notanotherbookreview

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom (Overlook Press) Sometimes I yearn for  a kinder gentler place. In this 1930s classic (comparable to Harry Potter in its era) I found adventure sailing with  four English children--during WW2. The oldest, age 12, Captain John, commands a 14 ft. sailboat with Susan, his first mate, able seaman sister Titty and seaman Roger, the youngest. They sail across a large lake to a wooded island and camp out, without adult supervision. Unimaginable in modern parenting, their mother encourages them by leaving them alone. But she does check on them to bring treats with baby Vicky or hears news from adults, when Captain John picks up milk from the "natives." Their voyage of exploration begins with permission from their dad at the front, an enigmatic telegram:  BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WON'T DROWN. Does father think they will drown or that they are not duffers?  Mother clarifies that dad knows John can handle the boa...

  Let us talk about that most crazy and foolhardy of  free lance journalists, brave ones who cover wars and in our time the "forever wars" of Afghanistan and Iraq. Vietnam a different story, body bags being loaded on planes, front and center on the six o'clock news. People were riveted-overloaded by daily body counts like a dark casino jackpot ever rising. Until it was enough, and Americans--old and young, liberal and conservative, veteran and resistor, surged in the streets to end that war. That old coverage gets little play now but then the numbers were enough. (Today, without the nightly network focus, would it happen?) This post is to celebrate this rare journalist in the present, when our wars merit scarce network attention and coverage is often but a distanced reminder of what is going on far away --the horrific daily reality of war.  But there are news outlets who occasionally run stories by journalists enbedded with soldiers and their allies, working inch ...

There are books that confound their genre and The Prince of Orange County  (Pelekinesis) is not a formulaic  "coming of age" story but one that redefines the idea of what that means. From "Catcher in the Rye" you get  the bittersweet end of childhood fantasy lost in the torturous crucible of adolescence, with "Huck Finn" you do have a similar awakening to adventure and life, and you hope the hero will come to terms with the adult world. In The Prince of Orange County, the hero, at age thirteen, is already living a dream that just may happen. Thomas Kabiri's "got game," meaning BASKETBALL, and is already playing with the big boys at his local playground court in southern California in 1986.  He can steal that ball and shoot and sling the "BS" with the other mavens in the local park. But it's not idle talk that his precocious skills might land him in the big-time--if he plays his cards right and grows to be more than 5...

NEW 2019  An audiobook of PARADISE GARDENS!  New! Audiobook on Audible. It’s a collaboration between wonderful actress Nicole Greevy, brilliant at all the voices. More like radio play than reading. Here is free 30-day trial offer.  https://www.audible.com/…/Paradise-Gardens-   Code is: . RB6JB2EB3TFWJ Pelekinesis is the Publisher of Paradise Gardens, which is available at SPD Books https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781938349508/paradise-gardens.aspx (Note Amazon takes 60% of every sale.) If you buy at another distributor, please make sure it is the Pelekinesis definitive illustrated edition. If you have interest but can't afford a buy, leave a comment here or on Paradise gardens FB page and I will respond. Thanks. (I apologize the formatting on blogger for columns is not great for me to post chapters, FB has as well.  https://www.facebook.com/paradise.gardens.new.edition/ Thanks. S.W. Chapter 2,  File Cabinet  database If a cau...