What a wonderful book! Leon Combs is a great storyteller. Living in the Ozarks and near the Bradleyville area most all of my life I could really visualize the story. The characters and situations were like telling a part of my own family and hometown history. The play by play of the basketball games was like being there in that place and time. I would love to see it on the big screen! I'm ready for the next book Mr. Combs.

This author not only reveals the spirit of the sport, his colorful, descriptive narrative takes you into the very hearts of the players. Nostalgic, well-written story about a winning team, interwoven with games and statistics, makes this book a winner. Can't wait for the movie. It will happen.

I just read this wonderful book last weekend. My parents, Harlan and Betty House, were two of Bradleyville basketball's most enthusiastic followers. Both are mentioned in the book for a small portion of their contributions to the Bradleyville basketball program. The Bradleyville teams, those that were champions and those that were not, were made up of very special people--people who were willing to use all their god-given talents as best they could. With hard work they overcame their limited personal, family, and school resources. Bradleyville coaches were the best at enhancing the skills of their players and making a team out of very different individuals. The whole community was energized by the hard work and success of those winning teams. They were proud of the victories and the way their teams achieved those victories--by being great sportsmen. This book captures the spirit of the people, the players, the coaches, the community and the era. This story of our own Missouri "Hoosiers" will be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys an uplifting story about those who can prevail over long odds by hard work and fair play.

Randy Grim hates being called a hero. He feels like a fake when people use that term to describe him because, in his eyes, he's a frail and fearful person, full of complexities and issues. It takes all his energy to face life's challenges but, for some reason, it all changes when he's on the trail of a dog that needs his help. Then he's a fully focused, driven machine that will wade through filth, skid along icy, dark streets and face down the roughest, toughest people to accomplish his task. He can't and he won't leave that canine alone on the street.
This book is fast paced and fascinating. I was hooked from word one. The author has managed to weave together the story of a fascinating, though reluctant hero with the graphic and gritty reality of the price being paid by the strays in our midst. The author dissects the various causes and brings the tragic results into sharp focus. It is hard to blink, to look away, to pretend it doesn't exist. Those weary, confused eyes stare back from the pages.
While we witness the dark side of humanity and it's wretched victims, we are also allowed to share the small and great triumphs that result from Randy's dedication. Many are the hurdles that have to be overcome but, step by step, the right people join the battle, sanctuary is provided, supplies appear and donations arrive.
This is how heros and saints come to be. It's the leap of faith that says, "I don't know whether I'm making a difference. I don't know how I'm going to manage but I will. Because I'm not taking my eye off this one, and the next one, and the next one until they're safe." One small miracle at a time creates a haven. For the strays, for the people who care and for the children who see that brutality or indifference are not the only choices.
Thanks Randy, for showing the way and thanks Melinda, for telling the story so well.

Enter one very unlikely hero who is trying to call national attention to the scourge. Randy Grim was young, hip, but crippled by panic attacks and phobias (of public places, parties, elevators, driving). After rescuing his first street dog, Bonnie, he couldn't look away. "How can I?" he asks. "Each one says, 'Don't leave me here.'" And so the man who must pop Xanax to walk through an airport refuses to leave a starving, terror-stricken German Shepherd on a dark, icy and stormy East St. Louis street, even when an threatening tenement resident has him on the business end of a gun.

Journalist Melinda Roth puts a human, and animal, face on an ignored tragedy playing out in our cities. She gives us beautifully wrought, but too few, scenes of redemption.

The Man Who Talks to Dogs was an incredible book . I couldn't put it down. This is the true story of one man's desperate, heartbreaking love for dogs--of anguish, brutality and hope.

Randy Grim dedicates his life to saving the big-city feral-dog population of St. Louis, single-handedly braving the mean streets to rescue God's lost angels--those half-wild, half-domesticated dogs existing on the borderlines of urban society.

In this story, Randy brings to light the terrible struggle of these animals, who haunt burned-out buildings, eating out of garbage cans, dropping dead in the streets of starvation and illness, some never having come close to a human...or worse yet, falling prey to the sadistic cruelty of dog-fight rings or random violence. Thru this man's tireless efforts, many of these dogs have been saved, rehabbed and adopted to loving homes. Some of their stories are told in this book--- I guarantee that you will never forget them.

Randy is an incredible human being and an inspiration to all of us....Get this book, read it and live it--it is a great lesson in compassion for the creatures with no voice--- and how one person can make a difference, one dog at a time.

Written in 1998, and criticized for stopping its retelling of the abortion story in the U.S. several years before that, Articles of Faith is nevertheless still an important book and may be increasingly so if the abortion debate heats up again now that George W. Bush is President. A completely even handed retelling of the history of the abortion debate in the U.S. from the 1960's through the 1990's told through the lives of dedicated partisans of both sides. Yet the author tells this story with sympathy to both sides. Its hard to read this book, your emotions swing from side to side in the debate as Gorney shifts her focus from chapter to chapter from pro choice to pro life. Each side is presented forcefully, but not stridently. Its an excellent book.

As an adult convert to Catholicism struggling for now five years with infertility, a non-American and the daughter of a founder of my hometown's Family Planning Association, I ordered this book wondering if it would help me sort out my mixed feelings about abortion. When it arrived my heart sank: though I had been interested in the topic, it looked long enough to remind me of the first-grader's book report, ``This told me more than I wanted to know about penguins.'' But it's so well-written, well-peopled and thoughtful it's a joy to read. When Cynthia Gorney describes a pro-choice activist she does it so carefully you feel certain she's pro-choice, and certain you must be. But when she describes a pro-life activist, you realize she might be pro-life -- and so might you be. If we were all be so generous and balanced, so readily able to enter into the subtleties of other people's positions, abortion might never have become a ``war.''

Once in a while, there's a rare book that'll smack you in the noggin, grab you by the lapels and scream, "This is how it really is! Now learn something!"

Articles of Faith is one of those books. You'll learn abortion is never nearly so clear cut as "either side" would have you believe; you'll see how each side's arguments, legal status, movements and, later, extremism are developed. But most importantly, you get the honest truth about what it's all really about, or not about. Despite the serious of the issue, I was never even able to get a glimmer of what Gorney's own view is of abortion. It's not simply objective; it never fails to delve into the details of each side, while coming up with an occasional fresh insight.

KINGS ROW may move you, stir you, shake you, shock you, stimulate you, reassure you, and inspire you. It is one of the few books that, like a true friend, I will return to often and never forget. It is a wonderful gift that transcends time and place.

Interspersed among the captivating narrative and rich characterizations are succint insightful meditative segments that sparkle like rare jewels and are brilliantly woven into the story.

My personal index of this book includes, in approximate order of appearance: angels, point of view, cage, science, intuition, mysticism, philosophy, struggle, vanity, *shining goal*, place in the universe, the conscious and the unconscious, multiple worlds, rivalry, piano music, control and order, discipline, *tryanny*, conformity, human nature, jealousy, things without faces, qualities, civilization, words versus voice, game, refuge, beauty, ugliness, money and power, mathematics, *design*, friendship.

Broadly and deeply erudite, astutely observant, and poetically articulate. FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, PLEASE DON'T MISS IT. And share it.

I read Kings Row about 12 years ago and became a huge fan of Henry Bellaman. Kings Row is the kind of book that lives long in your mind and heart. He breathes life into the characters and you feel as though you know them each personally and would recognize them on the street. He knows the pulse of human emotion and the author is a psychologist, a man of spiritual depth and insight, and his words sing. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what it means to be human and how we fare in terms with the world around us and the inhabitants we come in contact with. I will never forget this marvelous book and have recommended it to many. Beautiful!

Kings Row is one of my 2 favorite books (the other is "A Tree Grows is Brooklyn"). I read it a few months ago, shortly before I turned 15. Henry Bellamann shocked me with his good characteriation of all the characters, major and minor. Everything in the book was intwined with everything else. So many things happened in this town, which is based on Fulton, MO, that I wonder what sort of things are happening in MY town. Read it. The last 10 pages are sad and suprizing. I cried at a few parts. The movie is good too, but the ending is somewhat different. Anyway, read Kings Row.

I am a home-school tutor and have read this book to some of my students. Besides thoroughly enjoying the storyline, they were able to grasp what life was like during this terrible time and understand that the Civil War was not just about slavery as so many people believe. They were also able to learn about forgiveness and that there are always two sides to every story. My students begged me to read it each day and were wanting more books by this author when it was over.

Jennifer Johnson Garrity has captured the hearts of my children with her true-to-life Civil War story, "The Bushwhacker." American history, to them, used to be filled the drudgery of memorizing dates and names, but through reading "The Bushwhacker," the Civil War has come alive through the story of two families and their struggles.

The story is of Jacob and Eliza Knight, two children severed from their parents by masked gunmen with torches, as they fled their home being engulfed by flames. Finding themselves alone, they struggle to survive in the war-torn state of Missouri, where a bushwhacker's mask at night hides the smile of a lifelong neighbor by day. They're forced to take refuge in a home of an enemy sympathizer where Jacob learns through the bitterness of revenge the freedom of forgiveness.

Through Eliza and Jacob's trials, my children gained an understanding of both sides of the war along with a message of forgiveness and unity that is powerful and engaging.

My ten-year-old is studying the Civil War this year at school, and shared her copy of "The Bushwhacker" with her teacher. Her teacher not only enjoyed reading it herself, but has also added it to her class curriculum.

I found THE BUSHWHACKER to be readable, interesting and informative. Although the setting is the Civil War, the book opens many opportunities for discussions as the situation is similar to events in many parts of our world today (such as Kosovo, N. Ireland). The theme of forgiveness and peacemaking can never be emphasized too often. Though I am an adult, I found the book held my interest to the very end.

I just finished reading "Amazing Gracie" last night and can't stop thinking about it. It still brings tears to my eyes as I think of the impact she had on Dan and Mark and all those she came in contact with. As I read the book and would finish each chapter, I kept thinking "surely this whole book can't maintain this wonderful level of humor and warmth" but I'm happy to say I was wrong. It never let's you down and you find yourself wrapped up in it like it's a mystery and you can't wait to see what will happen next.

I cried, I laughed out loud and I cheered for Dan, Mark and the girls. This book is full of hope and love and is an easy read for animal lovers of all ages. We will definitely be giving this book to friends and family for gifts and recommending it to everyone. Since Dan and Mark live in Kansas City, we had the pleasure of meeting them at a recent book signing and they are sincerely nice guys which makes the book all that more of a treasure. Makes Kansas City proud to have these 2 and their canine companions as residents.

What an amazing story. I fell in love with Gracie the moment I looked at the cover. I have never been so touched by a story before. If you love animals, then this is the book for you. Gracie and her sisters will make you laugh and cry throughout the book. Dan and Mark were and are truly blessed. I can not stress enough just how wonderful this book is. I am going around telling everyone to buy this book ,I have never done that before!! This book makes one realize just how blessed we are to be owned by a dog!! Wonderful reading!!

This is a wonderful book about an amazing dog named Gracie. In my opinion it is a must read for anyone. It is a book that will make you laugh and cry. Gracie's story will show you how animals can touch our lives and how blessed we are to have them in our midst. You will not be able to put this book down! Another thing, the royalties from this book go to The Gracie Foundation which is a non-profit emergency relief fund for neglected and abused animals. By reading this book, you will not only see how Gracie changed a man's life but you will help to carry on her memory by helping animals in need. Please take my advice and buy a copy right away- I don't think you will be sorry.

This is an excellent book. It is hard to imagine the hardship these men had to endure on their trip across the nation, but by reading this book you get some kind of idea. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is even slightly intrested in the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition. This book tells it exactly how it happened, from the men who were there. I strongly believe that books like these should be required reading in schools....who knows what this country would be like today had it not been for those brave men.

Fascinating personal day-by-day account of the journey of Lewis and Clark through the Louisiana Territory. As you read, you feel yourself slowly seeing the American west as it was seen by those who first wrote of its magnificence, the customs of the natives, the wildlife, and climate. You see it for what it was, and for its possibilities. This edition has been edited from the individual journals of both Lewis and Clark and some of the others. It has been made more compact by putting in only passages that tell the story, but with no sentence restructuring or spelling corrections. Sometimes this requires you to figure the meaning out, but is never a big problem. The chapter length was perfect for reading a chapter a day which means 33 days. The only bad chapter was 31, which was a summary of one leg lifted from DeVoto's The Course of Empire, which I felt was harder to understand than the journals. The appendix includes Jefferson's Instructions, list of personnel, and specimens returned.

There is not much new that I can add which has not already been said of the Journals. Simply put, fantastic! I have read some excellent books regarding the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but reading the actual journals themselves makes one feel as though they are right there alongside them. Names such as John Colter, the Fields brothers, George Drouillard, Peter Cruzatte, Touissant Charbonneau and his wife Sacajawea, John Ordway, George Shannon, and many of the others in the journal become so familiar, it's as if the reader is a "fly on the saddle" (so to speak) during the entire expedition. Every chapter, every leg of the journey, has something relating to the hardships, sacrifices, conjectures, speculations, survival strategies, Indian confrontations and appropriate manners of behavior, along with wonderful descriptions of landforms, Indian culture, animals, plants, climate, etc. A truly gripping, meaningful look at early western U.S. exploration. DeVoto's introduction and editing is extremely well done.

This was really a great book. It had a interesting plot. It lagged only once when Frances,the oldest,did something for her job requering going on the streets. I thought it was page turrning when the children were being seperated. I liked the fact that the charicters were going through such in intence situation that i could never relate. I will warn you that I think the book "stops short". I wouldn't let that stop you from reading it. Infact I read it in the car dispite the fact it made me car sick. I recomened this to anyone who likes books on slavery or the west. I congradulate Joan Lowery Nixion on a job well done!

I thought that A FAMILY APART was a really good book. It helped me to understand what a poor teenager's life was like in the mid 1800's. The story was mainly about a thirteen year old girl named Frances, who lived with her mother and five siblings in New York. After Frances' father died, the family lived in poverty. The mother worked at all hours of the day to support her family. Therefore,she never had time to properly care for her six children, so she sent them on an orphan train to St. Joseph's, Missouri to live with farm families who could feed them and care for them. The children were very upset to leave their mother. They were upset because they would be separated from their brothers and sisters also. Frances did however get placed in a home with her six year old brother, Petey. Frances learned to cope with, and love her new family. Frances had some very exciting adventures while she was living with her new family in Missouri. This book helps the reader understand love, sacrifice and trust. If I were you, I'd sacrifice a little bit of time to read A FAMILY APART.

I thought that this novel was extremely well written. I actually did some research about orphan trains and I could tell that Nixon didn't just dream up the orphan train riders lifestyles. I think that Frances Mary Kelly (the main character) was very lucky to have a mother and a shelter. Most poor children at that time didn't have parents or a shelter. Until Charles Loring Brace founded the Children's Aid Society in 1853, children were living on the streets making their living as pick-pockets. He established the orphan trains to send homeless children west to find new families. In my educated opinion, I think that this book is great for a historical fiction report and also a good curl-up-with kind of book.

Sometimes the most profound things are very complex and sometimes they are very simple. This is a simple story about complex human beings who appear simple. Confusing? Not very. I urge you to read this story about a mid-western family hurting in every place imaginable but which still manages to move into parts of the human heart where few of us have the nerve to go. There are scenes of such poignance that you will put the book down and reflect with your eyes closed as you feel what the characters are feeling. I finished the book about a week ago, and I find myself thinking about what Graceanne did on the other side of the bridge and wondering why Charlie never saw his sister Kentucky again. Did Edie ever get herself straightened out? The story stays with you and I will be thinking about it for a long time. It will be on my bookshelf in the section reserved for the very special. It is very simply, a wonderful book and although the story has ended, I wish the Farrand family the very best.

What an amazing book! The soul-touching story, combined with some of the most incredibly natural, infectious humor since Mark Twain, makes this one of the most uplifting books I've read in recent years.

The main characters -- 9 year-old Charlie, the narrator, and 12 year-old Graceanne, his sister -- are immensely endearing and admirable. They are growing up -- along with their older sister, 16 year-old Kentucky -- living with their recently-divorced mother on the 'wrong side of the tracks' in a small town in northern Missouri in the early 1960s. Their dad isn't in the picture much -- an alcoholic soldier who beats their mother, he's sent packing early on in the story, and makes himself scarce after his exit.

The mother, Edie, would probably be diagnosed today as being neurotic or psychotic. In her never-ending struggle to 'keep up appearances', she constantly nags her kids about their manners, the company they keep, &c. On several occasions, she asks out loud 'What have I ever done to deserve such demon children?' She takes most of her frustrations with her life, along with her complete misunderstanding of her children, on the intelligent, precocious Graceanne. On several occasions, she beats her until she's bloody. It's easy to understand how the kids would come to see themselves as a burden to her -- if it weren't for their seemingly indestructable spirits.

Graceanne is a tough child with a reputation to match. Near the beginning of the book, Charlie (actually short for Charlemange, which should tell you MORE about their mother), who has a correctable club foot, is musing about being bullied by the other children in town. He dismisses worrying about the other kids with these thoughts about his sisters (from p.9): 'The two worst bullies in Cranepool's Landing were ALREADY exercising their license as family members to beat me silly -- "whale on you, young man" -- on a regular basis, leaving all other potential assailants the status of respectful, but backward, admirers of my sisters' originality and prowess.'

Graceanne has an IQ of 165 -- and Charlie's is a very respectable 139. The author gives these children -- especially Graceanne, acquired by Charlie possibly simply by being in her presence -- incredible voices. Graceanne's use of newly-absorbed vocabulary words doesn't come across as much as an attempt to show off as it does as a means of asserting her inteligence and individuality in an atmosphere that tends to crush it.

She is also a universally feared and respected softball player. Some of the parents of the other kids even suspect that she's a boy. From p.248: 'She could hit anything that came at her, and she'd slice the ball belt-high through the infield, so close to the player she was aiming at that most players couldn't possibly catch it. A couple of parents complained that Graceanne was trying to peel the skin off their kids; the ball would come so fast and so hard and so tight that the only sensible thing to do was to hit the dirt when they saw it coming...'

There are several notable events in the book -- which takes place over the course of a little over a single year, from April 1960 to July 1961. It is the time of the Kennedys and Camelot, of the boiling pot of race relations in American coming to a head, before Vietnam -- a time of innocence and discovery, tailor-made for an imagination and spirit like that possessed by this young heroine. After her parents' divorce, her mother is forced by economics to move her family to a 'bad' part of town. Graceanne becomes fast friends with Wanda, the young black girl who lives next door -- which brings out some revealing comments and feelings from her mother, showing her to be anything BUT the color-blind person she has professed to be.

There are some tender, poignant moments in the novel as well -- both between Graceanne and her friend Wanda and between the siblings. Little brothers at this age historically do not endear themselves to their sisters, or vice versa. Through the course of the book, Charlie wrestles with what he eventually recognizes as growing feelings of love for his sister. From p.275, he wonders about his feelings that are awakened by hearing Elvis' 'Love me tender': 'I wondered if I loved anyone tenderly. I knew I loved Mike the dog, who you couldn't sing an Elvis song to because he was an animal. And I looked around and saw Graceanne with her doll hair and her glasses and her soft skin and I thought maybe I loved her, who would laugh at me if I sang Elvis to her. It came as a big surprise to me that I loved my sister.'

The novel is filled with moments like these -- but the action sequences never become over-the-top or unbelievable, and the touching moments never become maudlin. The author transposes her vision of this story onto the page with an easy grace and eloquence, touched with humor and sympathy for these wonderful characters. This is a story that can be enjoyed by adult readers -- and indeed, I came away with the impression that it was written for them -- and intelligent young people as well. It's quite an achievement.

One does not have to have seen the Mississippi or been a child in the 60s to appreciate and marvel at this wondrous tale. The author has created unique characters in Graceanne and Charlie, yet she has accurately portrayed the universality of the dark side of childhood along with the resiliance of the human spirit that is redemptive. As Michelangelo has captured the sorrow and love of a grieving mother in the Pieta, Polly Whitney has illuminated those secret places of childhood and by bringing this light has made the reader see childhood in a different and wondrous perspective that will haunt the soul for years to come. This book may bring the horrors of a dysfunctional family to the readers, but the author also presents the humor which allows for survival. This is a book to buy and treasure.

By 1922, World War I was becoming a memory, but the United States began a new war as the battle of Prohibition started. Some communities like Fertile, Missouri remains calm because everyone knows each other on a first name basis. Twenty-year old Julie Jones left school early to raise her younger siblings.

War hero Evan Johnson returns to Fertile only to find rampart destruction to the family farm caused by his low-life father. Although angry, when Evan meets Julie for the first time, he falls in love immediately. Julie reciprocates his feelings. However, before a Jones and a Johnson can hook up permanently, they must overcome problems starting with trouble making Birdie Stuart, who has the interest of Julie's dad. Birdie gets Evan arrested forcing a torn between two lovers Julie to choose between her father and her soul mate.

THE EDGE OF TOWN is an exciting historical romance that showcases the abilities of Dorothy Garlock to tell a good story. The plot takes the reader back in time to a simpler era. The lead couple provides the basis for a luscious Americana novel. Fan of Ms. Garwood will know they have another treat from a delightful talent.

Harriet Klausner

"The Edge of Town" is a really nice, believable story about Julie Jones who unexpectantly but willingly falls in love with Evan Johnson, as she cares for her 5 siblings and her father Jethro on their farm in the edge of town--a"contrified" American town in the early 1920's.

The novel surrounds itself around the issues that threaten to tear Julie's life apart: Jethro goes head over heals for a woman that no one approves of and the town has a serial rapist who the town believes to be Walter Johnson, Evan's Father.

Like all of Dorothy Garlock's books, you are intorduced to Julie's life altering event right in the very beginning, which is why it's hard to put the book down. "The Edge of Town" is a heartwarming experience and I highly recommend this read.

The Edge of Town is the first book by Dorothy Garlock that I've read, but it will not be the last. Set in the 1920's in Fertile, Missouri young Julie Jones cares for her five siblings after her mothers passing four years previous from a flu epidemic. Julie is feeling her life passing her by, caring for her siblings. Meanwhile, Evan Johnson, son of the lewd drunkard, Walter, returns home after the war to take care of the family farm. He was away many years, having lived with his grandparents, then going to war. Evan is nothing like his horrific father, and when he rescues Julie from his fathers assault you know its true love.

Too bad there is something (or rather, someone) evil in Fertile. There have been brutal (and graphic) series of rapes that coincide with Evan's return. The townspeople can only assume that it is he, and the only person who stands by his side is Julie.

What I liked...and disliked....

The descriptive writing in this book brings the time frame and the characters to life. You feel yourself slipping in the past, of a youthful sweet love story and all the represents America. Except for the rape, who wants to think of that? I know it's a part of the story, but the graphic nature of it, dragged the story down. But, any other writer couldn't have pulled off two ends of the spectrum, love and brutal hate, so perfectly.

In Short...

I will definitely pick up another Dorothy Garlock book, but next time I'll make sure the villain isn't involved with sexually deviant activities, it was a bit much for me.