DWD's Reviews

Sometimes incredibly strong, sometimes deeply flawed. Carol M. Swain's Be the People: A Call to Reclaim America's Faith and Promise is a look at several broad areas of concern in American policy, including the high divorce rate, abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration, race relations in America, HIV, school prayer and the high unemployment among those with lower levels of education. First, the positives: -Swain's personal story is inspirational and she shares it as she writes about these issues. -Swain accurately describes how illegal immigration destroys job opportunities for the least educated Americans by driving the wages down to a pathetically low level. It is not that Americans will not do those jobs, they will not do them for that low of a wage. She also provides a humane 15 point plan to deal with illegal immigration. -Her commentary on race and racism are quite interesting and well thought out. I teach in a multi-racial school with a near even mi

An entertaining look at the Lewis and Clark adventure Lewis and Clark's famous Voyage of Discovery lasted from 1803-1806. Besides Lewis and Clark there were a number of French trappers, Seaman (Lewis' dog) soldiers, frontier hunters, Clark's slave named York, Sacagewa and her son and George Drouillard, a half-French/half-Shawnee brought along with the dual role of sign-language interpreter and hunter. Meriwether Lewis called Drouillard "One of the two or three most valuable members of the expedition..." A memorial in Jefferson City, Mo.  from left to right:  York (sitting),  Meriwether Lewis,  Seaman the dog,  William Clark, and  George Drouillard (crouching) In Sign-Talker , James Alexander Thom tells the story of Drouillard, focusing on his journey with Lewis and Clark. This book is James Alexander Thom at his descriptive best - the descriptions of camp life, hunting with Drouillard and the look into his presumed spiritual life gives the reader tr

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).

It's Star Trek. It's William Shatner. What More Can You Ask For? Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2001. Read by William Shatner Duration: 3 hours, 6 minutes Abridged William Shatner in Star Trek: Generations The audiobook lasts about 3 hours and is read by William Shatner, who is also one of  the authors. I admit, I picked Star Trek: The Return on a whim - the fact that it was read by Shatner himself was a big plus. Shatner is nothing, if not interesting. His book is much like the man himself (at least his well-known public persona) - lots of action, bluster, bravado, noise and Shatner's well-known and unique speaking style. This book takes place immediately after the events of the Star Trek: Generations movie. If you haven't seen the movie lately, don't fret. Shatner uses it as a launching point only and goes on his own way. At the end of Star Trek: Generations , Kirk has been killed by sacrificing himself to save a planet and poss

The strong points are very strong but there are flaws America, 1908 covers some of the key cultural, political, manufacturing and just plain odd events that happened in 1908 in the United States in an easy-to-read, often fun format. These include the Race to the North Pole, the New York to Paris automobile race, the introduction of the Model T, the last time the Cubs won the World Series for more than a century, the Wright Brothers proving to the world that they really could fly (and do it for hours, not just seconds) and a series of horrible race-based lynchings. 1908 Model T Ford While I enjoyed learning more about the Wright Brothers and the Model T, other parts seemed more than a bit skewed towards events in New York City (the Cubs win their last World Series and it's told from the point of view of the New York Giants?) and against rural areas and the South (the only references to the South are from newspapers mentioning events in NYC or about lynchings

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