Each book that I read by Carol Shields only strengthens my admiration. "The Orange Fish", a collection of short stories, is my recent discovery. Although one of her earliest collections, it still bears her signature mark of strong, daring prose/poetry that draws you into the individual worlds of each story. Most of the stories deal with simple, daily occurrences, with every truthful word Carol Shields invites the reader to enter. You feel as if you are interacting with the characters and talking with Kay about her troubled marriage over a cup of tea in "Times of Sickness and Health." You root for the success of Marta's glass-blowing movies in "Collision." You sympathize with Meershank's writer's block in "Block Out." In effect, as the reader, you inhabit the individual world of each story and want to stay longer. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to read about ordinary people reflected through the mirror of powerful prose.

"Is in this ripe orange that I pry apart," so states Oranges by Zack Rogow and that is just what an orange represents. Rogow takes us through the journey it takes to grow an orange from the very beginnings of clearing the fields needed to plant the trees.
We discover seedlings being planted, irrigation ditches being dug, shiny oranges being picked, oranges being trucked and sorted and finally arriving at a vegetable stand.

This book provides a lesson for children not just on what it takes to grow an orange but in the many people who work to bring an orange to market. We meet people along the oranges journey who speak Spanish, Creole, Korean and English.

Illustrations done by Mary Szilagyi are works in pastels. They are attractive and work in conjuction with the dialogue to tell the story of the orange.

This is a book that does much to value the work done by people of the many diverse cultures of our nation. If you feel as a parent or teacher that this is a lesson you wish to teach your children I highly recommend it.

Lots of great photos all done in sepia tones. Not a lot of history, but there are blurbs about Southern California at the turn of the century (1900 that is). Overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to history buffs or anyone else for that matter simply for the great pictures!

"Oranges are picked." "Oranges are loaded and hauled."

The book follows a simple pattern which is easy for ESL students to follow.

Furthermore, the book frequently repeats the word "oranges," thereby rendering the book valuable for a lesson on plural nouns.

Since the passive voice does not come until very late in the curriculum, I do not give this book the 5 stars which I give most books by the Creative Teaching Press.

John Woo has captured those wild Party Animals! The public arts exhibition in Washington DC featuring 100 elephants and donkeys individually designed by local artists and displayed throughout the city ended far too early for us "locals". Many enjoyed touring the city to catch a glimpse of each statue. However, the vandals spoiled some of the fun and the "exhibit" has ended. But thanks to John Woo, we now have them all at our fingertips in this book of photographs! Each donkey and elephant are photographed with a caption including their title, their artist, and where they lived in the city. My only complaint is that no biographical information of the artists are given, or how to contact them. It would be tons of fun to find them all and have them autograph their work. A great book to have if you love DC or politics.

It is seductive to read Anne Michaels' collected poems as a companion piece to her breath-taking debut novel 'Fugitive Pieces', a fictionialised first-hand account of a young poet who learns how to articulate the horror of his family's past and find redemption though language and the love of a woman. The novel's protagonist writes poems about the persistence of memory, the burden of surviving the Holocaust, and the need for human connection, and a number of poems in this volume explore similar themes. As in 'Fugitive Pieces', Michaels also draws upon her impressive understanding of disparate disciplines including Antarctic exploration, music, geology and mathematics, to make her points. It is as if she has penned a small encyclopedia.

I know of no encyclopedia that can match Michael's liquid turn of phrase, however. Michaels' words fill one's mouth like cold plums: they have a crisp earthy simplicity yet gloriously ooze at the bite.

The underlying theme of many of the poems, as in 'Fugitive Pieces', is the struggle to accept the absurdity of the human condition: the manner in which we are nourished by love, and crave it, yet are inevitably crippled by it when a loved one dies. As Michaels writes in the poem 'Memorium': "The dead leave us starving with mouths full of love...We are orphaned, one by one".

The verse which comprise 'Poems' were originally published in three separate volumes over the space of 13 years, and Michaels has clearly developed her voice in this time. While the earlier poems of 'The Weight of Oranges' are taught and linear, there is something less hurried about the latter poems of 'Skin Divers'. One experiences the sublime sustained pause between the black marks on her page, which contributes depth to her lyric (to coin a musical metaphor which Michaels might well appreciate given her fascination with the piano and the secrets which its playing reveals). The difference between the earlier poems and the latter can be explained by the poet's confidence to dwell a little longer in the image, to explore its possibilities, and to play with cadence and sound.

Each of the poems share, however, Michaels' admirable ability to make the everyday remarkable. She writes of salt, stone and peat, and of mistaking the sea for the sky (in the poem 'Near Ashdod'), yet enables these objects to articulate the yearnings of the human heart. At other times, she finds words and images to articulate the extraordinary - the horrific and ethereal - in terms with which the reader can readily identify. Thus we come to know the psychological scars of a Holocaust survivor and the mind of a Nobel Prize winning physicist mourning her husband. Michaels brings alive events and people - poets, writers, painters, and mathematicians - who have long been dead and makes them breathe again. It is for this reason that I asked my History students to read 'Fugitive Pieces', and will have no hestitation in recommending that they delve into Anne Michaels' book of Poems.

I thought the magnets were just so adorable! I love the Togepi one! I think anyone should get this book and but the magnets on their refrigerator!

William Gordon's book succinctly narrates the history of the Rochester & Eastern Rapid Railway which connected Rochester to Geneva from 1904 to 1930. The corporate history of the company and the personal history of its employees share the pages of this book with many photographs, too many of which are unfortunately uncaptioned.

The book reflects a mix of boosterism and nostalgia. The early decades of the enterprise bask in excitement which meets the almost unfair reality of progress through the automobile and economics of teh Great Depression.

I reccomend the book to fans of interurban transit and other railfans, to historians of the region, and to anyone looking for a slice of life from the first half of the twentieth century.

Claudia Orange grasps the sense of a displaced people in her book about the Maori after the Treaty of Waitunga. Unlike some other authors, who paint a sugar-coated view of the aboriginals, Ms. Orange tells it like it is. There has been an injustice over the history of New Zealand, and it still needs to be resolved. This author seems to want to set forth the facts, and enlightened viewpoint from a nation of people whose authors seem only to want to protect the staus-quo. I look forward to studying other books by Claudia Orange as I prepare my novel manuscript about a protgonist Maori who rises to great prominence so that he can help return his homeland to its rightful owners.

Dr. Gerald Menefee

In Mary Newell DePalma's book The Strange Egg, a high-flying little bird spots a beautiful object below that she believes to be an egg. She attempts to hatch the egg until a monkey begins to laugh at the little bird, telling her that her "egg" is actually an orange. They enjoy the juicy orange together, and when the orange is gone, the little bird plants an orange seed and nurtures the seed until it becomes a fruitful tree. Now the new friends will be able to enjoy many more juicy oranges together.
The Strange Egg blends wonderful illustrations with a delightful plot to create a picture book that is no less than charming. Text excerpts and single letters add a sense of whimsy to the life-like appearance of the vibrantly colored illustrations. DePalma adds variety to the book by stacking the text and illustrations down the page instead of always having them proceed from left to right. And on each page, the illustrations appear in different sizes, in different places, and in varying numbers, which gives each page a unique format, in terms of the amount of white space or color, and in the amount of text and illustrations. The delightful feeling created through the enchanting illustrations and the whimsical plot surely comprise the best part of this picture book.

DePalma, Mary Newell. The Strange Egg. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001