Brockman, Terra. The Seasons on Henry’s Farm: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm.
Chicago: Agate, Surrey Books, 2009. 320pp.
Summary: One of three books nominated for the 2010 James Beard Award in the writing and literature category, The Seasons on Henry’s Farm tells the story of a family living a sustainable life during one year on a farm in Central Illinois. Having returned to Congerville after living in major metropolitan areas, Terra Brockman, as well as her parents and siblings, live on farms. This book grew out of weekly “Food & Farm Notes” e-mails, which Brockman began writing in 1998 to let her brother Henry’s customers know what was happening on the farm.
When the e-mails gained a wider audience, Brockman realized that people were more interested in the details of farming than what crops Henry would bring to market. While the book focuses on one family, its concerns are much wider: ecology, philosophy, economy, politics, and more. “One of my aims is to show how all of these things interrelate, and how each one of us, when we eat, becomes part of the cosmic cycle of life and death via the plants and animals that provide us with our daily sustenance” (19).
The 12 chapter titles evoke the traditional lunar agricultural calendar: Hunter’s Moon, Long Night Moon, Windy Moon, and so on, with Harvest Moon ending the cycle that began in November. Moreover, chapters are subdivided into 52 weeks, a structure which underpins Brockman’s amazing narrative. The Seasons on Henry’s Farm is a cornucopia, ranging from detailed descriptions of different kinds of beans, to how to fix a fence, to recipes for common vegetables (pea soup), as well as more exotic fruit (aronia juice).
Consequently this book appeals to a wide audience in terms of subject, as well as Brockman’s engaging writing style. Some descriptions are poetic: “I am light-headed during these long days of the garlic harvest-–perhaps from the pounding heat, perhaps from the enveloping aroma of garlic, perhaps because we are spinning at the outermost reach of the gravitational tether that binds us to our local star, the sun” (209).
But Brockman does not gloss over the plain hard work that is farming. Summarizes ISU English alumna Sandra Steingraber, M.S. ’82, (author of Living Downstream, previously reviewed in Reggie Reads), “Here’s what you get when the farmer’s sister turns out to be a masterful writer: a compelling argument for rebuilding our nation’s food security that is threaded within a lyrical, funny, suspenseful narrative of life on her brother’s Illinois farm.”
The Seasons on Henry’s Farm “hints at what and who we need to be in order to live in concert with the world we wish to know most deeply,” opines Deborah Madison in her Foreword (15). In this way, it transcends a single farming family living near a small town in Central Illinois. It speaks to our shared humanity and relationship with our environment.
About the Author: Terra Brockman, who completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English in 1981 and 1985 respectively, founded The Land Connection. The nonprofit organization works to save farmland, train new organic farmers, and connect consumers with fresh local foods (dust jacket). She has traveled extensively and worked as a teacher, writer, and editor in the USA and Japan. She resides in Congerville.
Brown, Gary. The Adventures of the Parrot.
St. Cloud, Minnesota: North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc., 2008. 193pp.
Summary: Gary Brown’s Dedication reveals much about The Adventures of the Parrot: “To all those fun-loving nerds who don’t mind their mysteries having a dosage of mathematics and enjoy the pursuit of the game more than the final resolution.” The book is divided into two stories—Part I: Game Theory Meets Strangelove: The Case of the Recurring Dream, and Part II: The Riddle of the Eagle Feather.
The Parrot is a licensed private investigator, Fritz Archimedes Gauss, whom Felix hires to help him understand some strange dreams. [One example of Brown’s allusions: Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287-212 BC) is generally considered the greatest mathematician of all time; Gauss (1777-1855) was an influential German mathematician and scientist.] Mathematics is soon introduced into the conversation: “My name’s currently Felix Louis Fermat, but in my dreams I’ve had many other names. Please call me FLT.” The Parrot responds that FLT is an abbreviation for Fermat’s Last Theorem.
Apparently, Felix (who hates math) must, with Fritz’s help, solve a collection of challenging puzzles in order to resolve his dilemma. Then the fun begins as, using Game Theory, Fritz enables Felix to understand himself better. “Truth is fiction, truth is fiction, truth is fiction!” So ends Part I, a reminder that applying the tenets of mathematics, truth and fiction merge into a delightful puzzle and tale.
The Riddle of the Eagle Feather begins with Fritz visiting a reformatory in his endeavor to explain the mystery of a woman imprisoned for smuggling an eagle feather out of Canada. After being strip-searched and his cache of bird seed taken, Fritz is led through corridors separated by steel-reinforced doors. To comfort himself, he “thought about how the doors seemed to fit perfectly into their locks as they slowly closed. It reminded him of how the right lemma could be inserted into the proof of a theorem to create a beautiful demonstration” (91). Reality and mathematics are intertwined in Fritz’s mind and in the two novella which comprise The Adventures of the Parrot.
Those comfortable in the mathematical world will probably find the characters’ side trips into formulae and theorems humorous. The Parrot’s explanations to mathematically challenged Felix help less familiar readers. Regardless, the text is full of entertaining details and allusions accessible to most.
About the Author: Gary Brown, D.A. ’87, is professor of mathematics at the College of St. Benedict & St. John’s University in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Brown wrote his first book as a challenge to himself to compose the kind of mathematics dialogue which he assigned to his students. He enjoys traveling to exotic places, and his collection of parrots is a second family for him (back cover). He currently lives in Cold Spring, Minnesota.
Cadden, Mike. Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and Adults.
New York and London: Routledge, 2005. 224pp.
Summary: Although many books have been written about Ursula Le Guin’s fiction, Mike Cadden’s strategy is somewhat different; he begins with the idea of Le Guin as a writer of children’s books. The six chapters of Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre explore the connections in her works, what Cadden describes as “horizontal lines that intersect.”
Le Guin, already established as a science fiction writer, crossed over into young adult fantasy in 1968 with A Wizard of Earthsea. Cadden explains in his Preface, Le Guin “is an exception even among crossover writers.” The essays which comprise Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre deal primarily with questions of character, human and alien, animal and dragon.
The third essay/chapter examines how characters move through time and space in order to find a “home.” Using examples from many of her novels, Cadden addresses Le Guin’s claim “that most of her stories are excuses for journeys” (69). Many journeys in children’s fiction are circular, though the linear pattern of wish fulfillment makes those stories particularly enjoyable to younger children. Le Guin’s pattern in the Catwings series is of linear tales that “double back continuously,” blurring the distinction between linear and circular. Home is left “unfixed” in the Catwings books.
The fourth and fifth chapters examine the multiple lines of thought and vision in Earthsea and the future world of Always Coming Home. The sixth chapter reconsiders the extent to which Le Guin’s works amplify the idea of genre. What may seem separate works are actually a continuum. Finally, in Cadden’s interview with her, Le Guin discusses her work as a crossover writer.
As Cadden advises in his Preface, those familiar with Le Guin’s fantasy books for young adults will gain the greatest reward from the first three essays because his purpose is “to charter phenomena” crossing her fiction, rather than a close reading of individual books. Closer readings of fewer stories in chapters four and five are still accessible to readers unfamiliar with the Earthsea stories and Always Coming Home. Extensive notes and bibliography, plus an index, make Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre useful to many readers and critics.
About the Author: Mike Cadden received his D.A. in English in 1996. He is professor of English, chair of the department, and director of Childhood Studies at Missouri Western State College, St. Joseph, Missouri. He has published numerous articles on Le Guin and children’s literature. This is his first book.
John, Sally. Ransomed Dreams.
Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2010. 416pp.
Summary: The novel opens eighteen months after Sheridan Montgomery’s husband, U. S. Ambassador to Venezuela, was shot in an assassination attempt. His physical wounds have healed though he is left crippled. Sally John’s Ransomed Dreams is about Sheridan’s struggle to maintain her marriage with a man who has changed drastically: No longer animated and engaged in life, “he might as well be a deaf-mute for all the interest he showed in the world around him” (4).
Then, Luke Traynor arrives in their remote Mexican village. The situation between Sheridan and Luke is immediately clear: “With a quiet sigh, she walked to him, planted a kiss on his scruffy, unshaven cheek, and eased into his embrace. Nestled against the rough collar of his jacket, she smelled the familiar scent of him, an indescribable mix of earth, sun-drenched air, and confidence that bordered on lunacy. She felt the hardness of his body, always unexpected given his average height and build” (7). Luke’s mission is to tell Sheridan that her father not only has suffered a heart attack but he has been implicated in a conspiracy.
She must go to Chicago to try to find the truth about her father’s past. She had grown up in luxury in Wilmette, a North Shore suburb, but when her sister discovers some papers which indicate her father’s wealth came from “poor people [who] mined diamonds that were bought and sold under the radar,” she is disgusted and angry (122). To complicate matters, Sheridan “both loathed and loved” Luke, a situation which tests her loyalty to her husband and her marriage.
Ransomed Dreams is a novel of intrigue, complicated by Sheridan’s family relationships. She is estranged from her father, a U. S. Congressman. Her marriage has degenerated. “The tangled relationships are engrossing and evolving, especially between Sheridan and her sister, Calissa, and between Sheridan and Luke Traynor, the government man who saved her life in Venezuela and returns to complicate her life” (Publishers Weekly).
Although the plot and setting are interesting, the novel is more about connections—between people and with one’s beliefs. “John has penned an exciting, faith-based story about someone who learns the hard way that you can run, but you can’t hide” (Booklist).
About the Author: Sally John ’73 has authored more than fifteen novels, including the Safe Harbor series and The Beach House series. Ransomed Dreams is the first in the Side Roads series. A three-time finalist for the Christian Bookseller Association’s Christy Award, she writes stories that offer hope to readers in their own relational and faith journeys. Sally John currently lives in Southern California (back cover).
Jones-Hendrickson, S. B. Dana, Steven and Brenda.
Frederiksted, USVI: Eastern Caribbean Institute, 2009. 400pp.
Summary: S. B. Jones-Hendrickson’s Dana, Steven and Brenda is a novel set in the fictitious island of St. Siven in the U. S. Virgin Islands. It involves the same cast of characters as Andy Browne’s Departure (2007). Jones-Hendrickson sets the scene for this sequel thusly:
“On reflection now, Dr. Dana Thompson thought she should not have supported the application of Dr. Brenda Jones. She should not have encouraged President Steven Smirk to hire Brenda. … The year was 1995, when Dana was asked to be VPAA. She was in her fourth year as Chair of the Psychology Department. She succeeded Andy Browne, who was fired one year before by President Smirk. Andy was involved in a whole series of things that brought disrepute to USS. The President was forced to fire him. Andy now lives in Arizona and owns an online university.”
Written in an unpretentious prose style, Jones-Hendrickson’s novel depicts characters manipulating a system fraught with personality clashes and tensions about tenure and other aspects peculiar to academe. Readers with faculty experience at any university will recognize many of the characters and their machinations in what Jones-Hendrickson describes as “the pantheon of academic and political power.”
About the Author: S. B. Jones-Hendrickson ’69, M.S. ’70, originally from S. Kitts, West Indies, lives and writes on St. Croix, in the U. S. Virgin Islands. This is his fourth novel.
Kaiser, Robert B. The Perils of Accentuating the Positive.
Tulsa: Hogan Press, 2009. 170pp.
Summary: This collection of essays is directed toward professionals in the field of management development. Ten chapters draw on decades of research and years of experience coaching, consulting, and conducting development programs for human resource managers and executives (press release). Written by distinguished leaders in the field, The Perils of Accentuating the Positive provides advice based on theory for implementing strength-based development in the workplace. The authors’ purpose is twofold: to “temper the hype” and to promote a more practical and balanced approach to using strategies of strength-based development.
Within the past decade, positive psychology has provided insights by studying people at their best. Focusing on fixing weaknesses, the traditional method of management training, is misguided, claims Kaiser. Instead, “we need to focus on the positives by identifying people’s natural inclinations and nurturing those talents” (3). This book provides ideas, advice, and tools to aid human resource managers.
The Perils of Accentuating the Positive is organized around three primary sections, with introductory and capstone summary chapters. Section 1, Strengths-only is Not Viable, looks at the feasibility of a purely strengths-based approach to building leaders. Authors of the first chapter consider how to define a strength. By analyzing competency ratings for more than 2000 managers and executives, they conclude that in order to have effective leadership development, human resources should help leaders become ongoing learners. By focusing only on what individuals are naturally good at, strength-based philosophy fails to consider what the organizations need from managers.
Section 2 demonstrates how Strengths Can Become Weaknesses. The first chapter in this section provides techniques for building leadership bench strength. The next chapter, cowritten by Kaiser, draws on extensive experience consulting to senior leaders and upper-level managers using their Leadership Versatility Index. Assessing and coaching leaders to develop their strengths is important.
Section 3, Weaknesses Matter, shows how ignoring weaknesses is “a lethal strategy” for individuals as well as organizations. One chapter explains why weaknesses in leaders should not be ignored. Strategic self-awareness, explain the authors of another chapter, will strengthen leaders and organizations. The capstone chapter weaves together the strands put forth in the previous chapters.
About the Editor: Robert B. Kaiser, M.S. ’95, completed his degree in industrial/organizational psychology in 1999. He has more than 100 publications and presentations on leadership, development, and performance measurement. He is a partner with Kaplan DeVries Inc. and is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. He also has a consulting practice, specializing in executive coaching and talent management.
Potts, Kenneth, and Tammy Potts. Mix, Don’t Blend: A Guide to Dating, Engagement, and Remarriage with Children.
Deadwood, Oregon: A Safe Place-Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, 2010. 179pp.
Summary: In Mix, Don’t Blend, Tammy and Ken Potts offer a different approach for couples in or considering a second marriage when one or both have children from previous marriages or relationships. (The 2000 Census indicates that 65 percent of remarriages include such children.) Current jargon refers to the “new” family relationships as step-families, blended families or, even, reconstituted families. “Mixed families,” claim the Potts, is a more descriptive term.
The book gives practical advice on the entire process, from dating to after the wedding ceremony. For the sake of brevity, they do not include families with same-sex parents or from different racial backgrounds, not because “we have anything against such unions” but because “in our culture they also face a whole host of additional challenges which complicate their efforts at creating a new family” (Preface). Still, Mix, Don’t Blend offers ideas which these families will find useful.
Additionally, the Potts’ model for mixing families is grounded in the basic Christian tenet, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind … You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37). The book is not preachy; this is the only biblical reference in 175 pages of discussion and practical advice.
Following a brief history of the modern family, Chapter 2 focuses on dating. Divided by age of the child(ren) involved, the chapter provides guidance on Telling our kids we’re dating, What they see and hear, Families spending time together, and Developing ground rules for how to treat each other. Thus, the relationships between the couple, between each adult and his/her child(ren), and between the two sets of children are considered.
Chapter 4 concentrates on the relationship between husband and wife, the heart of any healthy family. Based on extensive research, the Potts provide practical and caring recommendations that each couple will find applicable. Other chapters consider the new relationships with step-parents, step-siblings, and step-grandparents (and aunts, uncles, etc.). An oftentimes difficult relationship is addressed in a separate chapter—the “other” parent. Two pages of references complete Mix, Don’t Blend: A Guide to Dating, Engagement, and Remarriage with Children.
About the Authors: Tamera Rae (Fidler) Swinford Potts, ’73, M.S. ’76, has significant experience working with students from mixed families. She serves as an educational consultant for the DuPage County Regional Office of Education in Illinois and is also a commissioned Stephen Minister. Ken Potts has worked in the area of marriage and family therapy for more than 30 years (back cover). They live in Darien.
Stout, Shelley. Radium Halos: A Novel about the Radium Dial Painters.
n.p.p.: LibriFiles Publishing, 2009. 226pp.
Summary: Radium Halos was so successful as an e-book by Girlebooks.com that it was subsequently published in paperback by LibriFiles. The novel is based on a factual case in Illinois. In the 1920s and 1930s, women workers at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa were encouraged to lick the tips of their paintbrushes to create a perfectly pointed brush stroke on watch and clock dials. The “luminous numbers on wristwatches, designed for soldiers involved in the trench warfare of World War I, became a consumer fad in the 1920s,” according to The New England Journal of Medicine. Stout’s novel puts a human face on the tragic consequences.
“[Pearl] pointed to something. It was a mole on her arm. Just above her elbow. Grabbing hold of my index finger, she made me rub my fingertip up and back across her mole. It felt lumpy, with a teeny bit of hair. I looked at it too, and she said she thought it might be cancer” (171).
Scores of women died of radiation poisoning. Radium Halos reveals their story. Told from the vantage point of Helen as a 65-year-old mental patient, describing the conditions under which she, as a 16-year-old; her sister Violet; and other young women worked in 1923, the novel is compelling. The first-person dual narration shifts between the teenaged and older Helen, endowing both immediacy and perspective to the plight of these workers at the Radium Dial Company plant in Ottawa. (There was a similar plant in New Jersey). Helen’s voice—colloquial North Carolina vernacular—adds verisimilitude to the events.
Although “they told us the paint would pass out of our bodies” (41), soon the women noticed changes. Eventually, some died from first-hand exposure, cancer which ate away jawbone and teeth as in Alice’s case, or otherwise: “Ever since Violet first got sick in 1933, I was the only one in the family who knowed the true cause of death” (48). It wasn’t pneumonia but “a brain abscess and familial insanity,” as her daughter Pearl discovers in 1972. Pearl tells her aunt Helen, “All this time I thought you were the only one with … mental problems.” For others, it was the next generation: Helen is unable to bear a child, Violet’s son is sickly, and the adult Pearl discovers her cancer.
Radium Halos is historical fiction, bringing to life true events described in non-fictional accounts such as Ross Mullner’s Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy. Eventually, a small group of women brought a lawsuit against U.S. Radium Company considered a landmark in workers’ rights in the USA. In his Foreword, Leonard Grossman (son of their attorney) says about Radium Halos, “The story goes beyond the Radium Dial case and reflects much about our attitudes toward work, women, mental illness and aging.”
About the Author: Shelley Widdicombe Stout ’78 is a contributing writer for Parent Teacher Magazine and Foothills Spotlight Magazine. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies, magazines, and online. Her e-book Celebrities for Breakfast was published in 2010 by Girlebooks. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she volunteers at a local homeless shelter and continues writing for two Charlotte area magazines (smashwords.com).
