Picture a troubled teen quietly removing this book from the school library shelves, then sitting down between the book stacks and devouring it. Maybe the teenager thought he was the only one hiding a terrible secret about his home life, but after a few pages of Doug Wilhelm’s accessible, educational novel, he will realize there are others just like him, and that there is hope. In The Prince of Denial—Wilhelm’s latest in an acclaimed middle-school series that has taken on tough topics like bullying and cyberbullying—the prolific author tackles the effects of alcoholism on families and, most of all, kids.

Using casual, convincing dialogue, Wilhelm drops readers right into the life of Casey Butterfield, seventh grader, on the first page. Casey is trading jokes with his comedic buddy, Oscar, and all is lighthearted. Except it’s not. Casey can’t really let go and hang out with his friend anymore because he needs to get home—and quickly. There are things he has to take care of, like cleaning the house, making dinner, and dealing with his unpredictable alcoholic father. Deeply embarrassed by his home life, Casey tells Oscar none of this; he just disappears like clockwork every day after school.

Wilhelm capably takes Casey through the psychological stages familiar to many relatives of addicts: denial, shame, understanding, and, finally, action. The tone ranges from realistic to more scripted, depending on whether teens or adults are speaking.

Although The Prince of Denial risks straying into the lesson-laden territory of a television after-school special, it goes refreshingly off-script just when least expected. All signs point to a textbook intervention arranged by Casey’s Aunt Julie and hosted by Casey himself; but at the last minute, Casey changes tactics.

The results are compellingly tension-filled and complex, and ultimately more satisfying than an ending that ties everything up neatly. Casey’s life gets better, but it doesn’t get all better, all at once. The realism will ring true for adolescent readers who might have come away from a storybook ending with more doubts than answers. In Casey, instead, they have a relatable role model for how to handle the tough stuff in their own lives.

Sheila M. Trask for ForeWord Reviews
November 30, 2013

Sheila M. Trask for ForeWord Reviews
November 30, 2013

A coloring book for adults and children alike with simple free hand pictures full of love, joy, happiness and self acceptance, some including a positive phrase. They provide the author's mental image of what she is describing prompting you further to think more about them.  I had to smile and giggle at the second picture especially with my love for 'real books' I love it.

This book is disguised as a basic spiritual coloring book, yet as with her other books they provide gentle triggers of love and happiness.

Come and take a walk down memory lane, back to 1959, and watch America change through the eyes of Jerome “Jerry” Antil. In The Long Stem is in the Lobby, Antil takes a rambling stroll through his coming-of-age years, from his wide-eyed first days at college, through his reckoning with racial prejudice, to his successful advertising career. Antil’s reminiscences serve as a sort of written scrapbook, offering episodic glimpses of one person’s experience of a unique time in American history.

The friendly grin in his cover photo and the buoyant tone of his writing give the impression that Antil is a likable guy. He can be self-effacing and poke fun at himself, but never lets himself get down for long. For instance, he describes his extravagant efforts to keep his first girlfriend from entering a convent—private jet rides and impossibly expensive gifts—but doesn’t dwell on his heartbreak when she sticks with her plan. Instead, he turns it into a lesson in “flair,” the go-the-extra-mile style that becomes his stock-in-trade in the advertising business.

Clearly written dialogue brings readers into a variety of scenes from Antil’s life, from dorm rooms to boardrooms. So, too, do period details like the “ratatattattattattattat” of a newsroom typewriter and the astonishing fact that fifty dollars would buy a respectable car in 1961. Most moments are fairly light, with little space given to reflection or introspection. Even the more historically significant moments—when Antil learns that Alabama Governor George Wallace won’t let his basketball team play against teams with black players, for example—are unembellished. Antil spins an entertaining tale about his own plucky response to Governor Wallace, but he doesn’t delve deeply into how moments like this affected his personal growth. Instead, he moves briskly on to the next event.

The chronological approach offers a clear structure, but as Antil’s career unfolds in the second half of the book, the connecting message or theme isn’t always evident. Antil’s professional successes do eventually allow him to do his own part to address racial inequalities in segregated city communities, but this isn’t a story about doing good deeds. Instead, it is the tracing of a career trajectory, with details of deals done and contracts signed. Some of these are fascinating—the clearly sexist story behind the Duncan Hines cake mix, for instance—but trimming a little from the comprehensive reporting of each promotion and job change would better sustain attention.

Antil closes with a collection of photographs and newspaper clippings—his glory days as a six-foot-ten “long stem” of a basketball player feature prominently—adding to the overall scrapbook feel of the book. The Long Stem Is in the Lobby may not offer earth-shattering revelations or intimate confessions, but it brings a clear, cogent, personal perspective to bear on a unique slice of American history.

Sheila M. Trask for ForeWord Reviews
November 26, 2013

Sheila M. Trask for ForeWord Reviews
November 13, 2013

In this refreshing inquiry into the true purpose of education, Tony Armstrong turns away from the current focus on subjects like STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and standardized tests, and offers an intriguing alternative. With Educating Angels: Teaching for the Pursuit of Happiness, Armstrong calls for a paradigm shift away from education that treats students as a means to an economic end, toward practices that support the goal of achieving each student’s happiness.

Presenting his own thoughts, as well as ideas from an impressive variety of experts, Armstrong makes a strong case that encouraging happiness as the core of education would not only result in more satisfied students, but also a more engaged citizenry.

Armstrong opens with angel imagery—“My students might be angels … the light of angelic soul shines through their eyes … I see the worth of angels in them”—that suggests the book may have an overriding spiritual tenor. It doesn’t. While the author is indeed a visionary with strong beliefs about the sanctity of each person’s experience, he is also a college professor and a lifelong student of philosophy, psychology, and logic.

Thus Educating Angels has an academic, intellectual tone. In clear, sophisticated language, Armstrong asks the reader not to follow his ideas blindly, but to examine the evidence that leads him to conclude: “If happiness is the common end of all human striving, and public education is the main means for governments to empower each citizen to pursue his own ends, it follows that empowering the pursuit of happiness is the main purpose of public education.”

In well-organized and comprehensively referenced chapters, the author delves into topics such as the purpose of education, the nature of happiness, and the sources of happiness. These are not mere musings; Armstrong uses data from his own research, as well as ideas from philosophers like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and John Locke and contemporary psychology writers like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Martin Seligman to support the need for a new type of curriculum. For instance, Csikszentmihalyi’s work on “flow” indicates that students engaged in their areas of strength will work harder and longer, accomplish more, and be more satisfied than those forced to pursue a distributed course of study across a variety of subjects.

As rigorous as Armstrong’s academic inquiry is, his theory might come to nothing without a consideration of the methods by which schools can teach happiness. Fittingly, the longest chapter in the book offers myriad practical suggestions for developing a new “happiness pedagogy.” A small sampling of methods includes: teaching mindfulness, encouraging a wide range of creative expression, practicing gratitude and forgiveness, and encouraging students to reflect on their own unique gifts. Armstrong breaks this down into grade levels, sowing the seeds of a comprehensive curriculum to be implemented from kindergarten to college. He also mentions inspiring programs already in place, such as Inner Kids, MindUP of the Hawn Foundation, and the Mindfulness in Education Network.

“If education can contribute more to our children’s happiness, it ought to,” concludes Armstrong. Educating Angels persuasively argues that this isn’t an impossibly lofty goal, but an entirely achievable one. Educators at all levels will benefit from considering Armstrong’s ideas and their possible implementation in the classroom.

Sheila M. Trask for ForeWord Reviews
November 26, 2013

By Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop
Simon & Schuster, $24.99, 320 pages

Grief is a universal experience but also an exquisitely personal one. Winthrop captures the duality perfectly in this touching novel about one family’s journey through unimaginable loss. We meet Joan and Anders Jacobs and their daughters, Eve and Eloise, on their way to the family’s summer home in Cape Ann, on a route they’ve driven dozens of times. It’s different now, though, because oldest daughter Sophie isn’t there. The loss hangs in the air, undiscussed, until a harrowing scene at the vacation home forces them to face head-on the ways a life can end, the connections that are lost, and the ones who remain.

Winthrop takes a gentle tone throughout, mining the lyrical thoughts of the teenage Eve—“When the moon is facing left, is it growing, or has it already been full?”—alongside the careful conversations between her parents, and the bedtime fears seven-year-old Eloise hides in order to protect her parents. Some scenes are downright weepy, such as when Eloise sends her father off for the day with the chocolate brownie from her lunch, but Winthrop doesn’t so much dwell on the sadness as allow it. In doing so, she lets her characters feel what they need to feel and, ultimately, move on with a new understanding and appreciation of life.

Reviewed by Sheila Trask for San Francisco Book Review

You may think you know who Alice Hoffman is. You've been reading her novels for years, from Practical Magic to The Dovekeepers. She writes women's literary fiction, right? After 23 such novels, it seems like a fair assumption. But did you know she's a popular young adult author as well? Or that she penned a nonfiction book, a memoir? Until recently, I didn't either, and I'm glad to have discovered some new Alice Hoffman titles to add to my reading list.

Hoffman's latest book is called Survival Lessons, and it's a heartfelt entry into the world of nonfiction, a personal journey made universal. Fifteen years ago, Hoffman received a breast cancer diagnosis that sent her reeling. Treatment and recovery proved completely foreign landscapes, with few familiar landmarks to direct her way. Hoffman wanted a guidebook, but found none. Now, all these years later, she has written the very book she wished for.

"There is a very thin line that separates readers and writers," writes Hoffman in her introduction. "You make a leap over that line when there's a book you want to read and you can't find it and you have to write it yourself."

The result is not a typical memoir, and in fact contains surprisingly few glimpses into Hoffman's actual ordeal. Instead, it's more of an optimistic instruction manual explaining how to take care of yourself when you're dealing with a serious illness, or any traumatic experience.

Hoffman's advice seems simple on the surface. Choose your heroes, she says. Eat chocolate. Only answer the phone when you want to. Read more closely, though, and you'll see the unique interpersonal observations you've come to expect from Hoffman. Anne Frank may be an obvious choice for a hero, for instance, but Hoffman also brings up a more unlikely choice: the mother she once criticized because she "would rather see a Broadway play than clean the kitchen."

Skimming through Hoffman's book, you might be tempted to dismiss it as too simple, the book-length equivalent of a "how to" article in a women's magazine. Read it again, though. You'll see that the brownie recipe is more than a list of ingredients. It's from her friend, Maclin, and she writes, "Maclin's brownies will not appear to be perfect. They will sink in the middle. The top will crack. You'll want to throw them out. Don't. They will be everything they should be and more." Just like life.

Likewise, her cousin Lisa's instructions for knitting a "beehive" hat are more than a handy project. They're a tool for working out the truths in life. Hoffman notes that trying something new, failing and trying again, "helps with understanding the importance of revision, and that the process is what can bring you the most joy."

Hoffman's gentle reminders are interspersed with her own photographs, and the words of poets like Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. The elegant presentation makes this brief book just right for gift-giving, and it would be a welcome addition to the bedside table of anyone struggling with self-care in a time of trouble.

Review by Sheila M. Trask for Story Circle Book Reviews http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org

Invisible Nature

By Kenneth Worthy
Prometheus Books, $19.00, 325 pages

Who made that sweater you’re wearing? How will your computer get recycled? Chances are, you don’t know; in the modern world, few of us do. So how does this affect your everyday choices, and how do those choices affect the planet as a whole? Kenneth Worthy critically examines this situation in his information-packed new book, Invisible Nature: Healing the Destructive Divide between People and the Environment.

Worthy posits that the modern, consumption-driven lifestyle is at odds with the sustainability of the source of those products: the earth itself. He tackles the paradox from many different angles, from Aristotle’s philosophical musings to Zimbardo’s social psychology experiments. References to scientific studies, journal articles, classic fiction, and contemporary writings are thick on the ground here, reflecting Worthy’s well-rounded grasp of his subject, but also carrying the distinct possibility of overwhelming the casual reader.

Worthy’s ultimate conclusion—that humanity’s inability to understand the consequences of its actions stems from our growing disconnection from the people and places that support us—is convincing, and leads to an optimistic, if too brief, discussion of the ways we might mitigate this disconnect.

Reviewed by Sheila Trask for San Francisco Book Review

Sheila M. Trask for ForeWord Reviews
October 21, 2013

Get Over Yourself!

This article is from the Spring 2013 issue of ForeWord Reviews. To start receiving your own copy of ForeWord Reviews, subscribe to the print edition or online edition today.

Truth or ConsequencesYoung Adult Fiction Crosses Gender and Generations

Kimberly Rae Miller's courageous memoir shows how much addictive family systems have in common, regardless of the "substance" abused. Whether parents are obsessed with alcohol, drugs, sex, or, in this case, collecting stuff, the kids grow up confused and ashamed. If you grow up with a mother who passes out at the dinner table or a father who saves every scrap of paper he ever saw, the result is the same: you're not sure what normal is supposed to look like.

In Coming Clean, Miller bravely reveals a childhood lived in isolation, amidst the mountains of things her parents could not throw away. There was so much stuff clogging every room that Miller's family didn't even realize they had a squatter in their attic: the piles provided too much insulation for them to hear his comings and goings. Ashamed though she is, Miller holds little back.

It's less the horror of the hoarding, however, that intrigues. Instead, it's the way Miller honestly relates the ways she has tried to deal with her parents' problems, both as a child, and as an adult who still gets pulled into the codependent cycle time and time again. Each time she bails them out, Miller gets closer to finished with all the dysfunction, and it's inspiring to see her slowly get her bearings and make her own way in the world.

(I was also inspired to start cleaning out my basement.)

 “Beginnings, no matter how important they are, get forgotten,” writes Roland Hughes in this far-reaching inquiry into mankind’s history, and perhaps, its future. With John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars, Hughes pushes the restart button on humanity, setting us down nearly seventy years in the future on a planet with very few people and very little memory of everything that has come before.

                Trying to sort it all out is young reporter, Susan Krowley, who has grown up in a post-apocalyptic world that retains only stray remnants of modern technology, and a vague story about the near-annihilation of humanity on November 13, 2013. She’s hoping for answers from the oldest person she’s ever met; at 79, John Smith carries knowledge from the old world that has nearly been lost. Krowley’s interview with Smith provides the structure of the book, and allows Smith to hold forth on topics ranging from Druids and Mayans to terrorism and global warming.

                The question-and-answer structure will be familiar to philosophy students, and Hughes’s use of the method aptly recalls Plato. Like the Classical Greek philosopher, Hughes tests theories about the nature of the world and the human beings who inhabit it, and both use Atlantis as a model through which to explore the possibilities.

Hughes lightly develops the relationship between interviewer and subject as their conversation continues, and it becomes clear that Smith is really the one challenging Krowley with his insistence that she understand the context, or “frame of reference” for her questions about the so-called Microsoft Wars. Krowley does become more inquisitive and critical throughout the interview, although many of her queries continue to be simple prompts for Smith to continue his contemplation. Thus their dialogue seldom tells us a lot about their characters, which limits the impact of Hughes’s ideas.    

                Although Hughes creates a detailed modern science fiction setting—the Human Genome Project, weapons of mass destruction, and anti-gravity science all contribute to man’s fate—the book is less of a science fiction adventure than it is an opportunity for philosophical musings. Readers hoping for something earth-shattering to happen in the pages of John Smith may be disappointed. The seminal event happened in the past, and Krowley and Smith are just here to help us pick up the pieces.

                The pieces themselves are intriguing, and Hughes keeps the frequent monologues from dragging by imbuing Smith with a dark sense of humor—speaking of fossil fuels, for instance, he includes humans in the equation (“Humans are useful in a variety of forms. Have they invented a product called petroleum jelly yet?”)—much to Krowley’s dismay. And don’t get him started on economists and MBAs. Smith is an opinionated guy, which helps his forays into history read less like encyclopedia entries and more like impassioned speeches. Some speeches are lengthy, but Smith’s urgency carries the reader along.

                The Microsoft Wars, as it turns out, are only a small part of the tale here. Instead of focusing on the final battle, Smith expands his thoughts on the political, economic, psychological, and even mythological forces that may have led to humanity’s demise. What the few people left on earth will make of this history, and how it will affect their future, remains an open question that Hughes, a prolific author, will likely take up in future volumes.

Reviewed by Sheila M. Trask, MS/LIS, through ReviewWorm Book Review Services

Reviewed by Sheila Trask for Readers' Favorite

A sad and beautiful coming-of-age story of a child and her country, NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel, We Need New Names, takes us to Zimbabwe during the Mugabe era. Here, 10-year-old Darling copes with extreme poverty, hunger, and near-homelessness in her ironically-named shantytown, Paradise. We join the smart, observant Darling and her roving band of friends as they hunt for the best places to steal guavas and play frequent games of “find bin Laden.” Bulawayo’s knowledgeable and empathetic descriptions allow us to feel their hunger but also their friendships. Most of all, we see them becoming adults before their time, as in a wrenching scene where the friends try to figure out how to “get the baby out” of 11-year-old Chipo’s stomach.

Bulawayo looks unflinchingly at harsh economic, racial, family, and personal experiences in Zimbabwe, through Darling’s perceptive eyes. Later in the novel —- which reads more like a series of linked vignettes than an action-filled story -— Darling travels to America to escape the dire situation at home. However, Detroit, Michigan is hardly the answer to all of her problems. In fact, her new home brings new complications, which Bulawayo covers in chapters focused on technology, music, capitalism, violence, and pornography. These later sections feel a little forced, as though the author had a predetermined list of issues to address, though her observations are spot on. A girl who never had enough to eat is appropriately alarmed by an American culture that celebrates a combination of overeating and extreme dieting, for instance.

Lyrical at times, no reader will forget Darling’s first experience of the Michigan snow that came silently to swallow everything up with its whiteness. We Need New Names is not a speedy read. Darling takes her time expressing herself, and there is no anticipation of crisis to create momentum. Readers will, however, appreciate Bulawayo’s unique voice, her cross-cultural comparisons, and the compassion with which she portrays one girl’s international journey toward womanhood.

For an intentional hermit, wilderness trekker Sylvain Tesson has a surprising amount of company during his six-month retreat in Siberia. Though he deliberately exiles himself to a remote one-room cabin for solitary contemplation, he ends up developing new relationships with his environment, its animals, and its human population as well.

In The Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin on the Siberian Taiga, Tesson shares the detailed journal of his days in what should be the bleakest corner of the planet, but which turns out to be a rich and varied experience.

Winner of the Prix Medicis for nonfiction in his native France, this English translation of Tesson’s Dans les Forets de Siberie gives the prolific travel writer an expanded audience. Readers from across the globe are invited to join the intrepid traveler as he ventures into the subarctic realms with only his books, his vodka, and a sustaining supply of pasta and Tabasco sauce. On the shores of Lake Baikal, he sets out to conquer an ambitious reading list that includes Nietzsche, Sade, Camus, and Shakespeare. After all, he has six months to fill.

The time fills more quickly than either Tesson or his readers expect. First, there are the basics of survival. (As the Zen proverb says, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”) Then, there are the visitors. The daily conversation with a titmouse at the windowsill and the constant lookout for bears occupy many hours. So, too, do the surprisingly frequent visits from Tesson’s Russian counterparts, who live in the forest to safeguard the wildlife against the threat of poachers.

Tesson never knows when a “neighbor” from seventy-five miles away will crash through his door. Sausages and seal meat are slung on the table, vodka is passed around, and raucous conversation flies across the room at top speed and volume. And then, just as suddenly as they appear, the visitors take off. It’s contrasts like these, between solitude and companionship, that make Tesson’s story fascinating.

Tesson’s writing is most evocative when he concentrates on the tangible details of his days—his trek “over sheets of lunar ice that resemble huge jellyfish veined with turquoise,” for example. These passages create vivid images in the reader’s mind, although Tesson occasionally gets carried away by the metaphorical possibilities, as when he imagines “the melancholy of forests, the joy of mountain torrents, the hesitation of bogs, the strict severity of peaks, the aristocratic frivolity of lapping waves.”

With The Consolations of the Forest, Tesson adds a modern voice to the rich literary history of contemplative nature writers like Thoreau and Emerson. Tesson reaches few conclusions, but rather asks readers to accompany him as he explores the question of people’s relationship to nature and each other.

Sheila M. Trask for ForeWord Reviews
August 31, 2013