I like to sit quietly with these poems of Anne Valley Fox because they are sensitive, sensual, feminine, and rich with surprising and delightful imagery. Anne's poetry is a glimpse into her personal life, and as I read them, also into my own. I highly recommend this evocative little book.

In baseball, a pitcher is said to be "sneaky fast" when his deliveries, although appearing relaxed, and even slow, arrive at home plate so quickly that the astonished batter is rendered defenseless, overwhelmed by their suddeness. By the same token, the writer of this wonderful collection of poems should be called "sneaky profound." Her approach eschews all pretension, refusing to indulge in verbal pyrotechnics or high-flown mannerisms, so that her language, albeit rich and broadly drawn, becomes practically transparent, never intrusive, leaving the reader overwhelmed by the suddeness and depths of her insights into the human dilemma.

These are the stories of a seeker of wisdom who has chosen to search not in the esoteric, or the recherché, but in the places most accessible to her sensibilities, the places of the heart--lovers, husbands, children, friends, work, and play--and to bring forth from those places a vision pregnant with meanings. From the ordinariness of chopping wood and carrying water she has fashioned a bridge to the numinous.

This retrospective collection of poems is the work of a remarkably gifted writer who strings together words like precious gems. She adeptly observes and preserves the smallest details of everyday life, bearing true witness to her surroundings with an unfailing talent for finding the extraordinary in the most ordinary situations. I recommend this book highly.

I have read a few of Sam Keens books up to now and I am always amazed that he can write about philosophy, psychology or mythology with such compassion. "Your Mythic Journey", on the other hand, is not so much a book, rather a guided tour. Originally published in 1973 under a different title, "Telling Your Story: A Guide to Who You Are and Who You Can Be," was changed later when mythology became the buzzword for intellectuals. Sam Keen has worked closely with mythologist Joseph Campbell in his later years in which modern psychology was married with mythology.

Keen realized the power of storytelling, not just in a mythological approach, but also in telling the stories of our own lives how we are all living the lives of the great heroes. "Your Mythic Journey" helps you to discover the story in your own life and understand it mythologically as well as practically. The book is not one to be read, but to be written. This is done through a series of writing and drawing exercises facilitated through a series of deep probing questions. These questions are designed to challenge yourself, your beliefs, your values and your identity where you plunge the depths of your unconscious and swim the currents of time past, present and future. When you finally come to the shores of waking reality, you soon have a new understanding of yourself and the world you live in.

There are a number of ways to utilize this book. The first is you can do it by yourself, and go through and answer the questions. The second is to do it with a group of friends, family or your lover. The latter approach can also be done on a silent level, where one reads the questions for all to answer, or you can read each other your answers, which I found adds a whole new dimension to the process. It can become very emotional for some, shameful for others, enlightening to most, and discouraging to few. Regardless of your response, no doubt it will be revealing. The trick is to be honest with yourself and not hide behind that social mask thinking people will look down on your for having "other" thoughts. When you do this in a group session, you realize your "other" thoughts are not so different.

The aim of "Your Mythic Journey" is to be revealing about yourself, but also to know and tell the story of your life. What Mr. Keen has always expressed in his lectures and readings is that people tend to get stuck on various stories and end up repeating them over and over like a broken record. He remarks this with the example of recovering alcoholics who continue to tell their story of being addicted and how they went to AA meetings for recovery. They go on telling the story to everyone as if they are always at a meeting. This book challenges those that are repeating stories to begin to tell new stories of their lives and experiences. We all have them it's just a matter of beginning to share them with others.

This is a brilliant book for those who believe in journalling as a therapeutic path. The authors adress life's main conflicts, and structure the basic questions to be answered by the reader in terms of Joseph Campbell's work. This book combines intellectual rigor with heartfelt warmth, in a combination so rarely seen in similar books. I love this subject and own a lot of material on it, but I find that many other volumes either fall in the sirupy, newagey category or are dry and academic. This a slim book, but it is worth every cent if you actually work with it.

I wrote an earlier review on Amazon.com about Your Mythic Journey but forgot to add my email address in case anybody wants to find out about the CD-ROM "Virtual Seminar" version of this book. I can be reached at dpmars@ix.netcom.com.

Harquin was a favorite of mine as a young girl, and I now have the pleasure of sharing this great book with my son. Harquin lives with his family of foxes on a hilltop near a small village and squire's estate. They are able to live in peace as no humans are aware that foxes live up on the hillside. As the story goes, it seems that in every generation, one young fox is compelled to challenge their comfortable existence and go down to the valley where the squire and townspeople live. Inevitably, Harquin continually explores this forbidden territory until he is spotted by the gamekeeper. It is then up to him to figure out how to protect his brothers, sisters, and parents and somehow divert the fox hunt from his family home.

The watercolor illustrations are lucious and bold, and the story appeals to my young son as much as it did to me when I was a kid. It is a great allegory of the wayward son, and a beautiful book to add to your child's collection.

This book is a delightful series of stories and events that are of interest to folks with their roots and family life along the banks of the Fox River. It is very important to me because my father, Edwin C. Tagatz, provided some of the information used by the authors. The book answers some of the questions of why early settlers found the area so appealing for them to settle in. I have an autographed copy of the book and I pick it up and remember how is was many times each year. We can only go back in time in thought and memeories but this book makes both easy.

Fox caught my attention with the first line of this novel, as she writes that "I was born into a mentally ill family. My sister was the officially crazy one, but really we were all nuts." This statement is simple on the surface, and yet it speaks to the overall impact on a family system when one person has an illness, be it mental or physical. In the first part of the book, she keeps a clear, steady focus on the Person family, and it works beautifully. I started to get a sense of knowing not only Lorna, but the whole family.

Even in the second and third parts of the book, the writing is still top quality. Fox has a clear narrative voice, and some of the prose is as poignant and heartbreaking as any I've read. Lorna is a delightful blend of innocent and cynic. She's smart, she's insecure, she's funny, she's brave, she's cowardly - she's human, and on some level, all of us, even if we've left our adolescence and can't remember that far back, can still feel an echo of recognition in reading her story. Despite that, the pacing drops off so much in the middle part of the book that the reader is pulled out of the story. It seemed like Fox was being careful to not portray anyone (specifically Lonnie and her parents) in a negative light. Rather than risk casting such a shadow over the rest of Lorna's family, Fox simply pulls them out of the book for a key period in Lorna's life. The book devolved from a compelling tale about the nature of family, love, sisterhood, and mental illness into a standard insecure teen girl comes of age tale.

Despite what seems to be a low mark, and some serious criticisms, this is still a worthwhile book to read, simply to experience the depth of Fox's adroit use of the English language. Just don't read it expecting to learn a great deal about mental illness. I'm glad I bought it used.

Laurie Fox's amazing saga of an intelligent, lost little girl struggling to find her place in a world that for her is a crazy, at times scary, blazingly turbluent place, is a honest, loving, funny, and entertaining piece of literature. We see the character of Lorna Person from a very young age up into her 20s and are given witness to the confusion of her life. Born into a family where the star is her full of rage sister Lonnie and to parents who at times have nothing left to give her, Lorna quickly finds a voice for herself in her arts: poetry and acting-all tools of her intensely active and creative imagination. Plagued with the guilt of being the 'sane' sister and desperate for some normalcy in her life-she uses her imagination to dream up new roles and perfect families, drawing endless 'perfect families' in her little book. You watch, as she grows up into a blossoming actress-watch for an entertaining "Wizard of Oz" section-and as she grows into a strong, self-reliant adult. You watch as she searches for herself, finally finding the peace she craves when her sister gives her the secrets to her universe. Fox's prose is beautiful and poetical, but also startlingly real, interesting, gripping and quickly paced, it's hard not to become involved in Lorna's world and it's very hard to put this book down. I also picked this novel up on a whim and am so glad that I did! I laughed, cried, and dreamed right along with Lorna and her crazy family and enjoyed every minute of it. I will definitely be looking for more from Laurie Fox.

Laurie Fox is truly a poet. Her autobiographical tale ellicits the difficult truths that survivors from a home with a mentally ill member hold private and constant. Lorna's troubled childhood with her mentally ill sister is fraught with the anxieties and laughter that all girls can relate to, but her struggle to succeed as an independent woman and learn to live with the guilt of surviving in a dysfunctional family are what makes the telling of the novel so relentlessly gripping. Laurie Fox bares her soul, her sorrow, and her story in an accessible, emotional, and sympathetic style. This is her first novel, but I can't wait to read more.