Everyone's a Winner: Life in Our Congratulatory Culture Review

Everyone's a Winner: Life in Our Congratulatory Culture
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Author Joel Best, a professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, has written a very interesting book in which he addresses--but doesn't offer many conclusions about--a number of issues involving recognition and status in our modern society. His book, "Everyone's a Winner," is short (166 pages) and easy to read, and it best serves to get the reader thinking.
You can't help but notice all the awards of one kind or another that we see or hear about almost daily. On the one hand, Mr. Best describes a sandwich shop that has a wall fully covered with framed certificates denoting the shop's service of the best cheesecakes, hoagies, etc. On the other hand, some of his examples of "status affluence" must have involved some more detailed research. Did you know, for example, that the number of awards given to mystery novels has grown from less than 10 in 1946 to over 100 in 2009? Perhaps closer to mind would be the proliferation of college football "bowl" games.
When my younger son graduated from high school, his class had a dozen valedictorians. (I was amazed, but apparently this isn't so rare nowadays.) But is "a dozen valedictorians" a contradiction in terms? Of course, it's hard to rank students when a number of them have seemingly perfect grades. Indeed, Joel Best's university announced that it had over 500 new freshmen with GPAs above 4.00. Grade inflation is alive and well. As the author points out, the number of high-school students with "A" averages went from 7.7% in 1976 to 15.6% in 2006. But--and here is the important issue--are higher grades reflective of higher student performance or declining standards?
It's not unusual for teams of young soccer players to award a large number of trophies at season's end. Not every child is a soccer star, but can we make the case that a little self-esteem at a young age might go a long way toward a child's future enthusiasm and performance? There's another topic to chew on.
Best notes that commentator Michael Barone classifies the 6 - 18 age group as "Soft America," where accountability often takes a back seat to concerns with self-esteem. Yet Barone labels the 18 - 30 age group as "Hard America," where we play for keeps. Is the transition from one group to the next perhaps a lot for kids to handle?
Okay, hopefully you are getting an idea of the topics raised in this book. So, if you are interested in reading more about (and what follow are Best's terms) "status affluence, a self-congratulatory culture, prize proliferation" and what the impact of these trends may be on our culture, then I'd recommend you give this book some real consideration. The author does a good job distilling important concepts into straightforward discussion and, significantly, he leaves most of the conclusions to his readers.


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Every kindergarten soccer player gets a trophy. Many high schools name dozens of seniors as valedictorians--of the same class. Cars sport bumper stickers that read "USA--Number 1." Prizes proliferate in every corner of American society, and excellence is trumpeted with ratings that range from "Academy Award winner!" to "Best Neighborhood Pizza!" In Everyone's a Winner, Joel Best-- acclaimed author of Damned Lies and Statistics and many other books--shines a bright light on the increasing abundance of status in our society and considers what it all means. With humor and insight, Best argues that status affluence fosters social worlds and, in the process, helps give meaning to life in a large society.

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The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development (J-B CCL (Center for Creative Leadership)) Review

The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development (J-B CCL (Center for Creative Leadership))
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This is perhaps the best book ever published in the field of Leadership development. We have all heard that Leadership is Learning by doing. This CCL explains what makes an assignment developmental. It puts the findings of the CCL in one book and make it available to the public. The book explains clearly the benefits and impacts of Feedback Intensive Programs, Coaching and Developmental Assignments. If you are in the field of leadership or talen development and need indepth understanding on designing such process then this is the book.


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The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is the world's largest institution devoted exclusively to leadership research and education. For more than three decades, CCL has studied and trained hundreds of thousands of executives and worked with them to create practical models, tools, and publications for the development of effective leaders and leadership. This second edition of The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development brings together the wealth of practical knowledge that CCL has gained from this experience. It explores the essence of leadership development, reveals how individuals can effectively enhance their leadership skills, and demonstrates what organizations can do to help build leaders and leadership capacity. The book also includes a companion CD-ROM that contains a library of classic CCL publications for practicing leaders.

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Jonah & Micah: Reformed Expository Commentary Review

Jonah and Micah: Reformed Expository Commentary
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This by far is the best commentary that I have read on the book of Jonah. Richard Phillips brings out New Testament theology in an Old Testament book. His comparison to the death and resurrection of Jesus compared to the 3 days of horror in the belly of the great fish was outstanding. Reformed theology in the Old Testament. This is a must read for all pastors and bible teachers.

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Jonah is such a contemporary figure that he could walk out of one of our churches. Jonah reminds us that the chief characteristic of redeemed people is not that they never sin but that they are ready to repent of their sin when they are reminded of God s grace. The prophet Micah lived several generations later than Jonah. God called Jonah to cry out to the wicked idolaters in Nineveh but he called Micah to cry out against the wicked sinners of Jerusalem! Jonah wrestled against God s gospel message for pagan unbelievers, yet Micah was broken-hearted in his fervent desire for Jerusalem to repent and believe. If Jonah connects us to our mission to the world, Micah informs our challenges with today s Church.

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Races of Eberron (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement) Review

Races of Eberron (Dungeons and Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement)
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Despite being part of the "Races of" series, this is an Eberron book, but don't let that stop you from buying it because it does provide information on how to introduce these new races into other settings.
The new Eberron setting introduced several new concepts to D&D, including several new races and this book greatly expands upon them.
The Warforged are basically "fantasy robots", and as a living construct they are very different from the "normal" races of D&D. This chapter expands how this very young race lives day to day, their psychology, culture and rather short history.
Next we have Shifters, they are belived to be children of those infected with Lycanthropy (werewolves). As such, they inherit several bestial traits, and this book adds several new ones based on other types of lycanthropes.
The best chapter IMHO, is Changelings, the descendants of Dopplegangers that had infitrated Eberron in the past. There are three basic types of Changelings, Becomers: who maintain a bunch of alternate identites, Passers: Who try to live their life under one identity and Reality Seekers: Who live openly as a Changeling.
Lastly we have the Kalashtar, a psionic race who are actually two beings in one. If you are a fan of the Soul Knife class from the Expanded Psionic Handbook, you will love all the new feats and prestige classes introduced in this chapter.
My one and only complaint of these chapters is the lack of a "How to fight this race" sidebar. In the Eberron setting, you are not just going to be playing these races, you will be fighting them as well. How do you ID an Chageling in disguise?
The next chapter covers the basic races of D&D, but with as they exist in Eberron. If this book is truely considered part of the "Races of" series, it would have been nice if the new races in those books and the psionic races had been included here as well.
Next we have feats, prestige classes and racial substitution levels, and it does include Psionic & Tactical feats and Psionic substitution levels. The book ends with new spells, artificer infusions and psionic powers as well as magic items crafted for these races.
Overall, a very good book, even the matrerial that might not directly fit your world can be adapted to work quite easily.

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A new D&D sourcebook detailing the major races of the Eberron™ world.Races of Eberron™ provides Dungeons & Dragons® players and Dungeon Masters with an in-depth look at the new races of the Eberron Campaign Setting, including changelings, the kalashtar, shifters, and the warforged. The book includes extensive information on each race, plus new race-related feats, prestige classes, spells, and equipment. In addition, this book highlights the other major races of the Eberron world, including elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, and drow.AUTHOR BIO: Jesse Decker is a designer for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. whose recent roleplaying game design credits include Races of Stone™ and Unearthed Arcana™. Before joining the RPG R&D team as a designer, Jesse served as Editor-in-Chief of Dragon® Magazine.AUTHOR BIO: Matthew Sernett is the Editor-in-Chief of Dragon Magazine. He has written several roleplaying game books for Green Ronin and Wizards of the Coast, Inc. His recent credits include d20 Menace Manual™.AUTHOR BIO: Keith Baker is the creator and co-author of the Eberron Campaign Setting. A foremost expert on the world of Eberron, he wrote Shadows of the Last War™ and co-authored Sharn: City of Towers™.AUTHOR BIO: Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel is a managing editor for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. In addition to editing several D&D books, she has co-authored Underdark™ and Planar Handbook™, for Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Private Practice Review

Dialectical Behavior Therapy in  Private Practice
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I just received this book today, so I obviously haven't read it cover-to-cover yet, but seeing as it had no other reviews, I thought I'd provide a bit more information.
The book seems very well written, with much emphasis on how to apply DBT to different disorders. It does not, however, focus much on treating borderline personality disorders, as Linehan has already done this well (see his books, Cognitive-behavioral treatment for borderline personality disorder and Skills training manual for borderline personality disorder, for classics on the subjects).
The book is aimed at clinicians in private practice, and a chapter deals with issues such as the lack of a treatment team, etc. Furthermore, the author starts by explaining each chapter so you know which one to skip if you're pressed for time. There are also very good chapters summaries at the end of each chapter, which reminded me of good school textbooks.
The trait that really makes this book stand out to me is the included CD-ROM. It contains hundredths of PowerPoint Slides that explain the key concept, to be presented in a group therapy. It also contains over 30 worksheets to be printed and photocopied, which appear to be very well designed. Although these are things a clinician could design himself, they really do save a whole lot of time. Because the slides and the worksheets reflect the basic concepts of DBT, they could be used to treat a wide variety of disorders, including borderline personality disorder.
Overall, great book, can't wait to read the rest!

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A noted expert in dialectical behaviour therapy translates this revolutionary new therapy into techniques professionals can integrate into their private practices. The book includes step-by-step instruction on how to use techniques such as distress tolerance, mindfulness-based practices, self-soothing exercises, and emotional regulation. This is the first book written for professionals in private practice to offer training in the practical applications of DBT for major psychological disorders.

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Coming Home to Passion: Restoring Loving Sexuality in Couples with Histories of Childhood Trauma and Neglect (Sex, Love, and Psychology) Review

Coming Home to Passion: Restoring Loving Sexuality in Couples with Histories of Childhood Trauma and Neglect (Sex, Love, and Psychology)
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I highly recommend Ruth Cohn's Coming Home to Passion as an invaluable tool for couples searching for a roadmap out of the familiar but lonely lock-and-key patterns afflicting many pairings of adult children of trauma with adult children of neglect. Drawing on two decades of work as a psychotherapist in the field of trauma, the author stands out as a sharp and careful observer of the heartbreaking relationship patterns of such long-suffering couples. Ms. Cohn's confident humanity and clarity offer an unblinking beacon of hope. Writing in a style that is both sympathetic and playful, her insightful chronicle become a rollicking page turner. Couples will find a detailed guide to transforming their hard-won resilience from a self-protective armor, into a heroic willingness to risk, and to develop new, healthier, loving - and sexual - relationships.

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With the Phoenix Rising: Lessons from Ten Resilient Women Who Overcame the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse (Jossey-Bass Psychology) Review

With the Phoenix Rising: Lessons from Ten Resilient Women Who Overcame the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse (Jossey-Bass Psychology)
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My therapist gave me this book after I finished therapy and reading the book summed up my life as a resilient survivor. Until I read the book I really didn't realize just how resilient I was. I had always thought of myself as unsuccessful and not useful, but it is amazing to see in print just how successful my life is considering how traumatic and abusive the childhood-adolescent years of my life were. Working in therapy helped more than words can describe, and this book is the closure that I needed. It's nice to know there are so many women who are resilient after such oppressive childhoods. The title really does sum up resiliency in myself and hundreds of other women.

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The devastating effects of childhood sexual abuse have been widely chronicled, validating the difficulty with which many survivors struggle. Often overlooked are the millions of women who have overcome early trauma to lead successful, happy lives. Why do these women-whom we might otherwise have expected to fail-have such tremAndous strength and resilience? This question is at the heart of With the Phoenix Rising as it paints a moving and optimistic portrait of ten women who have overcome the trauma of childhood sexual abuse and shows how their resilient success can be encouraged in others who have suffered similar traumas.

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The Transforming Power Of Affect: A Model For Accelerated Change Review

The Transforming Power Of Affect: A Model For Accelerated Change
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In this most important work Dr Fosha describes in clear prose and with engaging case material an emerging trend in the practice of effective short term psychotherapy. Her understanding and honoring of the internal landscape of the patients subjective experience and affect regulation will be an inspiration to new clinicians and a source of wisdom to seasoned veterans. Theory is presented in a clear accessible manner free of fluff and is enhanced by her lyrical narrative style.
Peter A. Levine Ph.D. Author of "Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma"

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The first model of accelerated psychodynamic therapy to make the theoretical why as important as the formula for how, Fosha's original technique for catalyzing change mandates explicit empathy and radical engagement by the therapist to elicit and harness the patient's own healing affects. Its wide-open window on contemporary relational and attachment theory ushers in a safe, emotionally intense, experience-based pathway for processing previously unbearable feelings. This is a rich fusion of intellectual rigor, clinical passion, and practical moment-by-moment interventions.

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Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History Review

Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History
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Publishers Weekly writes many short blurbs for Amazon. And they usually do a great job. Unfortunately, their assertion that Lewis veers close to arguing that "might makes right" is completely wrong. Consider Lewis's take on the Third Punic War--which he says was not a war at all but rather a massacre:
"Rome was wrong; the peace of Scipio Africanus was good, and the Romans could have preserved it by just mediation of the Carthaginian complaints. The Romans appointed a successor to Masinissa in 149; they could have ended the Numidian attacks. It is to Romans' eternal shame--there is no credit due here--that they slaughtered a former enemy that had accepted peace and was living by its word.
"Readers tempted to interpret the thesis of this book as the need for total destruction of an enemy's population centers should consider the decades that followed the Second Punic War, when former enemies were at peace, with the needless sacrifice of that peace in the destruction of Carthage--and the civil unrest and violence that followed in the next generation for the Romans. . . .
"The Second Punic War remains the example of a successful victory," says Lewis at chapter's end. The Third was "a needless and unforgiveable slaughter."
The idea that "might makes right" is nowhere in the above. Nor is it to be found elsewhere in the book. Lewis in fact explicitly states that the opposite is true. After showing how the "relative commitment of each side to its moral cause . . . affected the outcome of [each] conflict," Lewis says that something more than just commitment is involved. "The truth," according to Lewis, "matters"--"the strongest power belonged to those who were, in fact, right, if those who were right knew it."
"This may be unfashionable to say today--in an intellectual climate that sunders fact and value, and understands moral claims as inherently contested matters of opinion--but it remains a demonstrable fact that the Spartan and Confederate slave systems were morally debased and that the freedom upheld by the Thebans and the Union was good.
"The political autonomy upheld by the Greeks, as well as the political relationships between Rome and its Italian allies, was superior to the alternatives presented by Persia and Carthage. Certainly, the war between America and Japan in 1945 was not fought over morally equivalent options--not if peace and prosperity for millions of people are valued.
"The tragedy of Munich is in the failure of the British to recognize that their own moral norms could become weapons when manipulated by a vicious dictator. The British and the Americans--like the Greeks--became truly unbeatable when they grasped how right they really were. As the war progressed, public exposure of the enemy's actions strengthened the victor's knowledge of its own moral rectitude and discredited their former enemies' failed policies in their own eyes."
The overall lesson of Lewis's book is to take ideas seriously, especially moral ideas. Those interested in how such ideas have influenced history will enjoy this clearly-written and often-engrossing book. But they should not look forward to or reject it on the grounds that it supports a "might makes right" viewpoint. It does not. And hopefully this review--or "response" to be correct--shows that.

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Handbook of Clinical Social Work Supervision Review

Handbook of Clinical Social Work Supervision
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Excellent handbook for Supervisors and Supervisees. Easy to read. Good food for thought and guidance how to be an ethical supervisor.

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Eye Movement Desensitization &Reprocessing , Basic Principles Protocols &Procedures - 2nd edition Review

Eye Movement Desensitization andReprocessing , Basic Principles Protocols andProcedures - 2nd edition
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This very readable book was written by EMDR originator Francine Shapiro to provide detailed directions for therapists using this approach. Beginning with descriptions of the historical development and theoretical model, the book provides a thorough overview of the treatment process. Several chapters describe each of the eight phases of treatment; information is also provided about working with special populations and with difficult treatment issues. EMDR was first developed as a treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the book summarizes the research investigating EMDR treatment of PTSD, most of which supports its effectiveness with this disorder. Research has shown preliminary support for EMDR's use with other disorders (e.g., phobias), and the treatment protocols for these approaches are described in detail. Recommendations are made for future research to further evaluate EMDR's effectiveness and to investigate what eye movements, and other treatment components, contribute to treatment effects. This book is an indispensable resource for the therapist who uses EMDR as part of an integrative treatment plan.

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CPRT Package: Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT): A 10-Session Filial Therapy Model Review

CPRT Package: Child Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT): A 10-Session Filial Therapy Model
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Dr. Landreth and Ms. Bratton have compiled decades of research, experience and practice into an outstanding book that enables any therapist (willing to devote the time necessary to learn and practice these practical skills) to teach parents to do play therapy with their own children. CPRT can help parents to step back and relax and enjoy their children, all the while encouraging their children towards positive self-esteem, decision-making, self control, boundaries, and so much more; not to mention a closer relationship between parent and child. Thank you, Dr. Landreth & Sue Bratton for enhancing what I do in my counseling! I see myself being available to women's shelters, as a resource to daycares and elementary school counselors, and churches. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

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This book offers a survey of the historical and theoretical development of the filial therapy approach and presents an overview of filial therapy training and then filial therapy processes. The book also includes a transcript of an actual session, answers to common questions raised by parents, children, and therapists, as well as additional resources and research summaries. Additional chaptersaddress filial therapy with special populations, filial therapy in special settings, and perhaps the most useful resource for busy therapists and parents, a chaptercovers variations of the 10 session model, to allow for work with individual parents, training via telephone, and time-intensive or time-extended schedules.

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Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter Review

Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter
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Joan Williams does a tremendous job of altering the terms of the public discussion about working, caregiving, and work-family conflicts. The book is packed with data about family leave policies in this country and others. It also carefully documents some of the disadvantages that men, particularly those in blue collar jobs, experience in the workplace. This book is essential for anyone who wants to be informed about cutting edge work-family issues. It is also terrific from a narrative perspective. Professor Williams dismantles many press-constructed narratives about the working world and instead brings forth stories in the workers' own voices.

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The United States has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world. Despite what is often reported, new mothers don't "opt out" of work. They are pushed out by discriminating and inflexible workplaces. Today's workplaces continue to idealize the worker who has someone other than parents caring for their children.

Conventional wisdom attributes women's decision to leave work to their maternal traits and desires. In this thought-provoking book, Joan Williams shows why that view is misguided and how workplace practice disadvantages men—both those who seek to avoid the breadwinner role and those who embrace it—as well as women. Faced with masculine norms that define the workplace, women must play the tomboy or the femme. Both paths result in a gender bias that is exacerbated when the two groups end up pitted against each other. And although work-family issues long have been seen strictly through a gender lens, we ignore class at our peril. The dysfunctional relationship between the professional-managerial class and the white working class must be addressed before real reform can take root.

Contesting the idea that women need to negotiate better within the family, and redefining the notion of success in the workplace, Williams reinvigorates the work-family debate and offers the first steps to making life manageable for all American families.


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Story of a Girl Review

Story of a Girl
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Imagine you made a mistake as a teenager. A big mistake. Now imagine you made this mistake in a small town when you were thirteen years old.
Sara Zarr's moving "Story of a Girl" tells just this tale from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Deanna Lambert. At age 13, Deanna was caught "in the act" with her older brother's best friend. By her father. Oh, and Deanna and the boy were in a parked car.
Small towns being what they are, it takes only a day for Deanna's story to spread throughout Pacifica. From that moment on Deanna is the "school sl*t" (despite the fact she's avoided boys since the incident) and at home life isn't much better. Dad--nearly three years later--has yet to recover from finding his daughter in a car with a seventeen-year-old boy and he barely talks to Deanna.
"Story of a Girl" opens on the final day of Deanna's sophomore year. She's feeling stuck--in her small town, in her reputation, and in her family. Zarr does a great job in showing the depression--economic and emotional--of a place down on its luck. Deanna's only job option is a rundown pizza joint. Her parents professional lives have been downsized--Mom working in a Mervyns and Dad in an auto parts supply store. Deanna's much-loved older brother lives in the basement with his new wife and baby. Deanna's brother and his wife work in the grocery store. With everyone working retail hours, no one is home at the same time and the house is sliding into disrepair.
Deanna dreams of escape--of saving her money and moving out with her brother and his family. But escape is hard to come by when you are sixteen and live in a small town. Instead, Deanna must come to terms with what happened and forgive herself and others. Over the course of just this one summer, Deanna, with a few mistakes along the way, finds peace with herself, her reputation, her town, and her family. It's a beautiful gem of a book, one that will stay with me forever.


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Shug (Thorndike Literacy Bridge Young Adult) Review

Shug (Thorndike Literacy Bridge Young Adult)
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Nope. I didn't want to read, "Shug". I just didn't. I took one look at its cool cover and thought it was a piece of YA literature. By and large, as a children's librarian I tend to avoid teen books. It was only when fellow children's librarians (4 or so) insisted that this book would be beloved by kids too that I caved in and picked it up. If ever the world of librarianship is further subdivided into Children's Librarians, YA Librarians, and Tween Librarians, I can tell you right here and now that "Shug" will belong firmly to the latter. Covering everything from a girl's first kiss to getting her period to dealing with the separation of boys and girls once they're hit by the puberty stick, this book is a summarization of adolescence that smacks of truth.
Annemarie a.k.a. Shug, just realized something while sitting on her front porch with her oldest friend, Mark. She loves him. This is a little strange when she considers that she's known the guy practically all her life. Still, there's no denying her current feelings. They just couldn't have come at a worse point in their lives. Once this summer is over, Mark and Annemarie will be entering Junior High for the very first time. Now Annemarie will have to deal with the various school cliques and cruelties. She'll have to face up to the fact that her often drunk mother and too absent father may be having more than their regular marital difficulties. She'll accept that her best friend Elaine has more on her mind these days than regular girl problems. And she'll need to figure out what exactly she's going to do, if anything, about the Mark situation.
It sounds trite. It sounds like its been done before. But the remarkable thing about "Shug" is that it reads like nothing I've ever read. What I can't figure out is how author Jenny Han has found a way to capture with pinpoint accuracy what it feels like to be twelve. Shug is twelve incarnate and Han knows how to zero in on the deadly seriousness with which every adolescent thinks they are entitled. The pain of a crush becomes, "I never know love felt like cancer of the throat". And then, of course, there's the sudden difference between how you've dealt with boys in the past and how you're dealing with them now. Shug goes to hang out with Mark and his friends and suddenly everything that was once simple becomes complicated. She can't be herself or even join in with their conversation. "They take everything and breathe up all the air in the room".
I loved Han's writing too. She has a sense of humor, saving the book from the overearnest drama inherent in tween narratives. For example, when Shug attempts to describe her "perfect" older sister, she mentions that, "She is smaller than me, the kind of small that boys want to scoop up and hold on to real tight". In comparison, our heroine feels that she has, "no womanly curves to speak of. I can't fill a pudding cup with what I've got". And with this writing Han is able to put into words the moral uncertainty that comes with subverting yourself to fit into middle school society. When Shug unceremoniously dumps a girl named Sherilyn as a friend, she notes, not without a little sorrow, that, "I know I could be cool if I didn't have Sherilyn hanging on to me. It's like trying to shimmy up a rope with a moose tied to your ankles. You've just gotta cut that moose loose". Kudos to Han for not ending the book with Shug learning an "important lesson" about the true meaning of friendship blah blah blah. You may feel sorry for Sherilyn, but be honest with yourself. Would YOU have been friends with her in middle school? After all, when invited to a sleepover you know that, "She's the one the mom has to befriend". So true it literally stings when you read it.
Characters. Want `em? You got `em. In fact the most alarming and complex character comes in the form of Shug's alternately beloved and loathed mother. Mrs. Wilcox was born in Clementon, left, returned with an education, and has lived in contempt of her contemporaries ever since. She's the kind of woman who names her daughters after Alice Walker novels. Who can't cook but lets her children know that their one job in life is to get out of Clementon someday. She also drinks to excess and is a fairly bad mother. Still, you sympathize with her, even when you shouldn't. Whole novels could be based on Mrs. Wilcox. In her, Han finds the ideal mother, villain, and anti-hero. Other characters fare just as well. There's Jack, a boy that Shug has to tutor and who has always been her nemesis. Adults reading the book will recognize the role he'll play right from the start. Kids will find it more of a surprise.
The fact that the title character's name comes from a character from "The Color Purple" was kind of amusing. I mean, we're in whitebread country here. The only person of color in this entire book is the title character's best friend Elaine who happens to be American born Korean. Now the book takes place in a town named Clementon in the South, but Clementon is never really ever pinpointed on a map. It's a small town with all the good and the bad that comes with such a place. And the bad, I suspect, is directly tied into the lack of any race other than that of whitey.
When I was sixteen I fell desperately in love with a boy with whom I was the best of friends. The fact that he once literally said I was "like a sister to him" didn't prove to be the deterrent I'm sure he'd hoped it would. So when fellow author Gigi Amateau wrote the book blurb, "From the first page, Jenny Han transported me back to a time when I loved a boy with all my heart and held my breath for him to love me, too", I couldn't have said it better myself. This is all the pain and brief pleasure a person feels when they first begin to get serious crushes. Honest, open, beautiful, and concise. In "Shug" readers (oh fine... GIRL readers) will discover an author that truly understands what they're going through and that it is survivable. This is early adolescence synthesized in a single perfect novel.

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Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have Review

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have
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I was completely absorbed by this book, once I picked it up I couldn't put it down! It is so well written, so funny, with such a wonderful message about being oneself in the face of the tremendous pressure of adolescence coupled with society's twisted love affair with food/war on fat. Given the recent statistic that 66% of Americans are overweight, this book lands smack in the middle of the national zeitgeist with compassion, razor-sharp intelligence and humor. This is a great book for teens and adults - fat or thin.

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What's worse than being fat your freshman year? Being fat your sophomore year. Lifeused to be so simple for Andrew Zansky–hang with the Model UN guys, avoid gym class,and eat and eat and eat. He's used to not fitting in: into his family, his sports-crazedschool, or his size 48 pants. But not anymore. Andrew just met April, the new girlat school and the instant love of his life! He wants to find a way to win her over,but how? When O. Douglas, the heartthrob quarterback and high-school legend, saveshim from getting beaten up by the school bully, Andrew sees his chance to get inwith the football squad. Is it possible to reinvent yourself in the middle of highschool? Andrew is willing to try. But he's going to have to make some changes. Fast. Can a funny fat kid be friends with a football superstar? Can he win over the Girlof his Dreams? Can he find a way to get his mom and dad back together? How far shouldyou go to be the person you really want to be? Andrew is about to find out.

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Pig Enough Review

Pig Enough
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I am a huge fan of Bynum's books and this, her latest is no exception! It's fun and funny and gave me the warm fuzzies.
Willy is an adorable Guinea Pig who wants to join the Pig Scouts. All the oinkers tell him he isn't pig enough to be real Pig Scout but little Willy proves them all wrong on a Pig Scout outing.
Adults and children both will enjoy the humorous scenes of Willy trying on his Pig Scout uniform and attempting piggy activities.
A perfect picture book that is pig enough for all!

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