Narrated by Octavia Albert, this book documents the true stories of several former slaves, their personal views, their struggles, and their triumphs. The stories are heartfelt and the convictions of the author to pass on the history of her people are evident in her dedicated writing.

Wonderful book!
FRom back of book:
Was she flirting with danger when he invited her to play "let's pretend"?

Fannie Brisbane knew it was an impossible scheme, but unless she agreed to it, the daughter she'd given up for adoption years ago would know she wasn't rich and married!Her Griddle and Grill customers all pitched in, offering clothes, even a mansion- but when Clay Bodine offered to play her husband, did she dare say yes to a charade with the man who'd always owned her heart?

With her trademark humor and unforgettable characters, Charlotte Hughes delivers a romance full of tenderness and fun. Could a brash bachelor charm the woman who'd taught him the meaning of temptation?

I bought the book because I wanted to understand transvestites, but I came away with so much more. This book should be used in schools to illustrate a part of war they don't teach you, and also how being gay, and/or a transvestite is only part of who a person really is.

This book was written with love over 14 years of friendship. Fellini speaks all, and I mean everything about his life in the movies. Charlotte Chandler records and organizes interviews with the director so that the entire piece (except one little chapter at the end) is Fellini talking to a friend, and the reader becoming that friend. I believe this to be the most beautiful biography ever written about Fellini. A touching and profound book that any film lover, and for that matter, any artist wouldn't want to miss

There's nothing overtly fancy or flashy about this book, or the others in the series by Maine author Agell. Just a simple day at the beach for a little girl and her father, while mom stays home with the baby. It just so happens that this simple story mirrors our own family's summer activities, and we love to turn to this book again and again. Plus it's small and easy for little hands to hold.

I was fascinated by the idea that Charlotte Zolotow's "If You Listen" had been originally published in 1980 with different illustrations than those provided by Stefano Vitale for 2002 edition. You do not think of a children's book as having different illustrations; I mean, "Goodnight Moon" would not be the same classic book with different illustrations. But as I never read the "original" "If You Listen" (and could not find it around town) I cannot comment on a comparison of the artists.

"If You Listen" is a sensitive story about a young girl who misses her father who is far, far away and will not be coming home soon. The young girl asks her mother how she can know if her father still loves her, and her mother tells her to listen inside herself and she will feel his love. Zolotow paints lyrical pictures with her words of simple but enduring images of what you can hear if you really listen and Vitale actualizes these images with paintings down on wood, which provide a compelling texture to the art. There is a simple elegance to "If You Listen" that will make it a memorable reading experience for young children (ages 4-8) who are separated from a parent because of circumstances beyond their control. Of course, in this age of e-mail and phone cards Zolotow's solution may now be somewhat obsolete, but there is still a simple truth behind it that remains compelling.

Reviewed by Daniel Dervin, Ph.D. Mary Washington College for the Journal of Psychohistory, 26#3(winter 1999), 746-49

One of the best aspects of this far ranging collection of essays is the engagement with cultural diversity, shorn of the usual ideological trappings, hidden agendas and reflexive splitting into oppressor/victim, routinely produced by cultural studies.

It seems clear that the migratory impulse has been a factor in human history from time immemorial. The original Diaspora out out-of-Africa, doubtless driven by changing climate and food supplies, led to further dispersions, racial mutations, and to the rise of distinct cultures. Migrations continue to thrive, only now they are fueled by complex mixtures of external forces and internal motives, culminating not in the creation of new cultures but in countless, often unforeseen blendings of existing ones. In one way or another, everyone is an immigrant or somehow tied into the process. The contributors to the volume seek to enhance our in-depth understanding of this complex continuing process on cultural, personal, and emotional levels.

Perhaps someday the editor's will share the secrets of how they were able over such a wide spectrum while keeping their contributors focused, succinct, and yet highly original. We can all be grateful for this rich tapestry of immigrant experiences to which so many skillful hands have contributed. This book is a work of seminal importance, to be read, cherished, reread, and confidently recommended.

Born of educated German parents before World War II, Peter Petschauer describes being boarded-out for health and safety reason during the war in the Tyrolean village of Afers, an experience, akin in many ways to living in the 19th century. In this rural, somewhat matriarchal environment he underwent a degree of reparenting. Separated from his parents who were imprisoned for a time after the war, he attended monastery schools, eventually came to New Jersey to live with relative while struggling through the history program at NYU. He married a German women and reconnected with his parents. Eventually he settled in North Carolina to teach history, divorced and married an American southerner.

Nobuko Yoshizawa Meadows, a Japanese-American psychoanalyst, helps us, via her story, more clearly conceptualize the changes that Peter went through. She offers a three phase description of the process: an "initial immersion in the new culture," she calls "Survival of Identity;" followed by a straddling, back-and-forth, conflictual process, called "Bicultural Identity;" culminating in an integration of both cultures, called "Transcultural Identity." Although the person who chooses to migrate may be less susceptible to trauma than the refugee, "all immigrants come with various conflicts." They "share the trauma of separation and loss and its attendant psychological consequences such as depression, anxiety, and disorientation of the self."

Danielle Knafo and Ariella Yaari examine issues among Israeli's who have emigrated to America. They define four phases: Planning. Adjustment, Mourning, Acceptance/Assimilation. Mourning, which mediates the idealization of the past as well as moderating the magical appeal of the adopted culture, is crucial for working-through the experience of loss. Their final phase involves retention of "firmly grounded aspects of the original identity," reducing ambivalence, healing, and assimilating elements of both cultures into a newly integrated whole. As Paul Elovitz notes in his Introduction, immigration is not just adjustment, it is an adaptation -- a re-inventing of the self.

Olga Marlin, who came from Prague, completed her psychoanalytic training in New York, and recently went back to her homeland., expands on fantasies felt by many immigrants about a "land of milk and honey, of love and peace, and of freedom and happiness," a lost paradise projected from idyllic childhood fantasy onto a magically gratifying new land. Her odyssey echoes major themes of this study.

For Indian immigrants, Bindignavle Ramanujam observes a three-stage process of euphoria, followed by disenchantment, and - insofar as issues are resolved - a more objective position of equanimity. Alan Roland examines the miscues and dissonance's these immigrants' more inclusive "we-self" may encounter in America where intimacy is often subordinated to autonomy and self-advancement.

John McInerney is acutely sensitized to the distinctive inner conflicts of Irish immigrants. One's leaving the original community -- cohesive but often suffocatingly insular -- is felt by many Irish to be a self-inflicted punishment, a self-banishment. Somewhat analogous to the tightly communal cohesion of Ireland is the Zionism of Israel: to join the community is to ascend; to leave is to descend. Thus many Israelis in America cannot come to terms with their separation from the "motherland who cannot afford to lose her offspring," and subsist for years "out of their suitcase" abroad.

"I became a historian to discover my family secrets," writes Paul Elovitz. He may also want to avoid discovering such secrets, since history, along with all intellectual pursuits, can serve as displacements, sublimation's, and compromise formations. He seems to be suggesting that psychohistory aims to uncover history's secrets and, in the process, our own. His compelling narrative shows the immigrant baggage of parents can evolve into their children's burdens, the parents story his and his story theirs.

Though frequently evoked in positive terms, the ideal of assimilation has had ominous significance for Jews, who have historically faced dilemmas of assimilation or forced exile, of conversion or death. Thus, as Roberta Ann Shechter writes, a once nomadic people can be marginalized into permanent immigrants by anti-Semitism. Even among other immigrant groups, Jews have been scapegoated; thus the price for preservation of ethnic identity may be purchased with the currency of masochism. But a "tolerance for pain" can have a positive side, because the seductive appeal to assimilate may be based on flight from a beleaguered family.

Charlotte Kahn contributes two essays. The first about cross cultural marriages concludes that such unions "might be viewed as the building blocks of a multicultural society." Her second piece on the reunification of Germany is more engaging. She convincingly shows how reunification turned East Germans into anxious ambivalent immigrants without having to move.

The overall effect of the material in the book is dual: the importance of factoring in culture sub species immigration is an invaluable resource for understanding individual personality; yet, at the same time, a psychologically-attuned approach reveals how individuals use the old and new cultures uniquely personal ways to represent, defend-against, and, occasionally, to resolve inner conflicts.

This is another earlier book,1983,but, if it weren't for the lack of cell phones and computers ,it could be taking place right now. Lynne Craig,who does television documentaries, comes home from an assignment to find her husband has committed suicide for unknown reasons. Bereft,she moves to Connecticut and tries to resume her life as a widow. Diana, the woman who narrates her documentaries, and she are trying to get the network to do a show on rape. The producers are fighting this as they do not feel it will generate enough interest and keep assigning lesser pieces to Lynn.She, in the meantime,develops a fondness for John,the young handyman who does work for her,who is writing a novel in his spare time. Their relationship develops into an intimate one, more meaningful for John than for Lynn. She is also involved with an older retired businessman,Ross,and is emotionally torn over her conflicting feelings. The troubles at the network become more involved and Diana's disappearance,just at the crucial time of possibility for their rape show realizing fruition,throws everything into a turmoil.The ultimate resoloution of the situation and Lynne's decision bring a final turning point to this well-written, very engrossing book. Charlotte Vale Allen is never at a loss for a riviting plot. Her characters are always alive and you can love or hate them as much as people you know. This is a wonderful book for now.

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