DWD's Reviews

Fascinating. Disturbing. Inspirational. Published in 2007 by Grand Central Publishing. The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids is a fascinating investigation into the lives of some of America's top students - the kids who want to do it all and oftentimes do, but at great personal cost and for dubious reasons. Alexandra Robbins befriends and follows several students from Whitman High School in Maryland through one school year as they try their best to score perfect 1600s and 2400s on the SATs, be accepted into Ivy League schools and pad their resumes to impress the admissions officers with tons of extracurricular activities (one student she interviewed had SIX typewritten pages of extracurricular activities!). Robbins intersperses research and interesting facts with her stories of the students and discusses the unhealthy obsession with perfection and how the true values of education (knowledge, exploration, wisdom, self-discovery to name a few) is often su...

Well depicted characters make this one a winner! Published in 1999. The mystery is not all that mysterious. No international criminal ring threatens. National Security and the fate of the free world do not depend on what happens in Posadas County, New Mexico and its tired and ready to retire Undersheriff Bill Gastner. That, of course, is the charm and strength of Out of Season . Posadas County, New Mexico's small sheriff's department suffers the loss of its well-intentioned but inexperienced Sheriff in a plane accident - except it looks like it was not an accident after all - the pilot was shot before he crashed. Undersheriff Gastner looks into the private investigation that the Sheriff was looking into and finds that his inexperienced boss may have had good instincts after all. First, let me praise what Havill does best in this book - character development. Gastner is a tired old horse who is ready to go out to pasture but when duty calls the value of his years of...

As an adult fan of both Barry and Pearson I couldn't resist picking this one up... Published in 2004 by Hyperion Books for Children. Dave Barry has long been a favorite of mine and Ridley Pearson is on my list of writers to look for as well so when I saw that they had taken on the Peter Pan storyline and created a prequel,  I knew that I just had to read it. Happily, I was not disappointed. Peter and the Starcatchers is fun, escapist fiction at its best. The book works on multiple levels - adults will understand several double entendres while kids will love the quick pace and high adventure. The plot revolves around a group of people called Starcatchers, people who collect starstuff , glowing magical stuff that falls from the sky and makes the people that use it superhuman. Michelangelo, Attila the Hun and Zeus are all historical figures that have found and used starstuff. The Starcatchers try to capture it to keep it out of the hands of evil people. I am more than ha...

The Second in a Nifty Series Published in 2010. I read the first book in the Chet and Bernie series as part of the Amazon Vine program, meaning I was given a pre-publication copy of the book for free. I thought the series had a good hook to it (Chet is a dog, his owner Bernie Little is a private detective - the only detective in the Little Detective Agency. The story is told entirely from the point of view of Chet) but I doubted it would have staying power. I am pleased to say that I was mistaken - not only does this series have legs, but each of the two follow up stories are better than the original. Chet is a completely trained police dog who will only say that he washed "out on the very last day, a long story, but it's not secret that a cat was involved!" Bernie and Chet are now partners in the best sense of the word - Chet often is well on his way to solving the mystery before Bernie has anything figured out due to his superior sense of smell and hearing, but it i...

From an occasional reader of the Kinsey Millhone series Originally published in 1991.  I am only an occasional reader of this series as you can probably tell since I am reading H Is for Homicide more than 15 years after it was first published. I have no idea what letter Sue Grafton has worked her way to by this point but I am more interested in catching up after reading this installment. Sue Grafton Lots of fast-paced action keeps Kinsey thinking on her feet throughout the book. Ostensibly, she is undercover to expose a car insurance fraud ring (they cause low speed accidents and fake serious hard-to-prove injuries such as 'back pain') but mostly she's trying not to get killed as things spiral out of control as she goes undercover with some very tough people. Good job. I give this one 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: H is for Homicide by Sue Grafton . Reviewed on May 7, 2006.

Fill your mate's "love tank" Published by Northfield Publishing in 1996. 4 hours, 46 minutes. Read by the author, Gary Chapman. Gary Chapman The author, Gary Chapman, does an excellent job of narrating the audiobook version of  The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Chapman's thesis is, simply, that we all have a love tank, and it is best filled by two of 5 different love languages. If your spouse expresses his or her love to you in a love language that you don't speak than you will both be frustrated and your love tank will not be filled and eventually you will look for other ways to fill it. The five love languages are: -Quality Time -Words of Affirmation -Gifts -Acts of Service -Physical Touch Chapman provides plenty of concrete examples so that most listeners will be able to identify themselves or their spouse. He includes a section about expressing love to one's children as well using his lov...

Brilliant. One of the best books I've encountered this year. Published by Highbridge Audio Read by Kirsten Potter 8 hours, 21 minutes Unabridged. Filled with everyday examples but also full of technical explanations about how the brain actually works when it reads, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain is a bit of history, a bit of science, a bit of philosophy, a bit of educational theory and a whole lot of learning bundled into an entertaining package. Maryanne Wolf I may be an ideal reader for Maryanne Wolf since I am a foreign language teacher, a history teacher, I love reading, and I am very much interested in how boys, in particular, suffer from reading difficulties (Wolf cites biological research that is buttressed by others who say we start too early to try to teach our students and we label students too early as having reading difficulties). Wolfe explores the early history of writing and reading, the different types of wr...

A charming spiritual journey in which an Orthodox Jew discovers that "Hanging out with Jesus has made me a better Jew." Published in 2008. First off - My Jesus Year is not one of those stories of conversion. Rather, Benyamin Cohen does not feel fulfilled by his experiences with the synagogue or the hundreds of rules that an Orthodox Jew must follow. He decides to go to the other side of the street and see if the grass is greener (he literally grew up across the street from a Methodist church that seemed so much more vibrant and alive and happy than the synagogue that was attached to his house). Cohen gets permission from a Rabbi to spend a year with the Christians - he goes to church every Sunday (after synagogue on Saturdays this makes for some long weekends I am sure) and treats the experience as a wandering anthropologist looking into the strange and wondrous world of Christianity. Benyamin Cohen What follows is a remarkable journal of one man's...

Not the best Bosch book, which means that it is merely very, very good and not excellent Originally published in 1993. Audiobook originally published in 1998 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Dick Hill. 11 hours, 11 minutes. Unabridged. Connelly's Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch is named after a Renaissance painter who specialized in fanciful and gruesome visions of hell from high above and detailed looks at the tortures that it holds for its residents. Hieronymus Bosch is designed to be our guide through the modern hell of Los Angeles - at least that's the way it seems to the Hollywood Homicide Division. Fittingly, The Black Ice starts with Harry Bosch watching a wildfire burn part of the canyon below his home. His thoughts are interrupted with a radio call about a homicide and Bosch descends the mountain into the madness. A long, complicated case unrolls for Bosch as he goes against direct orders and privately investigates the presumed suicide of a narcotics and I will go...

A fitting end to a series Published in 2011 by G.P Putnam's Sons. With the publication of Sixkill , Robert B. Parker 's last completed Spenser novel is on the shelves and Spenser's tale is done. It is tempting to make this review a review of the entire series, and I may fall into that temptation a little bit because Spenser and Parker have been part of my life for the better part of twenty years. But, most importantly, Sixkill is Robert B. Parker ending the series on a high note. As any fan of the series knows, half of any Spenser book is already written - witty back and forth of a non-PC nature, annoying psycho-babble with Susan talking about why Spenser does what he does ("And, I suspect, if you didn't do what you do, you'd become someone else..."- p. 191), a rundown of all of the people that Spenser could contact to help, if needed (because Hawk is not in this one - he is still off in Central Asia), and eventually Spenser annoys enough people with...

Fascinating, insightful, thought-provoking and entertaining. Originally published in 2007. Much like the original VeggieTales stories, Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About God, Dreams, and Talking Vegetables is a well-written story told with lots of humor and with much more depth than you might think. On one level it's a fascinating story of the rise and fall of a media giant. I was fascinated on that level because I went right along with them - we had VeggieTales videos at our house before we even had kids because we saw them at the Christian bookstores playing on the VCRs in the back just in the way that Vischer describes in the book.  Our house has the cool Pirates Who Don't Do Anything toy boat from the Jonah - A VeggieTales Movie , the Larry Mr. Potato-Head-type dress up character, stuffed dolls that talk, videogames (including a theme park game which is ironic considering that Vischer talks about how much he wanted to build a real one) and lots and lo...

An American Classic 4.5 hours Narrated by Jonathan Reese Published by Tantor Media Frederick Douglass wrote three autobiographies during his life. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave , written in 1845, is, perhaps, the most famous. The others were My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892). Written as a response to those that doubted that such an intelligent and well-spoken man could have ever been a slave, Narrative tells about the early life of Frederick Douglass (b. 1818 - d.1895), how he learned to read and write and how he acquired the skills necessary to escape and prosper in the North after he escaped. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)  as a young man Douglass was a young man when this book was published (aged 27) so there is not a lot of detail about his life as a free man (with the caveat of being an escaped slave living the constant fear of being kidnapped and returned to slavery)...

I thought it was great before, even better when I re-read it 15 years later. Originally published in 1937 John Steinbeck (1902-1968) I used to have a considerable classroom library (I have since switched schools and there is no Silent Sustained Reading program at the new school so I donated my library) and I always would hand Of Mice and Men to any kid that said he or she hated reading and "there's nothing good to read." I had a hard time keeping this book on the shelves and since I had an "honor system" check out plan this book kept on disappearing on me since the students seemed to have felt it was worth keeping and I had to make runs to the local used book store to re-stock it. But, I hadn't read it in a while so I decided to see if it was still one of my favorites. If anything, this book is more powerful than it was before. The loss at the end is more powerful, both the loss with Lennie and with the loss of a dream. Themes abound, su...

The fun continues (and gets better!) Originally published in 2010. I enjoyed the first book in the Chet and Bernie series, Dog On It , but assumed this was to be a cute attempt at a series that fizzled after the first book. I ran across the third book and immediately picked it up, pleasantly surprised that the series was still alive. I am pleased to report that not only is the series alive - it is getting better as it goes along! Chet and Bernie are private detectives. Well, Bernie is a private detective. Chet is his dog - a police dog (almost!) that failed to make it all of the way through his training. The story is told completely told from the perspective of Chet, the dog who pretty much understands human society, at least enough to tell the story. What he does know is that he and Bernie are inseparable partners and they always have each others' back. In To Fetch a Thief , Bernie gets some free tickets to a down and out traveling circus and he takes Chet and his son. When ...

A pleasant surprise Published in 1997. I f you are an avid reader, you know how much of a gamble it can be to pick up a book by an author you've never heard of and jump into the middle of a series. You could get lucky and find a great new author to read or you could just be wasting your time. Well, I'm pleased to report that this is a great book and I'm going to seek out the others in the series. A Death in Victory is the third in a series featuring Harry Starbranch, the town police officer in Victory, Wyoming. Rather than go through plot details I'll give you a general idea about the book. A Death in Victory reads a bit like Robert Parker meets Tony Hillerman. Starbranch is a wisecracking cop who is not afraid to throw his fists. He has friends and connections everywhere and is not afraid to use them. But, like Hillerman, there's an acknowledgment of the reality of the immenseness of the wide open western spaces. He describes Wyoming and its cu...

It's math, it's history, it's a lot of fun Released in 2006. I watched The Story of 1 when it premiered on my local PBS affiliate and I thought it was a lot of fun and full of loads and loads of interesting history. As a world history teacher, I am always on the lookout for something that can tell our story with a twist. This one does it quite nicely. Terry Jones in a still from the DVD The documentary is narrated by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. It tells the story of man's use of the number one (and other numbers, but the focus always returns to the number 1) throughout time with a humorous twist. It explores early uses of math, why mankind had to develop math, why the Roman Numerals were inferior to our current system and continues on to the modern use of binary numbers. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted it for my history class. It will be great as a different sort of review of the history that we have studied thus far. I rate this DVD 5 stars...

While not aimed at someone my age... I nevertheless found Bill Peet: An Autobiography quite fascinating and engrossing. First published in 1994. Bill Peet  was a self-professed reluctant student, especially of English classes, but he was nonetheless quite the good writer. Peet's illustrations added a lot to the pace and feel of the book and are a joy in their own right. His stories of life in Indianapolis before World War II will be interesting to any native Hoosier (as am I). However, the most interesting part details his jobs at Walt Disney studios. His descriptions of how they made movies in the old days as well as the insider's look at Walt Disney himself are fascinating. Peet worked on several Disney movies, including Pinocchio , Fantasia , Cinderella (he created the lovable mice) and the original 101 Dalmatians . Peet brushes over his life after he left Disney a little too quickly. Peet left Disney to write and illustrate more than 30  books for chil...

A wonderful coffee table book that espouses the beauty of much-maligned Indiana Photographer Darryl Jones and author James Alexander Thom teamed together to make a wonderful little book about the natural beauty of the southern Indiana hill country in The Spirit of the Place: Indiana Hill Country . Thom's text complements Jones' photographs wonderfully. Indiana does not have mountain vistas or magnificent buttes or gigantic canyons that overwhelm the senses.  Being a native Hoosier, I have an appreciation for the subtle beauties of the state.  Jones does as well. Most of his pictures are taken in hilly Owen county. He captures every season, as well as forest, field, stream, farm, and town scenes. James Alexander Thom Thom's text is part biography and part stories he heard growing up in Owen County. If you are a fan on Thom's other works, this one will be a nice addition. If you've never heard of Thom, this is a great place to get to know him and h...

Excellent! Published by Brilliance Audio in 2008 Read by James Daniels. Duration; 8 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged. First things first - this is an excellent work - and James Daniels, the reader,  was absolutely great. First rate job. I found myself taking advantage of any chance to listen (while showering, housework, etc.). The Last Detective is the 9th installment of the Elvis Cole series but it really is the sequel to L.A. Requiem . Not that the bad guys return, but rather Crais continues to show the readers insight into the mechanics of our duo - Pike and Cole. In L.A. Requiem we were treated to the psyche of Pike. This time it is Cole. I would not recommend this book as a stand-alone since it spends so much time delving into the heart and soul and past of Cole. This means a lot to the fans of the series but most likely means little to newcomers. The plot in just one sentence: Elvis Cole's girlfriend's 10 year old son is kidnapped and Elvis pulls all of...

For racing fans of any stripe and any color Published in 2007 by Indiana University Press Todd Gould has written a number of articles and books on Indiana business and history. With For Gold and Glory: Charlie Wiggins and the African-American Racing Car Circuit he has addressed a fascinating time in racing history and Indiana history as well. The main focus is Charlie Wiggins , an African-American auto mechanic originally from Evansville, Indiana who moved to Indianapolis in 1922 to take advantage of the bustling (yet segregated) cultural and business climate around Indiana Avenue. At the same time, several Indianapolis businessmen (both black and white) are looking into starting up the Colored Speedway Association (CSA), a racing division for Blacks that was to be modeled after Negro League Baseball. The hope was to demonstrate that African-Americans were fully capable of driving high-performance racecars and create a groundswell that would cause the American Automobi...