to me that she often set herself up to be at outcast. One can be morally straight and true to themselves without being an obnoxious goody two shoes.
   
   For example--the party in 6th grade where a game of spin the bottle turned into a couple "experimenting" in the closet. Did she really have to run out and call her mother? I can understand how that could be an uncomfortable situation; I would've been very uncomfortable as well, whether I was 12 or 35. But there is a way to go about handling something like that, there is a way not to. Running out and calling mommy--defintiely NOT the way! Jodee seems to lack common social skills and never caught on to teen ettiqute. Perhaps the fact that she had only child syndrome and was coddled by her parents had something to do with it? Regardless, it is clear that she was clueless, and just as clear that she still just doesn't get it.
   
   3. The reunion scenes at the end were so over the top, mawkish and unrealistic. I just didn't believe them. Period.
   
   4. This is not an "inspiring" story. Blanco never tells us how she overcame the pain of being bullied for 8+ years and rose above.
   
   As far as storytelling goes, the author does a decent job. Though her writing is not impressive at all, she keeps the story flowing and the reader interested. I'm not sorry I read it.



4. If you were picked on in high school and grade school like I was, this book brings back all the painful memories that you NEVER EVER forget! I'm so sorry you had to go through all this, Jodee. I was right there with you! So glad you wrote your book. I wish I had. God bless you, Jodee. Hope you enjoy great success in your life. Can't wait to read the sequel. Jodee is right. Teachers do nothing. Parents do nothing. You are on your own! I finished this book in just two days.



5. This is an autobiography of Jodee's struggles all through school. She tries to stand up for what is right and gets shunned and ostracized. She keeps wanting to "fit in" but doesn't know how without being untrue to herself. Near the end she finally gets some real friends. She takes a lot of abuse from kids who once were her friends, but deals as best she can looking forward to her future at college. It was sad to hear how cruel the kids were to her, but I thought her parents should have helped her by paying for some self-defense lessons instead of taking her to a psychiatrist. They knew she was getting beat up by kids at school and just made things worse. I think teens would especially like this book.

5 comments about Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota.

1. For the rest of my days, when someone browses my CD collection and asks how on earth I ended up with a huge number of hair metal albums from the 80s, I'm passing this book on. Chuck has really nailed for me what it was like to grow up in a a blue collar area during that time period and why so many of us kids gravitated towards the fun time rock.
   
   Usually, I'm slightly ashamed of my hair metal roots. It doesn't resemble my taste in music now, and on top of that, it's down right misogynistic. But this book sure made me nostalgic. That's a credit to Chuck's gifts as a writer.
   
   Now, why didn't I give 5 stars to this book? I actually struggled a long time about giving this 3 or 4 stars. This is really more of a 3.5 star book. I gave the round up to Chuck because this book did make me feel good about my childhood as I read it. So here is what's wrong with this book.
   
   First, my eyes glazed over several times as Chuck tends to get pedantic. What is metal? Is it stupid? Is it sexist? Is it bad if it is? He talks himself around in circles and as a reader, I quickly got bored. I realize that Chuck is a music critic, so he feels the need to explain exactly WHY he likes something, but go and ask me (just a year or two younger than Chuck) and any of our other peers who grew up in that time, and we'd just say that the song made us feel good. We didn't need to know if it was tounge in cheek, anti-satanic, or whatever message Chuck seems intent on digging up for each example. It's a lot like explaining why steak tastes good - it just does, and very few people have the words (or the passion) to delve into it. But it doesn't mean that we don't grow up enjoying the same things. For this reason, I pray that I never meet Chuck in a bar. He seems like a chatty drunk, and it won't be good enough to say that the song on the jukebox is merely "OK".
   
   Some of Chuck's analysis just borders on pontification. He's very impressed with himself. I'm sorry, Chuck, but no matter how many big words you use, you will never be able to convince me that breaking down some Guns 'n' Roses videos constitutes as an intellectual activity.
   
   And finally, what was really wrong with this book, was Chuck himself. You get the impression that Chuck honestly believes that he is the smartest person in the room. Rather than discussing or story telling, he comes across as teaching and talking down to you. Those who don't agree with him are instantly branded as an "idiot" and he's done with that person and his/her opinion. You'd think that someone who is writing a book celebrating a genre of music as maligned as hair metal would be a little bit more open minded to varying opinions.
   
   In summary, this book is great if you were born sometime before 1977 and grew up in a more rural, blue collar setting. Even though you may not have been crazy about Motley Crue, you knew someone else who was, and it's a great trip down memory lane.



2. Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman ****
   
   
   Fargo Rock City in a nutshell is the history of Heavy Metal music with a heavy infasis on 'Glam Metal' or Hair Metal as the rest of the world refers to it. This Chronicles the genres growth from early Black Sabbath all the way up through the late 1990's when bands like Korn, Limb Biscuit, and Powerman 5000 destroyed the genre. All the while we are on the journey with the author Chuck Klosterman as he grows up in small town rural Fargo, North Dakota and how Metal, especially 'glam metal' as he refers to it effected him and the person he is today.
   
   While this book is really, really informative and accurate, it is also very funny, at times I found myself laughing out loud at the humor in his writing and at the hypocrisy of metal in society. It was a very entertaining read which is not some that is easy to do.
   
   The only reason I cannot give Fargo Rock City a five star rating is that in a few spots the book does drag, mostly toward the middle of the second part of the book. This is not through the whole book and only occurs in a small part, and aside from that it was a great read.
   
   For metal fans, especially those who are from small towns (i.e. Fargo, North Dakota) this is will be an entertaining read, but I also feel fans of Klostermans style will enjoy Fargo Rock City as well.



3. I bought this on the recommendation of Martin Popoff, and was terribly disappointed. If you want to read an insightful, entertaining, and fair review of heavy metal, this is most definitely NOT your book. Klosterman's "appreciation" of the form starts and ends with glam. He spends most of the book in postmodern smirky hipster mode, which means he continually trashes the music from a musical point of view, and chooses to battle for its "validity" in the more easily defended realm of "what it meant to me as a kid." As cultural studies, this is crap, and as a book about heavy metal it is an utter waste of time. He elevates glam (Poison, GNR, Cinderella, etc) and simultaneously slags Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica and the host of other metal bands which were the meat and potatoes of any real metalhead of the time. He has no appreciation for what most metal fans would actually grace with the term "heavy metal". As you will quickly be able to tell, this is masterfully well done, in that he affirms what most of the snobs have been saying all along about metal--all the 5 star reviews are from people who are...gasp...not metal fans--whilst and at the same time pretending to be a true fan. Hipster dreck at its worst. You are better off reading Ian Christe's "Sound of the Beast", or even Walser or Weinstein's books. Better yet, check out Sam Dunn's documentary "Metal-A Headbanger's Journey." Dunn and Christe are real fans of the music, and they don't spend all their time perpetuating all the stereotypes of the form.



4. If you grew up enjoying hard rock and/or heavy metal of the 80's and early 90's, or are just a fan of that music, then you simply must read this book. It will bring back fond memories of your developing musical tastes and make you laugh out loud.



5. Personally, Chuck is my top 3 favorite writer. I think he hit me hard with his styles and topics in all of his books. So if you're like me:
   
   - Love Rock and/or Heavy Metal music*****this is very important for this book
   - Enjoy reading about popular culture topics
   - Love sarcastic and funny books
   - is in the age range of 18-30 (I'm 24)
   - Like to explore all kinds od writings and books
   - is not one who tend to OVERTHINK AND OVERCRITISIZE books and writing styles
   - is open minded
   
   Then, this is probably your kind of writer too. Good luck and enjoy!

5 comments about A Tale of Love and Darkness.

1. Pearls of wisdom, interspersed with lovingly told family stories, including the horrors of loss and ongoing pain, and the history of a nation and people. Regretfully, these trite phrases don't do justice to what Oz has created in this memoir. This book is multi-layered in a way that seems to replicate the very act of memory itself, as past events show and return to told memory, through the scrim of the story at hand. It's a book to read and live with and it is an honor to be able to spend some time with this book and writer.



2. This memoir by the Israeli novelist Amoz Oz is a fascinating depiction of both European and Israeli Jews. Although the author was born in Israel, his parents and relatives were all European Jews displaced by the events leading up to World War II.The graphic depiction of what anti-semitism does to an individual explains the need for a Jewish state more fully than any essay could, and the history of the first war against the Jews by the Arabs, aided openly by the British army which then controlled Palestine, and which started the very evening in November, 1947 of the U.N. vote to establish a Jewish homeland, not, as I previously thought, in May, 1948, when the state of Israel was officially declared, lends credence to the unfortunate belief that the Arabs will never accept the state of Israel. This makes the book sound incredibly sad, and of course it is in one sense. But in another, by creating the milieu of these early settlers in Jerusalem and their intellectual strengths and interests, and also the new Jew of the kibbutz, to which Oz went after the death of his mother and his father's remarriage, and where he lived and wrote for 30 years, the book turns out to be the best one I have read about this frantic period of Jewish history.



3. This mixture of biography with the history of the birth and growth of Israel is a wonderful, warm , and poignant tale--well worth one's time.



4. This is a beautiful and moving memoir from a sensitive and humanistic writer of great skill and style. The reader will feel that he or she is personally experiencing growing up with the author in the most modest and simple circumstances, in the young State of Israel, from before statehood and into its early years, getting to know as friends and neighbors some of its intellectual leaders who were the writer's family members and friends. The book is a sheer delight, and highly recommended.



5. Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness is a memoir of his life and the life of his family up until the time of his mother's suicide at the age of 38 in the early 1950s. Oz's mother's suicide, never treated fictionally in his other work (as far as I can recall) is treated here with great care and thoroughness: there is anger, guilt, shame, sadness, loss, a sense of regret, and penetrating understanding. Without a doubt the book is strongest when Oz discusses his mother and her family. His mother, brought up on a romantic, Hebrew education in Rovno, was not ready for the tawdriness of life in Palestine, "the rough terrain of everyday life, diapers, husbands, migraines, queues, smells of moth balls and kitchen sinks." The story of his mother's mental decline and suicide is also the story of the convergence and divergences of Jewish life in the 20th century; the outline of the gap between the real and the ideal of the Zionist dream. That said, A Tale of Love and Darkness is generally overwritten. There is much useless repetition here which drags down the trajectory of the memoir. I do not recommend this work as the first work of Amos Oz to be read, but the last. It makes for an instructive book end with Where the Jackal's Howl and Other Stories on the other side.

5 comments about Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood.

1. I loved reading this book for multiple reasons, but I will restrict myself to mentioning two. The first is that it is a well constructed story with excellent writing---a combination I cannot resist. The narrative moves at a pace to engage and captivate the reader without making the story just a rush to get to the next page. Writing that is thoughtful makes sure that the reader will savor and think about the events presented. This is worth a read merely to have the understanding of one more perspective presented well.
   
   But there is more to the book that makes me give this an enthusiastic five stars. As a chemist I was delighted to read a book that gave insight into this space of history of the chemistry profession. The history is two-fold: first it is a history of childhood enthusiasm for science and second it is a history of chemistry in the middle of the 1900s. many a child is enthusiastic about something. For all those children who loved science but never had the means to explore this book will bring sadness at what they lost for not being given such freedom and support. But the book also brings joy at reading that someone, somewhere had the chance to be the brilliant child you always thought you were. Today we highly restrict certain chemicals and also have an emphasis on safety in working with all chemicals. Sacks presents a time period when chemistry and science in general was done with little concern for safety. Instead of glossing over things Sacks presents information and experiments without deluding the reading into thinking it was perfectly safe.
   
   This book is an excellent exploration of multiple themes that are well worth thinking about. I challenge anyone to read it and not find something in it that doesn't provoke some thoughts about what you are doing now with what you are enthusiastic about or what you loved childhood and now have lost as an adult.



2. Sigh...as a science educator who sees students turned off of science in spite of it being much more interesting and useful then English and history, it's frustrating to read about a child whose family managed to convey the fun of science. I've enjoyed Oliver Sacks books so much. He is such a great person, a great neurologist, a great writer who manages to introduce the world to his scientific world and keep them interested. Too bad we cannot get someone like Sacks to write some of our textbooks because they are too dry, without showing the practical applications of the science. Sack's was lucky in having a family with immense background in the sciences, who spent their entire lives performing or doing science in some way. Very few of us have access to the equipment and the materials needed to do lab science at home, but Sacks did have access to this stuff and he certainly made the most of it.
   
   Sack's stories include information about his big family and their great variety of work in the sciences. His descriptions of his family members, his memories are filled with both love and awe for their patience with him and his interests in sciences which sometimes were not the same as theirs (his mom and dad wanted him to be a physician, and not a chemist).
   
   Sack's books are usually compendiums of short stories, which make for interesting reading. He has had so many intriguing forays into different fields of chemistry, and his ability to remember the textbooks and the books that famous scientists from that golden age in England and Germany are phenomenal in the recall. I remember the teacher in science who made such an impact on my perception of science, and I am only too aware of how short we are in obtaining good science teachers and introducing science programs into public schools. Maybe reading this book will encourage other young people with talent to look into science as a career possibility.
   
   Karen L. SAdler



3. The relationship between uncle and nephew is the most precious. Why? Because nephews confide in uncles like they don't confide in a father or mother. And uncles are sort of pseudo fathers to nephews. The responsibility of an uncle is not less than a father: to inspire and stimulate the child wherever he resists parental influence. I would imagine the rapport between an aunt and a niece is the same way, looking up to the corresponding role model and same sex mentor.
   
   Although Dr. Sacks paints a portrait of his extended family in this book, his Uncle Dave "Tungsten" is highlighted as an important source of inspiration. His retelling of his childhood and adolescence is fascinating. This is a beautiful book, sometimes overwhelming when scientific lingo becomes predominant but very warm and engaging. Even with a poor knowledge in chemistry -- my case -- it's immensely enjoyable. Dr. Sacks' childhood memories are colorful, jam-packed, very serious at times but also humorous, a bit like John Boorman's movie "Hope and Glory".



4. This is the second copy of Uncle Tungsten for me. I bought it when it was first released, loved it, and, unfortunately, loaned it to one too many friends. Now I have one to browse my favorite bits in, revisit the very different childhood of a man my age. Oliver Sachs treats his younger self with the same wide-eyed curiosity as he affords his patients.



5. This book has many wonderful aspects. One of them is Sacks' somewhat nonchalant description of what was a truly traumatic boarding-school experience. It is remarkable that he emerged as well as he did from the routine sadism of those four years in the countryside. It was only his fascination with chemistry and his capacity for detachment and introspection that permitted him to survive.
   
   Another memorable quality of the book is his immediate and personal understanding of the key question of science: Why? I never gave it much thought, but it wasn't until well into the twentieth century that scientists understood why the sun is so hot and will remain so hot more-or-less permanently. Until nuclear reactions were understood, this was a mystery. Sacks, paralleling centuries of investigators before him, is always asking why. This was great training for his ultimate and successful career as a neurologist.
   
   Finally, the portrayal of upper-middle-class London before and after World War II was very memorable. From a European viewpoint, America was pretty much untouched by the war; it had not been annexed or bombed by Hitler. England, on the other hand, was forever changed by the experience.

5 comments about Colors of the Mountain.

1. Chen Da's bestselling COLORS OF THE MOUNTAIN is one of the more entertaining memoirs I've run across in recent years.
   
   In this volume, Chen recounts his life, growing up amid the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, through his acceptance into college. In the writing of autobiography, certain liberties are par for the course (memory is never impeccable), but I was overall rather impressed with Chen's determination, and his detailed, direct way of attempting to illuminate the day-to-day texture of life in an out-of-the-way part of China.
   
   Chen's approach is gentle - both accessible to Western audiences, and attentive in its' detailed depiction of his family's life, accomplishments, and the troubles those accomplishments brought (during the Cultural Revolution years); the occasionally mentioned poems of his grandfather were one of Chen's major motivators, and their eloquence was the model this entire memoir was constructed upon.
   
   Perhaps not the most literary, or the most historically rigid autobiography, but definitely one of the warmest.
   
   -David Alston



2. One wonders why the communist system was swept into the dustbin of history. Da Chen tells you why. Intellectuals were purged in Mao's society and people learned very little. In fact, school was not even required of everyone. Only after Mao joined Lenin in a masoleum did intelligence and ability matter much.
   Da Chen relates his early life story about his early Chinese childhood in the rural south of China. He was discriminated against because he was a son of a former landlord. Peasants lorded it over him and his family. Da Chen relates his experiences of the Cultural Revolution and how the school system was devastated by the purges and reeducation.
   Da Chen escaped this poverty by using his intelligence to shine in the reform education system after Mao's death. He received a state education in English and went on to emigrate to New York. A nice rages to riches story and the tyranny of the Communist system.



3. I read a lot of memoirs precisely for what I received from this book, inspiration. The sentence that galvanized me was this one, "I had been studying an average of fifteen hours a day for the last ten months."
   
   Other reviewers have explained Chen's story, so I won't reiterate it. But I will say that when I think about what this man accomplished in pursuit of his dream, I realize once again how easy it is to excuse our failures as a matter of fate or luck.
   
   Da Chen teaches us otherwise.



4. This review refers to the abridged audio version of this book --
   
   UGH. I am fascinated with books about China and life under Mao. However, I couldn't get through the first tape of this book, for two reasons.
   
   One was the reader, Daxing Zhang. His stilted, halting and monotone delivery made it unpleasant to listen to. He evidently is not a professional narrator and it shows. Even a great book can be ruined by a poor reader.
   
   And, believe me, this doesn't even come close to being a great book.
   The storytelling is dull and self-pitying and the language is, in turns, overblown and cliched.
   
   My biggest problem, however, was the author's attitude. Don't get me wrong: I abhor what Mao and his "cultural revolution" did in China. But it's more than a bit ironic when someone from the upper classes (the author's family were landlords and owned several buildings) complains when their property, power and status is taken away.
   
   The author's stated contempt for farm work, for instance, shows the type of elitist attitude that spurred the revolution in the first place.
   
   Never once (at least in the part of the book I managed to listen to) did Da Chen appear to have any empathy for the working classes that were oppressed under the pre-revolution days.
   
   Again, I must emphasize that I do NOT agree with the goals of or methods used by Mao's Communist regime, but nor can I generate a great deal of sympathy for once-rich whiners who feel, for the first time in their lives, the sting of poverty and disenfranchisement.



5. This book really taught me about what cultural impacts Mao Ze Dong had on the Chinese population. It was an amazing book and I suggest everybody read it.

5 comments about All Souls: A Family Story from Southie.

1. The feature which works best in All Souls is the dramatically understated quality of MacDonald's prose. There isn't an ounce of pretense here, and this, when balanced against the horrors he is telling, creates a surface tension of great effect. As a piece of art, as a work of writing, there is little to learn beyond this, however; MacDonald is careful in how he uses language, but there are no surprises. So, this work's strength is also its weakness. Given that, it is a hard book to put down. It has a unique strength that makes one want to reach the end.



2. MacDonald characterizes himself as cursed with an "Irish whisper." That is, unable to keep the secrets he's entrusted with under wraps, blaring out what he should have kept hidden. This memoir of the 1970s through the 1990s, when Whitey Bulger's thugs replaced the anti-busing protests for media attention in South Boston, moves efficiently, with modest attention to Michael Patrick's own coming-of-age as contrasted with a fearsome family scenario of ten siblings, four of whom meet violent ends and three of whom die tragically. The one who survives might as well have died earlier; she survives a coma only to emerge a psychological and physical wreck. While this story often blurs the schooling, or lack of, that the author gained as he grew up in the midst of the anti-busing boycotts, and while you gain a stronger sense of the other members of his family rather than himself, this may be redressed in the new sequel, "Easter Rising." You get a less distinctive depiction of himself compared to his larger-than-life Ma and assorted brothers. Yet, the author appears here to deliberately focus upon his family and the violent milieu that boasts of its solidarity yet which poisons its very cohesion by such corruption on a moral level and a sociological scale. MacDonald redeems himself and his neighborhood as he grows up not only in body but in spirit, managing a buy-back gun program and learning to trust (a few perhaps) police.
   
   The same department who sought to imprison his brother, at thirteen, as Boston's youngest suspect: such maturity for the narrator emerges gradually and realistically. His story of how he survived Old Colony, absent of maudlin sentimentality or contrived cutesy anecdotes, reflects what in his acknowledgements appended he calls "every painful and personally redemptive sentence." (265) MacDonald manages to tell a story that could have been akin to the film "The Departed" or the HBO "Brotherhood," yet avoids ethnic cliche and predictably pat endings. The drama of abiding by the neighborhood code that forbids snitching but vowing to break that same omerta by seeking the culprits behind two of his brothers' deaths and the imprisonment of a third adds natural tension to this narrative. Yet, MacDonald sidesteps special pleading.
   
   Many of the memories he shares deserve repeating. For this review, three quick examples. First: the author accounts for the absence of a regular man in Ma's life as she cares for eight kids. "A man would only be abusive, tear at Ma's self-worth, and limit her mobility in life. Welfare could do all that 'and' pay for the groceries." (33). Her third (named) partner and second husband, Bob King, gets hit over the head by Ma with the wine bottle that made him drunk. When he comes to, she accuses him or stealing the "Christmas money" and he's sent off down Jamaica Ave. for the last time. Staggering down the street, to staunch his bleeding head, he holds what Michael Patrick fetched on his mother's orders: a Kotex pad.
   
   Ma herself gets shot randomly, through the living room window, by a teen high on Whitey's cocaine, just before the episode of "Dallas" comes on that she and all of America had been waiting for: "Who Shot J.R.?" Whether evoking the terror of his brother Davey's schizophrenia at Mass Mental, the fear of rats and roaches that infest the projects, the rage of the busing protests, the desperate schemes of his Ma to stay ahead of the authorities, or the conniving that infects both cops and criminals with the same lack of morality, MacDonald holds a calm eye for the telling detail and a cool pen to record what transpired. I look forward to his sequel, "Easter Rising." He keeps to the unadorned, if often witty, accounts of "street justice" that complicate his series of vivid incidents, recalled conversations, and local lore that add up to a poignant, yet honest, depiction of what it was to grow up in what was Southie, before gentrification, integration, and disintegration.



3. The past few years there has been a bright spotlight shone upon the South Boston social and political climates that have forever given Southie the reputation of being a sort of rough and tumble sort of place. With movies such as The Departed glorifying and demonstrating to the rest of the world what exactly Southie was all about, the resurgence to try and understand what living in South Boston must have been like is perhaps stronger now than ever before.
   
   Though a textbook format could certainly provide readers with a sociological and psychological look at the factors that went into making South Boston perhaps one of the most volatile sections of the country, not everyone is always looking for the highfalutin academic approach to gain a glimpse into a society. Rather, what is too often not focused on is the personal stories of the area.
   
   Thanks to the work of Michael Patrick MacDonald, readers from across the globe can read a much more personal take on life in the South Boston projects, streets, hospitals and morgues. In 2000, MacDonald and Ballantine Books release All Souls: A Family Story from Southie . MacDonald, who grew up in the projects located in Old Colony in South Boston tells an amazing family story that is so far reaching that each page seems almost as unbelievable as the next.
   
   The MacDonald family, although perhaps never willing to admit it back in the day, did not have it easy. Though they may have been masked in their zeal for their homeland, South Boston, the realities that existed were perhaps only realized once a look back at Southie was taken by those members of the family that were fortunate enough to get out.
   
   The book tells remarkable story after story in which the trials and tribulations of the MacDonald family and the life and events taking place in the world around them in Southie. The family is perhaps the ideal capture of a family that has been through so much yet continues to remain strong. Certainly the societal factors so prevalent in South Boston such as drugs, poverty and Whitey Bulger affected this family as it did so many in Southie. However, the remarkable part is that the author faced with the tragedy of having to bury sibling after sibling and seeing both his family and friends suffer so much is capable of releasing such a well thought out and brilliant book.
   
   What remains true not just for the MacDonald family but also so many that grew up in South Boston during the mid to late 1900's is that despite all of the social evils taking place around them perhaps the unifying factor of being from Southie was all they needed to remain strong. When others might have crumbled or lost all hope, Southie residents and the MacDonald's in particular were able to time and time again pull themselves out of the gutter and move on in life.
   
   The book is written in a very methodical and organized way. The stories tell a sort of time-line approach to the life of MacDonald and how it interrelated to not just his family members but also the issues that Southie will forever be remembered for: the busing riots, the drug trade of the Irish underground and the fist fights on street corners that turned into an almost daily occurrence.
   
   What MacDonald does well in this book is not just tell a story, but rather allows the reader into the lives of those around him. Through an almost genealogical lens, MacDonald brings the reader into his family in a way that at times makes the reader forget that they have no idea of this family prior to turning to page one.
   
   All Souls is the perfect read for someone that is both familiar with Southie either because of geographic or historical relevance or for someone who has no idea about what South Boston and its residents were faced with. The book is an amazing account of what is right about South Boston when so much has been wrong about South Boston. Even when faced with amazing extenuating circumstances, what held South Boston together was families like the MacDonald's.
   
   Though certainly sullied by a few bad apples, the bunch is never ruined.
   
   
   Recommended:
   Yes



4. I usually try to read all books that I get a hold of that are memoir..but this one I read about 1/4 of it--maybe a little more and I just couldn't keep going. I put it away for awhile and got it out again and tried again--I started from the beginning but I didn't even get a 1/4 of it read before shutting it for good. I don't recommend this book to anyone. :(



5. i could not stand this book and did not finish it. it was poorly written and has probably gotten its good reviews from people who feel sorry for their poverty, but it is neither touching nor sympathetic. if chapters on hiding the boyfriends and the big color television from the government welfare worker appeal to you, you are in luck.

5 comments about Daughter of the Saints: Growing Up In Polygamy.

1. This is the second book I have read about polygamy. This is completely foreign to my Protestant upbringing. I have seen people caught in a cult situation before. My neighbors when I was a young child were not allowed to celebrate Christmas, salute the flag, or celebrate any other holidays.
   I will not mention there religion. Inside their home terrible things were happening to their children. I didn't find out about it until I was a grown woman.
   
   This is the type of thing that Dorothy Solomon is talking about. She had a good mother. She was aware that the other children called them names. She knew other children had only one set of parents. Her father was married to 7 women. She believed as she was taught. She believed in polygamy. As she grows older she sees the sorrow in the women around her who are not honored by this state of affairs. Her parents had been arrested and they had to go into hiding as children. She even discusses incest in such an environment. It obviously is not a good environment for a woman to feel any equality with a man in. When more groups form a terrible thing happens to her father. The book is fascinating. A real page turner.
   She horrifies her family by joining the regular Church of the Latter Day Saints. She marries only once and has children. She is a strong person.
   Thank you for showing us a world that most will never see. You have without a doubt helped other women trapped in this situation.



2. This has been an excellent book to read. I was looking for material to inform myself better about polygamy. I found "Daughter of the Saints" and could hardly put it down until I finished. The author is so real, and has such a beautiful way of writing her feelings that it really got to me. I love the balance that comes out of all the narrative--the good and the bad. I admire the courage to tell these experiences, and to be so honest about it to us the readers. I learned a lot from this book, and really enjoyed it. It was a memoir that made me live the scenes. I found a deeper understanding for polygamy without having to read scandalous material, or a document biased completely towards the negative or positive aspects of it. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about polygamy--what better way than to read a book by someone who has lived it.



3. This is the same book as "Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing up in Polgamy" by the same author. I didn't know that and bought both of them.
   
   Ms. Solomon is telling her story here and I do recommend you read it. I found the book boring and tedious in places and found myself wanting to skip ahead to get to the "meat" of the story. However, I read every page. It's good though to read her experience in polygamy.
   
   I found myself asking questions about the underpinnings of Mormonism and it's relation to polygamy, (and in a general way the notion of religious beliefs around the world.) Reading through the writings of Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder, I got a definite idea of what he thought about polygamy. About 50 or so years later the Mormon church, under state and federal pressure, made certain declarations regarding polygamy. In light of the several (now) books on polygamy by ex-members of various splinter groups, and with events regarding the FLDS in Texas, it does make one wonder who is following the true, revealed, laws of Mormonism. If you find this an interesting question, you may wish to read some of those original writings on your own and come to your own conclusion.



4. This is a good read on a subject that is very controversial at the moment. It gives great insight into the daily lives of polygamists and sheds light on their beliefs. The author talks about her childhood and her relationship with her numerous siblings and mothers. Her father is a huge influence on her life and it is clear he was an influential member of their religious group. This book is definitely worth reading.



5. I didn't like this book very well. It gave too much history and not enough current events. I have read the history of polygamy over & over & over and would like to read current events. There wasn't too much to read about current events in this book. If you want the history, this book's for you. She's a good writer but I've had their history crammed down by throat enough. I get it!

5 comments about Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime SarajevoRevised Edition.

1. To the reader who wrote comment "we all had our delusional moments when we were teenagers"...you should be ashamed of yourself. This "delusional moment" was war and struggle for survival in besieged city of Sarajevo.
   Why don't you try and write a book, and/or diary, sitting in a basement without food, water and electricity for four years. All that while granates and bombs are raining on your city. In the meantime, one by one, all of your neighbors and friends are gone six feet under...
   How about that for delusional moment...



2. I remember reading this book as a child and picked it up again as an adult. It was a quick read, but really showed how a child deals with war. It made me think of how children in Iraq are feeling right now. Very interesting.



3. Sheesh...this is the product of a child, not the work of a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. It is an excellent diary, an excellent primary source and an excellent text for a better understanding of the Yugoslav wars. Yes...it does only tell one point of view - hers - it is her diary! Some readers are offended because of the comparison to Anne Frank; a comparison that Filipovic and others make in the book. The comparison is totally fair. Both are intelligent children caught up in situations they have no control over during wars of ethnic cleansing and extermination. It is a testament to Zlata that she can make the connection to Anne Frank...obviously the rest of the world couldn't. They (We) abandoned the Jews sixty years ago and abandoned hundreds of thousands of Croats/Bosniaks/Serbs to genocide forty years later. Zlata remembered Anne Frank's words...the world didn't.



4. Filipovic, Z. and Pribichevich-Zoric, C. (1995). Zlata's Diary. New York: Penguin Group
   Zlata's Diary is about a young eleven year old girl who wrote in her diary during the Yugoslavian Civil War. The beginning of the book discusses each day and her exciting things that she did with friends as well as her family memebrs; however, as the dumb war began to affect more and more individuals she began to take note of the food and water shortage. She also began to notice the loss of family and friends. Was the world coming to an end? Would she be okay? Would she survive?
   This book can be known as the modern day The Diary of Anne Frank due to it's similarities as both girls discuss the harsh conditions and losses they encountered due to ignorant individuals. The book truly hit home for me since I lost family in this war and to read Zlata's story and compare to the ones my family memebers were telling is mind blowing. Zlata's words truly embrace the horrific results of this war.
   
   Completed by Z on 5/12/08



5. Zlata probably never imagined that her diary would be read by millions or that it would be published. Much like Anne Frank, I don't think Zlata ever intended the diary to be made worldwide. Unlike Anne, Zlata survived but not without internal scars and loss of friends and relatives and neighbors. In the beginning, Zlata writes about mundane, ordinary things about being 11 years old. Please keep that in mind when reading her diary is that she was only 11 years old at the time of writing in the beginning. She begins writing about her life as a child in Sarajevo before the war broke out. She writes about her father going to serve the national army reserves. She writes about her life before the war and how the war changed her life and others forever. One day, she writes about people leaving Sarajevo and heading into safe territory. She writes about the daily bombings, senseless deaths, and life under war. She is a child of course and she tries to cope with difficult circumstances like not having electricity for the first time in her life for long periods of time or the constant state of fear that she lives in for herself and for her loved ones. Zlata's diary is now widely read by students about her age. Her main objective was never to get published but to keep and maintain a diary that was quite personal at times. Children of war probably suffer a lot more than they should. Zlata grows up fast and not be choice. She struggles to survive for herself and for her family without losing sanity.

5 comments about First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.).

1. Loung Ung does an excellent job of describing what happened to her family growing up in the killing fields of Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime. She is an excellent writer. Although her story is very tragic, it is one that we all should hear. God is truly using Loung's tragic life to create something good and meaningful. Loung is a fascinating person that I feel honored to have met within the pages of her book. Thank you for sharing your story Loung. Your book has changed my life.



2. Some people have criticized this book because they believe some small historical detail might be wrong. I say, who cares about that? The horrors that are described in this book eclipse any small misconceptions or tiny errors in fact. Cambodia's people were starved, enslaved, murdered, and robbed by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. It's a most outrageous and horrific story, but it was the truth for millions. Miss Ung did an impressive job pulling the story together into book form. My heart breaks for her family and hundreds of thousands of other families there.
   
   This should be required reading for high school students everywhere.



3. The book is very well-written. Loung Ung wrote with compassion,spirtual, and horrenic activities growing up under the Khmer Rogue regime. She experiences tortues,stravation, and execution of her parents. This book is very interesting to learn what the author went through live under a horrendous communist movement. The author wrote this book in a sense to give the reader an image on the conflict of war that is going in Cambodia. Readers would not be able to put this book down since it give the readers a hint of life growing up in the Khmer Rouge. Ung had to move from different works camps at a young age, and she experienced a hardship growing up in Cambodia during the 1974 to 1979. Between these two years, she watch baby brother died of stravation and the loss of his parent by the Khmer Rogue. Having to travel a large distance to Vietnam, Loung experience the execution of her people. The book will change your prespective of life and the mistery of what the cambodia people been through during the killing field years. Highly recommened to any type of readers.



4. When I started to read the memoir, it was very hard to put down. It is written in first person tense through the eyes of a young girl struggling through the Khmer Rouge insurgency in Cambodia. I am a 1st generation American whose mother grew up in war torn Vietnam, so I had an interest in the Southeast Asian set memoir. Now I am trying to find ones as good as this one, but set in with my mother's experiences. This book was an in depth way to learn about the people & the recent history of struggle which many Cambodian Americans no doubt have also lived through but not spoken of. It really reinforces that family and love are the most important things in life. It's a must read.



5. I read all but a couple chapters of this book on a flight across the US. It is easy reading and I could not put it down. The horrors this author went through will make the reader pause to count his blessings. I think this is a must read for anyone who is unfamiliar with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.