Part of a trilogy of young adult novels by Alvena Seckar, Zuska was first published in 1952. The story highlights the adventures of a preteen girl who lives in the W. Virginia coal mining camps with her Slovak immigrant parents. While the book is already a half-century old, it is still a worthwhile purchase for young adults today. Kids everywhere will be able to relate to Zuska's trials and triumphs, from dealing with the neighborhood bully to her feelings of shame toward her "old fashioned" parents. Children of America's newer immigrant groups, like the Latinos or Somalians, for example, will be able to relate to the financial struggles that her family faces, not to mention Zuska's occasional embarrassment at her parents "old ways." Americans in her town look down upon the immigrant miners and consider 'miner's kids' to be riffraff and a "bad influence." One father even stops speaking to a son that marries a daughter of a Slovak immigrant. The book, part adventure/part mystery, also contains some moralistic messages, yet Seckar is neither preachy nor hits the reader over the head with these messages. When Zuska tells an American friend's father that she "likes American games better than these funny ones from the Old Country," he gently advises her to keep the old customs as well as enjoying the new American customs "...and you and we will be the richer for it. And don't forget your native language; then you'll know two languages which will be a proud accomplishment when you're grown." Again, this is sound advice for today's children of immigrants. Out of the 3 books in the Seckar trilogy, Zuska contains the most references to Slovak customs and would make a nice gift for young adults whose grandparents hailed from the old Czechoslovakia (or any other eastern European country at the turn of the century, for that matter). The publisher of these books, Bolchazy-Carducci, is to be commended for re-issuing Seckar's timeless tales. In 1952, Zuska earned a spot on the NY Times list of the Hundred Best Books for children. The book is illustrated throughout with b&w drawings.

I was tricked into reading this book due to it being a well known classic and from a desire to read a good romantic story which I thought it would be. Well, um, IT'S NOT.

I like to read books that draw me right into the story and then a couple of hours later you notice you are turning page 250 when the last you recall touching was page 97. This book was not like that at all. Unfortunately, I was always conscious that I was reading print from a page but kept reminding myself that a book this famous had to get good sooner or later. Far from not being able to put it down, I found myself often looking to see what page I was on and if I had read my quota for the night. It never did get good and when I had finished the last sentence I felt frustrated and cheated.

I worried that my lack of appreciation for this classic must be due to my inferior intellect and that I must after all be just some obtuse hill-billy. Thankfully I found that several people who had offered their reviews here shared my opinions for this book and I was quite relieved that I was not alone in my reaction.

For me, Lawrence's supremely descriptive, possibly brilliant (although I really wouldn't know) and flowery writing is all for not because of selfish, unlikeable and unbelieveable characters who don't really do anything. At the very end, the only care I had for anyone in the book was poor little Winifred. I hope she was alright.

In conclusion may I suggest that you pass on Women in Love and read instead Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. It is so much more a wonderful book about believable, likeable, women in love.

OK, the title for this review may be a little harsh, but the image is hard to shake from my mind. Imagine the close-ups used in a soap opera to show you the intense anguish and inner turmoil the characters feel. Usually, there is pensive expressions which sometimes border on the ludicrous. In "Women in Love" I can't help imagining Lawrence using the same thing. There is a narrative, there is action, but a lot of the book belongs inside the characters. We see Gudrun looking out at the snow covered valley with a feeling of awe, we hear Birkin go through endless thoughts of the ineffable thing he is looking for but can't state clearly, and we watch Gerald trying to find the next big problem he can solve. Throughout all this ruminating, we, the viewer, must be watching something. Hence, we look at the soap opera close-ups of the Brangwens, Criches, and Birkin.

This is not a bad book, but not a book which moves me like others of Lawrence. This book was a continuation of "The Rainbow," but it does not give you the span of time. The novel is primarily focused on Ursula, Gudrun, Rupert, and Gerald. I miss seeing how things work through time. You still have elements from Lawrence's other novels (like dancing uninhibitedly with nature), but it seems as if he is giving us too much information on just a few people. I feel he has more effect with "The Rainbow."

I agree that you do not need to read "The Rainbow" first. Lawrence is a thorough writer, so many times I found myself rereading passages to better understand what he is trying to tell me.

The Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive, but they do not have a lot of room in the margins for notes. This is a good volume to buy for a read, but not for a study.

Although you do not need to read "The Rainbow" to read this, I would recommend reading "Women in Love" if you have read "The Rainbow." It is interesting to watch how Lawrence develops the women after giving you their history.

First of all, I have to own you up that reading Women in Love was one of the best experiences on books that I ever had. I know it's not Lawurence's masterpiece, but I touched me very deep. Everthing seems to wok in this book, from the characters to their enviroment.

It seems to me that Lawrence took daily events and showed them the way they are: unglamourised. He showed me what love and support seem to be. It's not about being happy all the time or that kind of love that happens only in movies. The book deals with the ordinary love, the one that normal human beings have the chance to face.

Following the experience of both couples made me see how different love can be and it is the still the same. I could perfectly understand all the worries and anxiets Gudrun had. And I think Gerald and she made quite a couple! Yet Birkin and Ursula look very nice together since the begin. Their love is not as 'wild' as the other couple's, but it is very strong indeed.

When the book was over I got down because I had to let them go. Following the lives of such people for a few days made quite an impression on me. Even though they may not be XXI century people like us, they have the same essence we do.

All in all, I know this review may read very emotive and personal, but this is a book that I couldn't apart in other to write about

In spite of my better judgement, I really like this book. As a quietly emotional, introspective and beautifully written report of one Black American man's reactions to Brazilian notions of race, it has no equal.

Why do I give it only two stars then? It upsets me that people across the U.S. will use this as some sort of "text book" to decipher Brazilian race relations. It is not. In fact, for an intelligent, sensitive journalist, Robinson shows a shocking lack of knowledge of Brazilian history and culture, especially as viewed through Brazilian eyes. This fatally undermines his analysis of race relations in Brazil.

To hear Robinson tell it, Brazil is in some kind of racial purgatory. Brazil's concepts of race never change. Or rather, its /lack/ of concept of race never changes. Brazilians, as we are told again and again throughout "From Coal to Cream" simply don't believe in the idea of race: they only see colors relative one to another. This theory of race in Brazil has a long and hallowed history in American academia. Unfortunately, Brazilian social scientists have pretty well demonstrated it to be full of enormous holes. There has been quite a long and well-documented tradition of seeing things in "black" and "white" in Brazil - a tradition which the Brazilian public ideologies of race would prefer to ignore. That this tradition remains alive and well in our quotidian world, however, is a fact that's brought back to me everytime I see some light-brown skinned kid wearing a "100% Negro" t-shirt here in Rio de Janeiro.

Ironically, the years that Robinson spent as a journalist in Brazil saw some of the greatest historic changes in afro-descended Brazilians' perceptions of themselves and their nation. These changes were perhaps best (but not exclusively) symbolized by the 1988 Constitutional Resolution to give land to Brazil's surviving quilombo residents - a law which was only won through large-scale mobilization of Black Brazilian grass-roots groups. None of this exciting ferment and activity is touched upon by Robinson, whom, I suspect, is unable to read a daily newspaper in Portuguese. From what I've gathered in the book, he didn't know anything of this sort was occuring among Black Brazilians. If he did, he certainly didn't follow it up, prefering to maintain the old, thread-bare dichotomy of a Brazil which ignores race and doesn't progress opposed to a progressive, race conscious United States.

Robinson would probably be quite suprised that, as regards his conslusions on race in Brazil, he is travelling the same path that many hard-core racists once tread. The French philosopher and scientific racist Gubineau (SP, sorry...) also believed that as a mixed race nation, Brazil was a contradiction in terms which could never, ever progress. The real question, of course, is why Robinson finds it necessary to do this and how does he have the power to be more widely heard on this subject than any one of hundreds of Brazilian journalists and scholars (of all colors) who are infinitely more well-informed than he is.

Robinson needs to look into the mirror and realize that even though he's Black, he's also a U.S. citizen and thus inherits a certain degree of imperial power along with that status. Perhaps then he'd be capable of writing about Brazilian racism with a new degree of sensitivity - not only to his personal feelings, but to Brazil as well. What is scary to me is that "From Coal to Cream" is so convincingly written that even many Brazilians, ignorant of their own history, will buy into its precepts.

When a journalist who barely speaks the language of a country attempts to tackle one of its deepest, most perenial problems based upon a few superficial travels, we should take his conclusions with a large grain of salt. Though it attempts to address Brazilian racism, "From Coal to Cream" is yet another in a long series of fantastic projections of Anglo-American fears and desires upon Brazil. Nevertheless, one should buy this book if one is interested in how Americans perceive and react to Brazil. /That/ is it's true value, and in this sense, Robinson has crafted a masterpiece.

I enjoyed this book because it is a thought provoking book. Too often the topic of race is avoided. The truth is that race may be the topic of the next decade in the US. The country is starting to have a substantially higher percent of population of non-whites. The largest California is already mostly non-whites. The author compares and reflects on his upbringing in the US with his experiences in Brazil thru the eyes of a dark Black man. I agree with the author that Brazilians do indeed think about race and are certainly not color blind. In my travels to Brazil I noticed from looks that some people certainly acknowleged the fact that I was Black by giving me a certain look or holding their look a little longer. However the lack of malice was apparent among my Brazilian contacts. In the US sometimes I have created static by simply showing up as a Black man at an all white affair or business meeting. The average Brazilian is actually quite a laid-back person. The American in comparison tends to be aggressive and highly opinionated. I hope to one day spend some time living in Brazil. I think that the author also overestimates the number of Blacks (by US standards) in Brazil. I have the number at around 50%. I actually prefer the terms AfroBrazilian and AfroAmerican. The author actually made it a point to study race. In Brazil race is certainly not one of the top conversational topics. Although this book is only around 4 years old, plenty has change in Brazil. Global changes have had an impact on Brazil and the people have adapted. Foreign films and TV shows have had an impact on Brazilian culture. Inventions such as cell phones and the internet have had a profound effect of reducing Brazils isolation. I can't wait to go back next year!

i would recommend this book to any reader that wants a good perspective on how race and class abound our world. As a 18 year old Afro-American female,I too like Robinson, initially believed the myths of a Brazilian racial democracy, but later on I sadly realized the truth. Racism is just as explosive in Brazil as the US but only it is done in a more subtle and hidden fashion.

Compare neiborhoods like Ipanema and the favelas(ghettos) of Rochina and Mangueira and see what colors are most dominate. And also see the racist killings of street children (80% killed are Black), and why the most dominate workforce for Blacks is domestic service(i.e. maids and butlers) The affirmation that Robinson made of saying that he was told he didn't have to be Black shows how in Brazil race is not soley based on heritage, but social status and education.

Euguene Robinson digs into the reasons why the Black Brazilian Movement is finally starting in Brazil. Trying to find a voice in a racist society and have the series of "race" categorizations to seperate Blacks be removed so that Blacks can identify and work against racism in a country where they are dominate (UNESCO reports Blacks are 70% population) but used to be counted only as 6% in 1973 and then 44% in 1992 by the government, these figures do not show a boost in Black births, but a boost in Black identity and pride.

Many will argue how Brazil can have Affirmative Action, but with a predomite population and predominte population of poor Afro-Brazilians, it is needed in Government and TV. I disagre with reviewers that claim that Black race identity leads to race "wars", it unifyies us, the only reason why people do not think racial conflict happens in Brazil is because most Blacks haven't been saying anything(ending that is Senetor Benedita da Silva).

Even though I think that this book could have dug deeper in the realities and myths of race in Brazil, I belive this is a honest and well written work

Not too bad for a self-published volume. Readers who grew up in Shamokin, Pa., may appreciate the descriptions of their familiar home-town surroundings. (Residents of small blue-collar towns, for some reason, are often tickled to see their town's name in print.) This little collection of stories succeeds in conveying a sense of the culture of this region, which provides endless fascination for the coal coterie, but may leave others out in the cold. The coal industry which once fueled American industry is dead and gone. As this book reminds us, there is not much left but culm banks and memories.

Delightful stories written in a down-to-earth manner. Light and humorous without being technical. Having been raised in Shamokin from 1970 to 1980 and still visiting family and friends to this day, I only saw/see the remains of a town that was built with coal mining as its staple. Awaking in the morning to a view of the huge culm banks from my bedroom window one could only envision as a young boy how they would have gotten there. McKeever's book tells us how with stories of the hard work that went into the mining industry, complete with the dangers to the health and well-being of those involved. Supports my memories of several of my grandfather's friends over for breakfast on a Sunday morning with the terrible, raspy coughs that they developed while working in the mines beginning as young boys. Coughs that lasted for minutes sometimes while they tried to refill their lungs with air. All of these men are now passed on but this book provided me with many a memory of their stories of an area I was too young to have seen in its hey-day. A hard-working, hard-drinking region for many knew life could be short due to the dangers the mines afforded their health and well-being daily. In many ways, McKeever's stories combined with many I heard growing up make me glad that I was born several generations after mining was at its peak. For sure, it would not have been the chosen occupation for me!

My Dad grew up as the son of a coal miner in Wyoming, Pennsylvania. Dad is getting old now and is disabled and I bought him this book for Christmas. He really loved this book. It brought back wonderful memories for him and he told the family lots of great stories that the book reminded him of. I think it was the best Christmas present I ever bought him. I plan on buying copies for myself and all my brothers and sisters to remind us of our Dad.

Larry Kramer won an Oscar for his screenplay in WOMEN IN LOVE, and has received quite a bit of attention for his political dramas. Sadly, they're not very good. WOMEN IN LOVE still reads as campy and overbaked, and the dramas seem shrill and uninteresting. In an essay on his much-lambasted satire JUST SAY NO, Kramer vigorously champions what he sees as the play's genius (he favorably compares himself to Aristophanes!), and though he rightly scores points against the prissier critics who deplored the play's lack of good taste he fails to consider that the play was (and remains) obvious and unfunny.

Kramer is an inspired political writer, and though you may disagree with him his essays are always worth reading if you care about gay identity. But he is a weak and obvious playwright and screenwriter.

"Women In Love" ranks among the finest films from an unrivaled era in screen history. "Faggots" was and remains a seminal American novel, and "The Normal Heart" one of the best and most produced American plays of the twentieth century. This book charts for lovers of great writing exactly how Kramer forged himself into a literary triple threat. It's easy to be distracted by his formidable civic achievements and confrontational public persona, but as an artist and living writer of fiction he ranks among the grand masters. This book is a treasure.

I bought this book thinking it was a sci fi book. I thought it was going to be about people made of coal who go around doing stuff that people made of coal would do. Author Clyne really misleads with his title. If the book included chapters where the Coal People go back in time and do stuff like climb into peoples furnaces and burn themselves and stuff, that'd be one thing. Instead, this book deals with stuff about a group of people Clyne refers to as "Italians". Whatever. All the pictures of these so called Italians showed these swarthy, dirty, ragged bunch of toothless hags, and those were just the pics of the babies. The women and older people were horrendous to even look at. Next time i buy a book like this I'm gonna read the sub title part, the part about mining towns in Southern Colorado. I'm thinking that Clyne ought to write another book, maybe one dealing with Anthracite or some other kind of mineral. What about people that dig for diamonds? That boring enough for you? It is for me. Ever notice how books about gold mining aren't on the best sellers list? Of course you do. The reason? They're BORING!

Clyne, go back to your drawing board and come up with some cool science fiction stuff dealing with people made of minerals mined from the earth. Now THAT"S interesting.

This is my rebutal to the ill advised likely a bit youthful fantsy or drug induced "review"posted. This is a book about people many Americans who worked the coalfields (mines) of Colorado the late 19th and early 20th century.The reviewer is likely "on drugs" or worse. It's(the book)about people;mostly immigrants as my famiy who worked in the mines and died in the hundreds but many of their children went on to become America......

The negative review should have never been printed as it is not a review but some likely racist and sad soul playing around with a serious facet of how America was formed into what we are today.

It is an honorable and important book that documents life that was harsh but full of promise for America: coal was fuel;fuel equated America's future: to supply the world with the tools to stop wars of aggression.......

it is simple:how the West was won.........

Joe "Doc"

son of a coalminer;grandson and more.....

You definately need to get a life. You should have reviewed the book BEFORE you bought it.

Mr. Berkowitz sounds like another of those kind of people that are not used to living indoors in the winter and never regularly seeing the inside of a shower while it's in operation. In general, a tree-hugging, hippie environmentalist of the wrong kind.

Panther Valley Tales is a collection of poems, newspaper articles, and short fiction of the type usually found in those terrible vanity press books ... a really horrible mish mash of tortured prose. There are a few interesting pieces, like The Mark of Innocence, but on the whole this is a "book" to be avoided like the plague.

This is a witty and interesting collection of stories about the hard coal region in eastern Pennsylvania. The little-known tales of the Panther Valley included in this book are unusual and superbly written. Information about the Molly Maguires is perhaps slanted a little too far in sympathy with Irish felons, who had the unfortunate habit of offing their enemies, but otherwise one immediately senses that this shrewd book is the work of a keen historian and evenhanded observer. The author deserves kudos for this work -- a superb collection that would be a bargain at twice the price. Cannot recommend too highly!
--Hugh Doyle

James Haldeman is one of the few people who can be called an authority on the folklore of Pennsylvania coal mining regions. He knows about the mine bosses and the miner; about Molly Maguires and the Coal and Iron Police; about the leading personalities that were featured in all the books, articles, and documentaries that have tried to explain the murderous confrontation between big business and labor back in the 1870's.

Haldeman first became interested in folklore of the region when he was tracking down a number of Irish ancestors who came to the coal regions in the 1850s and 1860s and later became involved in the bloody labor struggle that erupted in these regions.

The author not only gathered information about his ancestors, he also gathered a number of fascinating tales about the events and conflicts that were part of the miner's experience in that era, and during the last couple of years he has been writing stories based on the folklore he has gathered and has been publishing them in the Valley Gazette and on the Internet- on the Molly Maguire Board on AOL (America Online).

The tales are fascinating and cover a wide range of subject matter, from the graphic portraits of the execution of someof the Mollies, to portraits of some of Haldeman's Irish ancestors. He also includes reviews of some current historical events by using his imagination to bring to life cold records of the archives. "Panther Valley Tales" will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in the Molly Maguires or in folklore of the local coal regions. It contains a lively collection of stories that will do much to give the reader the flavor of those bygone days.

Patrick Campbell Jersey City, NJ

I am furious with K Stewarts portrayal of West Virginians in a nonsense scrip she calls a book. The context of this gibberish can be analyzed as a misconception of the transfer of her intelligence to the posterior end of her lap.

In one of the most profoundly affecting social science books I have read, Kathleen Stewart adopts a radical and poetic language to summon up the inarticulacies of people in a world got down. In an environment surrounded by ghosts, lost hopes and debris from other times, the denizens of this space manufacture tales, phantasmogoric stories which conjure up powerful forces beyond their control. It is through these stories that they try to gain possession of their own lives and environment in a capitalist America which systematically disempowers and uses up people and resources.

By avoiding leftist reified and conservative discourse, the impact of these forces on ordinary people is relayed in a humane and grounded fashion, devoid of meta-theoretical abstractions, which preserves their dignity and shares their insights. Kathleen's imaginative and empathetic approach cannot be too highly commended, for it is this which ultimately provokes an anger that working people should be treated with such disdain, by middle class academics as well as by capital.

I taught this book as part of a cirriculum unit on the Industrial Revolution. It's a really grim topic, and the book manages to not be over-done in that way. It is descriptive with regards to the actual work and working conditions of breaker boys, as well as having a solid plot and well-developed characters.

The book shown an information concerning the process occurs in coal combustion and coal gasification. The stage consists of the ignition of coal particle and its devolatilization, volatile combustion and heterogeneous char reaction. The book also describe the modelling of coal process in various way i.e. fixed bed, fluidized bed and in the practical flames of pulverized coal. The book also concerns with the pollutant formation in turbulent coal systems.