Book Description
"Son, we’re going to Hell."
The navigator of the USS Houston confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR’s favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn’t a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death.
Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again–until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the Houston was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home.
In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, the war continued for the men of the Houston—a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma–Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will–power—and the undying faith that their country would prevail.
Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of Houston’s survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it’s easy to forget that every single word is true.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-09-28
Excellent write-up on a little-known story. I had read of the Houston, but not of the fate of the survivors.
Ship of Ghosts - A Must Read for all Generations.......2007-07-31
Mr. Hornfischer graced my University Area Rotary Club in Austin, his home town, with an excellent talk about the saga of some of our bravest men from the greatest generation. Of course, I bought a copy of the book and it took me a few days to get through it before I hand it to my father to read. Hornfisher shows an unlikely ability to truly connect the facts of the USS Houston and her POW survivors together to tell a compelling human story of the horrors of war and the ability of man to overcome any adversity. Hornfischer is a true patriot for documenting the courage of these brave men, and I am a better man for reading this great book.
A good telling of the USS Houston and her crew.......2007-06-18
Ship of Ghosts is Mr. Hornfischer telling of the USS Houston and her crew during WWII. The USS Houston, known as the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast (because of how many times the Japanese reported her sunk) was the flagship of the US Asiatic Fleet. In WWII she was responsible for holding and delaying the Japanese in taking Indonesia. Any ways, Mr. Hornfischer opens by telling us the early pre-war history of the USS Houston, how she was used by FDR as his yacht, and the history of the gentlemen whom Mr. Hornfischer interviewed.
After telling us about the pre-war years, Mr. Hornfisher jumps into the action of the Battle of the Java Sea and Sunda Strait. This is then followed by telling us about the crews time as POW's and working on the "Death Railway". Most of this book deals with their experience as POW's (btw, the crew of the HMAS Perth has coverage in this book, not as much as the USS Houston, but it is recognized. Also, Mr. Hornfischer cover the men of the 2nd battalion, 131st Field Artillery). In the chapters dealing with the men being prisoners of war we learn about the poor conditions they kept in and how terrible it was working in Burma on the railway (interestingly, the conditions in Thailand were worse). An interesting fact the Mr. Hornfischer points out several times is how the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai poorly represented the conditions the men served under.
Rating wise this book was very easy for me. A solid 4.5 stars. While Mr. Hornfischer did a commendable job telling us about the crew, I had two problems. First, was his book Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors was more solidly written than this one. There I felt as if I was there, this time I had someone telling me of the tale. My primary reason though for only 4.5 stars is that I'd read The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait(by W.G. Winslow, a true 5 star book). Since I can't leave this as a half star I need to round the number. If I hadn't read Mr. Winslow's book prior, I might round up, however since I've read his book, this one gets rounded down. Sorry Mr. Hornfischer. A very good book though! It complements Mr. Winslow's nicely and picks up where Mr. Winslow chose to leave off. A very good job!
A Last-Minute Tribute.......2007-04-26
With America's WW II veterans dying at the rate of 1,500 a day, we are clearly into "the last lap". Therefore, Jim Hornfischer's excellent treatment of the cruiser Houston comes none too soon. His taut narrative actually involves two stories between the covers of one book: the ship's early combat in the Pacific and the surviving crew members' 3 1/2 year struggle for survival ashore.
There's a lesson for other researchers and authors: "the greatest generation" is fading fast, and its memories are fading even faster. Now is the time to grab the tape recorder or notepad and get the remaining veterans' stories while they are still accessible.
A Missing Piece of History.......2007-04-09
Americans generally think they know about world War II if they know about Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the Russian Front, and the Pacific War from the perspective of island hopping coming from the east side of the Pacific. What we usually overlook is the war in Southeast Asia. John Hornfischer has written what might be two books, one about the nearly-solo fight of an isloated ship in the face of the Japanese onslsught in 1942, and the other about the unbelievable suffering of prisoners of war in Japanese prison camps building the Thailand-Burma Railroad - familiar to most of us from the sanitized version seen in the movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai. The writing is good (though not overly great); but it is the content that makes this one of the best books written about World War II, the early struggle to give ground only very dearly, the suffering enduured by our soldiers, and finally the failure to meet the real needs of soldiers trying to readjust to society after three years of captivity.
Average customer rating:
- disappointing
- An Absolute Treasure!
- A lively biography--but could go deeper as a feminist/cultural analysis
- Sparkling biography
- Girl Sleuth
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Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her
Melanie Rehak
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
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Nancy Drew's Guide to Life
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Confessions of a Teen Sleuth
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The Nancy Drew Cookbook: Clues to Good Cooking
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Nancy Drew Mad Libs
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The Girl Sleuth
ASIN: 015603056X |
Book Description
A plucky “titian-haired” sleuth solved her first mystery in 1930. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the sixties (when she was taken up with a vengeance by women’s libbers) to enter the pantheon of American girlhood. As beloved by girls today as she was by their grandmothers, Nancy Drew has both inspired and reflected the changes in her readers’ lives. Here, in a narrative with all the vivid energy and page-turning pace of Nancy’s adventures, Melanie Rehak solves an enduring literary mystery: Who created Nancy Drew? And how did she go from pulp heroine to icon?
The brainchild of children’s book mogul Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy was brought to life by two women: Mildred Wirt Benson, a pioneering journalist from Iowa, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, a well-bred wife and mother who took over as CEO after her father died. In this century-spanning story, Rehak traces their roles—and Nancy’s—in forging the modern American woman.
Customer Reviews:
disappointing.......2007-09-23
Though I was a huge Nancy Drew fan as a kid, I was rather underwhelmed by this book. I thought the writing was poor and the book as a whole was pretty boring.
An Absolute Treasure!.......2007-09-17
As an avid Nancy Drew fan, this book did not disappoint! I had known about the Stratemeyer Syn., Harriet S. Adams, and Mildred Wirt Benson, but to be able to take the journey back into history and see how the Nancy Drew books came to be, as well as many others that the Syn. wrote, was priceless. The incredible amount of time and effort that author Melanie Rehak took to research this book shows and Girl Sleuth a definate MUST for any Nancy Drew fan. I only have one question for the author . .where is Mildren Wirt Benson's only daughter, Peggy Wirt, now?
A lively biography--but could go deeper as a feminist/cultural analysis.......2007-09-17
Like many of the other reviewers of Melanie Rehak's "Girl Sleuth," I liked this book and found it a fast-paced read. Rehak enjoys her subject matter and has done good research on the two women (Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams) who helped create and sustain the Nancy Drew character.
Rehak is good at showing the less charismatic aspects of Wirt Benson and Stratemeyer Adams and still allowing them to emerge as people we care about. In Rehak's portrayal, Wirt Benson was feisty, strong-willed woman who had genuine sisterly feeling for the Nancy Drew she brought to life--whom she also modeled on herself.
I especially like Rehak's discussion of Wirt Benson's struggles to make her writing economically sustainable for herself and her ailing husband. In one great passage, Rehak writes about Wirt typing madly away on a manuscript when a can of condensed milk explodes on her stove, sending sticky milk onto the ceiling and convincing Wirt and her husband that they needed to move to a better apartment!
"Girl Sleuth" has its limitations, though, especially as a feminist and cultural critique. While Rehak presents Nancy Drew as a hero that feminists can love, she minimizes the feminist message of her book by using dismissive terms like "women's libbers." Why not just say feminists? More problematically, Rehak spends little time discussing the overt racism that exists in nearly every Nancy Drew book prior to the series' revision in the late 1950s. This racism and ethnocentrism is preserved in the recently republished copies of several of the original 1930s Nancy Drew books, where, for example, in the first book in the series, "The Secret of the Old Clock," Nancy encounters a "Negro caretaker" whose eyes glisten with drunkenness and who speaks in a nearly unintelligible drawl. In a later book in the original series, "The Mystery at Lilac Inn," Nancy Drew is disappointed in the applicant for a new housekeeper, a "colored woman" who is described as unkempt, shuffling, and disorganized. These passages are so disturbing that many present-day readers will find them reason to close the books and move on, grateful that the series received an updated treatment in later decades.
Rehak does devote several pages to the fact that--as early as the 1940s--readers had written to Grosset & Dunlap to protest against the racism in the publisher's books. But Rehak makes very few specific references to actual racially-stereotyped characters or plot events in the Nancy Drew books. (Her main example of awful stereotyping is from a book in the Hardy Boys series.) As a result, "Girl Sleuth" comes across as avoiding the serious cultural and racial problems in the Nancy Drew books. As an author whose avowed theme is feminism, shouldn't Rehak be focused on exactly those areas?
"Girl Sleuth" is a pretty good book. It sent me back to my shelf of Nancy Drews that I had sped through as a pre-teen in the 1970s. But as an in-depth cultural critique, and a true feminist analysis, Rehak's book does not always deliver.
Sparkling biography.......2007-08-13
This was a well-written, fast-paced biography of fictional Nancy Drew and the two women who primarily wrote about her: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson emerges as the more sympathetic, though both women exemplify the confidence and perseverance for which Nancy is famous. I also learned many interesting tidbits about history and feminism.
My only complaint was that the book started slowly, and didn't really address Nancy Drew as a topic until page 92 or so. The chapter on Harriet's college years at Wellesley was particularly excruciating, aside from an entertaining bit where Harriet, in a Nancy-like turn, exhibits bravery under pressure when a fire hits an important building at Wellesley. Other than the slow beginning, however, the book was perfect -- and may even spike Nancy Drew sales.
Girl Sleuth.......2007-01-12
Fasinating, well written book with extensive backgrounds on the series' and characters' creator, and the first women who authored the series. Amazingly, it wasn't Carolyn Keene, nor was there ever a Carolyn Keene! Any Nancy fan, from any era, will love this book.
Average customer rating:
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Beatrix Potter: The Artist and Her World 1866-1943
Judy Taylor ,
Joyce Irene Whalley ,
Anne Stevenson Hobbs , and
Elizabeth M. Battrick
Manufacturer: Warne
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Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, and Countrywoman
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Beatrix Potter: A Journal
ASIN: 0723235619 |
Book Description
A true story of drama and courage, Legacy chronicles the life of a woman who created beauty during the harsh era of Reconstruction. Illustrated in full color. Indexed.
Customer Reviews:
A Stunning Accomplishment.......2007-01-22
This book's accomplishment is stunning. I've read it three times, each time discovering new layers of meaning. This is one of those books that becomes part of one's experience. The best kind.
It also affords a model for the work of any aspiring cultural or material historian. And certainly it offers a student of quilt history and/or women's history a rare model and an extraordinarily complex and detailed picture of the life of one woman and her quilts in one time and place.
The book is completely belied by the determinedly and obviously biased views of two reviewers who posted to Amazon.com reviews. I cannot help wondering if they read the same book I read. Their criticism is of the South, not of the book. And it is a criticism of a stereotypical South, at that, not a region far too complex to comprehend in one sweep of bias. And certainly not the world captured in its minutae in this book.
LEGACY: THE STORY OF TALULA GILBERT BOTTOM AND HER QUILTS is not an apologia for the Confederacy or a condemnation of the Union in the Civil War, though a portion of it describes---one feels accurately and certainly matter-of-factly---the experience of a southern family caught up in the terrible combat that war. To read it as two critics read it requires a bias so strong it precludes access to the real meaning of this remarkable story that moves from the ante-bellum South through two world wars with equal passion and loss.
The title is "Legacy: The Story of Talula Gilbert Bottoms and her Quilts," and its writer discovers in the many quilts created in good times and bad the meaning of her legacy from her grandmother. That legacy is most essentially a determined courage to accept life as it comes, without complaint or self-pity, but with a spirit of optimism and endurance that is nurtured by the creation of beauty.
The admiration heard in the authorial voice is, therefore, appropriate. And it is not sentimental. With the author, we discover her grandmother. And along with her, through her grandmother's quilts and the little autobiography Talula left, we come to admire this tough little woman who persevered through rheumatism and overwork, wars and contagions, poverty and modest economic security, and all the while continued to turn out meticulously wrought quilts individualized by her devotion to her craft and to her family, for whom she turned out these quilts.
Burdick lets Talula and her quilts speak, and there is not a drop of self-pity in either.
For anyone wanting to know what life was like for an ordinary family in the Deep South from the mid-19th century through, say, WW II, "Legacy" offers an exceptional gift. There they are--the daily routines, the backbreaking farm and house work, the religious devotion and struggles, the children who die from diseases that left cemeteries full of tiny tombstones. But there also are the joys and devotions of family, the love of place, the achievement in the face of obstacles, and always--always--the quilts that defined one woman's values and meanings of life.
In little things--for instance, in the problems created when the young bride Talula spilled into the well some of the milk she was keeping cold thered--we come to understand her world and her achievement.
In her study, Burdick has relied on techniques common to an approach more recently designated by material historian James Deetz as "material behaviors." Deetz expands the means of the material historian beyond the description and identification of artifacts. He suggests the inclusion of cognitive, psychological, spiritual behaviors to discover the fuller meaning of the material objects.
That is exactly what Burdick does with her grandmother's quilts. She places them in their natural context in order to make sense of them, to discover what they reveal about their art, their craft, about their maker.
And she does it so well, we forget for the reading that we too are not kinsmen of Talula Gilbert Bottoms.
The quiltmaking of the backcountry South is insufficiently documented and understood. This book goes a long way to remediating those problems.
The existing journals of Southern women in the nineteenth century are most often those of women of considerable means, for they were the ones who could afford education. This book provides balance to those, for it describes and analyzes the life of a woman who had struggled to make herself literate, but whose means and circumstances precluded her achieving the exceptional feats she and her husband made accessible to their children, who achieved acclaim in science. The reader will find no moonlight-and-magnolias version of southern life in LEGACY.But he will find truth.
It should be noted that the writer's style is lively and vigorous (She is an English professor in New York state), the photographs of the quilts and of the Bottomses well done and complementary to the text, and the book generally set in an attractive format.
I came away from this book with a far better understanding of life for the ordinary family in the hinterland South and of the role quilts played in the lives of such families and of the women who made them. I also acquired a better appreciation for the quilts themselves and a more informed view of the quilts producd in the Southern backcountry. It is, for instance, generally presumed that poverty accounts for most choices of hinterland quilts. Yet Talula Bottoms experienced grave poverty, teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for a long time, but all the while find the means to create well-planned and executed quilts.
What a pleasure Ms. Burdick gives in her thoughtful, important book on her grandmother and her grandmother's quilts. I heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys biography, women's or quilt history, cultural history, or who loves quilts. And it is salutary to anyone who needs to see courage in the flesh. A very good read!
A Little Too Magnanimous.......2006-01-08
Although I purchased this book to read about the quilts that were made by Talula Gilbert Bottoms, the overtly magnanimous overtures about Mrs. Burdick's grandparents basically overpowered the story. There are beautiful pictures of the quilts so lovingly made by Mrs. Talula Bottoms, but the saga about her life was just too sanctimoniously written, in my humble opinion, especially those of the trials of Mrs. Bottoms' young life. The excerpts taken from the memoirs of Talula G. Bottoms was, in fact, more interesting to me, and I wish that the author - the granddaughter of Mrs. Bottoms - had utilized more of the original papers instead of the overall, overtly gushing writing style that I found indicative of Mrs. Burdick.
Compromised quality.......2000-06-06
This book is wonderfully written, and had me deeply interested in its subjects even without the fascinating quilting history. I felt maybe ten times, though, while reading it, that there were imposed tones of near-racism from the author. Hers is the classic tone of those from the South who don't want to admit - ever - that there were wrongs committed. The simple, wonderful ancestors of the author taught lessons in their own story, which she told very well, but her attempt to restate all the lessons as defenses of the South in general seemed out of place in the simple environment of her grandmother. Without these few interjections, and an unnecessary afterword to that effect, this is a marvelous book.
This is my favorite Q history book. I've read it three times.......1999-04-02
This book will inspire quilters to endeavor to produce more quilts as well as improve quality. The hardships experienced by Tallulah are written in a way that causes our hearts to emotionally bond with her.
Book Description
It is a spring morning in New Orleans, 1843. In the Spanish Quarter, on a street lined with flophouses and gambling dens, Madame Carl recognizes a face from her past. It is the face of a German girl, Sally Miller, who disappeared twenty-five years earlier. But the young woman is property, the slave of a nearby cabaret owner. She has no memory of a "white" past. Yet her resemblance to her mother is striking, and she bears two telltale birthmarks. In brilliant novelistic detail, award-winning historian John Bailey reconstructs the exotic sights, sounds, and smells of mid-nineteenth-century New Orleans, as well as the incredible twists and turns of Sally Miller's celebrated and sensational case. Did Miller, as her relatives sought to prove, arrive from Germany under perilous circumstances as an indentured servant or was she, as her master claimed, part African, and a slave for life? A tour de force of investigative history that reads like a suspense novel, The Lost German Slave Girl is a fascinating exploration of slavery and its laws, a brilliant reconstruction of mid-nineteenth-century New Orleans, and a riveting courtroom drama. It is also an unforgettable portrait of a young woman in pursuit of freedom.
Customer Reviews:
The Lost German Slave Girl.......2007-10-04
I think the most faqscinating thing about this book is the research and details of the slavery life prior to the "War of the Northern Aggression" (otherwise known as The Civil War.) To have lived and worked in any situation in lower Louisiana in the early days must have been terribly oppressive to all--even slave owners. Salome Muller lived a terrible life as a slave---not really knowing almost from day to day where she might live.
Enthralling!.......2007-08-12
John Bailey writes: "The law may have designated slaves as property, but legislation has never been able to change human nature." And the human nature Bailey chronicles in the history of "The Lost German Slave Girl" is fired with passion, intrigue, and suspense. I couldn't put it down--the story of Sally Miller's quest for freedom enslaved my full attention. Enthralling history, beautifully written.
Absolutely fascinating.......2007-05-19
My wife recommended this book and, once I picked it up, it was hard to put down.
The many ways in which the legal and social systems of the slave-holding South parsed levels of "black taint" are truly bizarre. And yet the author makes you realize they were utterly logical once the insanity of slavery was accepted as the law of the land.
The book reads like a thriller and I, at least, was on the edge of my seat wondering how it would come out until the very end.
deserves ten stars!!!.......2006-11-22
Really interesting story. Lots of twists and turns. I just came back from New Orleans a few days ago. I had read the book before and I got to visit the Presbytere and the Cabildo where the trials actually took place!
Excellent Book!.......2006-11-21
I loved this book. I don't know why other reviewers didn't like the end - the book is based on actual events - the author really couldn't make the ending to fit "happily ever after." Regardless, I couldn't put this book down and at the same time, I learned a lot about the legal ramifications of slavery. I would recommend this book to everyone.
Book Description
Once upon a time, in 1930s England, there were two little princesses named Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. Their father was the Duke of York, the second son of King George V, and their Uncle David was the future King of England.
We all know how the fairy tale ended: When King George died, “Uncle David” became King Edward VIII---who abdicated less than a year later to marry the scandalous Wallis Simpson. Suddenly the little princesses’ father was King. The family moved to Buckingham Palace, and ten-year-old Princess Elizabeth became the heir to the crown she would ultimately wear for over fifty years.
The Little Princesses shows us how it all began. In the early thirties, the Duke and Duchess of York were looking for someone to educate their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, then five- and two-years-old. They already had a nanny---a family retainer who had looked after their mother when she was a child---but it was time to add someone younger and livelier to the household.
Enter Marion Crawford, a twenty-four-year-old from Scotland who was promptly dubbed “Crawfie” by the young Elizabeth and who would stay with the family for sixteen years. Beginning at the quiet family home in Piccadilly and ending with the birth of Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace in 1948, Crawfie tells how she brought the princesses up to be “Royal,” while attempting to show them a bit of the ordinary world of underground trains, Girl Guides, and swimming lessons.
The Little Princesses was first published in 1950 to a furor we cannot imagine today. It has been called the original “nanny diaries” because it was the first account of life with the Royals ever published. Although hers was a touching account of the childhood of the Queen and Princess Margaret, Crawfie was demonized by the press. The Queen Mother, who had been a great friend and who had, Crawfie maintained, given her permission to write the account, never spoke to her again.
Reading The Little Princesses now, with a poignant new introduction by BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond, offers fascinating insights into the changing lives and times of Britains royal family.
Customer Reviews:
Groundbreaking "tell all" has stood the test of time.......2007-07-28
For fans of the British royal family, this book is a must-read. While it may be a trifle dated and decidedly unsensational, the book holds a unique place in the now vast array of books about the royals because it was the first to break the rules and reveal details of life behind the gilded doors of Buckingham Palace. "Crawfie," who cared for Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret for 17 years, was completely cut off by the royal family after the book was published, but the book itself lives on as a kind of time capsule of royal life before the press declared open season on the royal family.
This portrait by "Crawfy" is priceless!.......2007-03-02
Truly, this book is a national treasure and even the Queen should cherish it (apprently, she does not). After reading it, I have new-found respect for Elizabeth II and her family. No where else would you find such wonderful detail of the lovely lives these little girls led. Its also very revealing to see another side of the abdication of her uncle, King Edward VIII. I couldn't put it down and was left wanting more!
Little Princesses.......2006-08-30
absolutely fascinating story of Nanny Crawford which brings to life how the Royal Family live. I cannot understand why the Royals thought it was disrespectful to write this and cut Nanny Crawford off for the rest of her life. I wonder what the real reason was?
Charming, but in no way saccharine.......2006-05-07
A lovely portrait of royalty as it used to be, painted in the words of a woman who devoted years of her life to royalty's service. "Crawfie," as a very young Princess Elizabeth nicknamed her new governess, had no idea when she accepted the post that she would be staying for more than a short time. She'd come to help the Duke and Duchess of York begin their little girls' education, after which Miss Crawford fully intended to take up the classroom teaching career of which she had always dreamed. She wasn't planning on growing to love Elizabeth and Margaret as she did. Nor had she any clue that one of her charges would someday sit on England's throne.
The interlude Miss Crawford planned to spend with the Yorks lasted until after Princess Elizabeth's marriage. As a member of their household, she experienced history first hand when the abdication of King Edward VIII - otherwise known as "Uncle David" - forced her employers to give up their private, comfortable, family-centered life. She kept their daughters out of harm's way during the frightening war years that soon followed; and after the war's end, helped the family that by now considered her indispensible in guiding its "little princesses" from adolescence into womanhood.
Charming, but in no way saccharine, this recently re-released book provides invaluable insight into the character of the woman who has reigned for more than half a century as Queen Elizabeth II. Not by any means just for "royal watchers"!
A....C L A S S I C...A N D...A...R O Y A L...D E L I G H T !.......2005-02-20
This was the very FIRST book to present Royalty as human beings --and as such, it truly got its authoress, (to use the contemporary term), into much trouble with the English Royal family, whom she worked for in the capacity of Governess to the two Royal Princesses, Pss. Elizabeth and Pss. Margaret Rose, from the 1930s until they were grown young women -- and in Pss. Elizabeth's case, married.
This is the GENUINE article -- a first-person reminisence, the
REAL story of what went on behind the palace walls in the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s. It is great reading for royal-watchers, as one can almost feel oneself actually there, a "fly on the wall" as it were, to these auspicious royal happenings. And seeing the royal personages themselves, through Ms. Crawford's eyes: the dilligent and almost too-dutiful Pss. Elizabeth, the rather diffident, but still very brave Duke of York who became George VI, the artistic, rebellious, and elfin Pss. Margaret, the warm, friendly, yet very, very Royal Queen Elizabeth, the King's Consort, and the extremely regal, yet still very human
Queen Mary.
I got this book out of the school library when I was in college....but was so excited to have found it, that I just skimmed it. However, I have recently bought a copy, and am forcing myself to read it all the way through! So far I am only up to the Abdication of King Edward VIII -- but I realize this is a true turning point, and am loathe to go futher, though I know I must. Never, (believe it or not), was there ever such a reluctant couple to mount the throne of England as George
VI and Elizabeth -- the responsibilites, and separation from their children, were great burdens to them. The "fairy-tale" existance they had as the very private Duke and Duchess of York was no more.....
Later on, of course, WWII intruded even more into the Royal lives, changing royal routine even more.....forever.
It is interesting to see, even in the professed "simplicity" of the Princesses pre-war, (and post-war), lives, that little luxuries were taken for granted, even so. As a small child, Princess Elizabeth plays with imaginary ponies before going to bed, later graduating to toy ponies, and stil later, to real horses. Large grounds, many servants, and many homes complete the picture.....and even though Ms. Crawford does give some middle-class amazement at some of the priviledges, others are just taken as natural for her royal employers. I find myself wondering how the Princesses would have reacted, had they suddenly found themselves, "Twilight-Zone"-like, waking up to suddenly find themselves, instead, as Ruby and Margaret McDonald -- the Princesses' real-life sister-maids. (Probably,
the Dutiful Elizabeth would have taken it as a matter of course....but the independent and talented Margaret Rose would have definitely rebelled!)
Still, this is truly a book to cherish and delight in...especially if one wishes, secretly or not so secretly, to imagine oneself one (or both) of the Royal Sisters. There are
many royal secrets in this book too -- such as Queen Mary's
recommended "royal pick-me-up receipie", and the fact that the secret of the perfectly coiffed hairdos of the royal ladies, even after hours in a car, lay in the fact that the Royal cars were, in fact, hermetically sealed!
I can understand why the Royal Family were so upset that this book -- which doesn't critize them, but merely shows all their human strengths, and some of their all-too-human weaknesses. Royals are supposed to be 100% perfet. This book shows them to be 100% Human. Secrets are shared. And -- contrary to Baghot's
admonition -- light is, indeed, shed on the magic.
In the end, however, Ms. Crawford, (who had married just before
Princess Elizabeth herself did), left all of her papers and
diaries, etc. to her royal employers -- the very ones she had once been so close to, but who had cut her off, completely, from their lives, once "The Little Princesses" was published. It is a sad thing for curious commoners, such as myself -- for no matter how many authors write about the Royal Family of England, none, I feel, will have as intimacy with their royal material as Miss Crawford did. (With the possible exception of Paul Burrell, and Stephen Birmingham, valets to Princess Diana and the pre-married Prince Charles, respectively.) For English -- and perhaps other royals -- now reqire a signed statement from their possible servants, before employment, not to disclose anything of their employment in future books. This is another reason why "The Little Princesses" is such a true classic: the reality of the book was recorded without any constraint or even thought of constraint.
This alone makes the "fairy-tale become reality" sense of this book even more genuine -- and to royal-watchers, even more precious.
So this book -- and the others written by Marion Crawford -- are the true and genuine articlesw -- 24-karat gold, amongst all the other books on the royals, no matter how well written, or how engrossing.
"The Little Princesses" is thus not only a wonderful, involving, exciting, and easily-read book.... It is a piece of history, in and of itself.
Book Description
Ditha Bruncel's detailed memory of living in Germany during the Second World War provides a rare, first-hand insight into the day-to-day struggle against Nazi oppression, when even small acts of defiance or resistance carried great personal risk.
In 1945 Ditha was living with her parents in the small town of Lossen, in Upper Silesia. Close Jewish friends had vanished, swastikas hung from every building, and neighbors were disappearing in the middle of the night. At the same time more than one thousand, five hundred British and Commonwealth airmen were being marched out of Stalag Luft VII, a POW camp in Upper Silesia. Twenty three of these prisoners managed to escape from the marching column and by chance hobbled into Lossen. One amongst them, Warrant Officer Gordon Slowey, was the man Ditha was destined to meet and fall in love with.
This book tells the extraordinary story of Ditha and the escaped POWs she helped to save. Together they embarked on a dangerous and daring flight out of Germany. As they faced exhaustion, hunger, extreme cold and the constant risk of discovery, Ditha and Gordon's love for one another intensified, and so did their determination to survive and escape together.
Average customer rating:
- A saucy strumpet
- Nanette, a story for my life
- theoldALFER's affair with Nanette
- One of the best pilot memoirs I've ever read!
- One of the best first-hand WWII fighter pilot's stories.
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NANETTE ; Her Pilot's Love Story
Edwards Park
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Aviation
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Personal Narratives
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ASIN: 0874747376 |
Customer Reviews:
A saucy strumpet.......2006-06-12
For awhile I've had a fascination for the air war over New Guinea during WWII. To help me with this, I was visiting the website PACIFICWRECKS.COM looking for more material to read. In reading thru their listing of books I discovered this book; Nanette: Her Pilot's Love Story by Ewards Park.
Nanette tells Edwards Park's story as a young airman in WWII and his time spent in the South West Pacific flying Bell P-39 Airacobra. In telling his tale, Mr. Park focus's on his aircraft and it's temperament rather than on specific battles. We get to read about Mr. Park's training in the US (interestingly, he ground looped three times and was still made a fighter pilot), his trip to Australia, preparation for combat, and then flying in New Guinea. Once in New Guinea, Mr. Park is assigned to a P-39 squadron near Port Moresby. While there (and other locations in New Guinea), Mr. Park tells us about flying P-39's. Rarely does he focus on this opponents, rather he focus's on his temperamental aircraft that seems to have life of it's own. We learn how Nanette will do anything to avoid aerial combat (the only aerial engagement he describes was when he was flying a different plane), bucking, stalling, starving itself of gasoline. Instead, Nanette lives to be at low altitude, not worrying about the Zero's and Oscar's the Japanese fly.
Nanette is fabulously written! When I first got this book, I was reading another book. After sampling a few pages I became engrossed in the book. Mr. Park's writing still is first rate, his love of his saucy strumpet is shown by how clearly he descriptions her. I can't imagine having that great of a memory where I could remember every fact of how my plane performed. Because of this, I'm certain that Nanette was his first love. This book is great for those interested in P-39's, what it was like in New Guinea in WWII, or reading people's stories about going to war, this is a great book. For those wondering, I give this one a solid 5 stars!
Nanette, a story for my life.......2006-05-31
I am a veteran of New Guinea through the eyes of Edwards Park. I am seasoned and wiser for reading it. I bought Nanette in 1977 as a wild eyed 19 year old WW II aircraft fan. I found that Nanette was the first time I could relate to a story personally about WW II. Mr. Park's point of view in the book was not an aged veteran. He wrote as a young man fighting in terrible conditions while showing all the confusion, bravery, machismo, fear, and honor that a boy would have so far from home. Who knows if Mr. Park was a great pilot? But I have read books from great pilots who couldn't write. Mr. Park will make his experience your experience because he is a great writer. I wrote a letter to Mr. Park about the book back then. He even wrote a cordial reply to my questions. I have read this book at least a dozen times in almost thirty years and had to buy another copy to keep the original from falling apart. Nanette is easily one of my all time favorites. Easy reading and easier to relate to. I wish I could give it ten stars.
theoldALFER's affair with Nanette.......2002-10-24
My fascination (or should I say obsession?) with the Bell P-39 and the air war in New Guinea in WWII is fueled by the pages of Edward Park's "Nannette."
Park's likening of his tour of duty as a P-39 pilot to an affair with a strumpet named Nanette is a can't put down read for any aviation buff.
While short on historical details such as dates and statistics, the human drama and personal feelings of a pilot and his squadron mates come alive much as Nanette did for Parks. Life, death, and reason for being are examined through the eyes of a reluctant combatant and pilot.
My favorite all time aviation book.
One of the best pilot memoirs I've ever read!.......1998-12-03
"Nanette- Her Pilot's Love Story" is distinguished from many WWII pilot memoirs by the superb writing of Edwards Park. His vivid, often wry prose truly takes you into the world of the WWII fighter pilot in the Pacific as he focuses not only on the heroic but also the mundane, the frightening and, sometimes, the downright unpleasant.
But for all its worth as a detailed glimpse of the pilots' war, the real story here is the growing love of a young pilot for his first fighter aircraft. "Nanette", a P-39 Airacobra, is nondescript, skittish, often dangerous- and enlessly fascinating to her pilot. Anyone who has ever formed a bond with a machine which, inexplicably, transceded flesh and metal will find this book a superb read.
One of the best first-hand WWII fighter pilot's stories........1997-02-16
As an avid reader of WWII fighter pilot first-hand accounts, especially from the Pacific Theatre, this is one of the very best available. Edward is concise, a powerful wordsmith, and you will be hooked after reading just the Introduction (one-third page) and the first couple pages of the first paragraph. He was the typical WWII Army Aviation cadet, and fell in love with his Bell P-39 Aircobra. He starts, "Nanette was an airplane. That should be made clear right at the start. She was not a very good plane; actually she stank. But she did a lot for me, I realize, as I look back on her. All the planes of that old war had distinguishing looks and personalities. The P-40, the Warhawk, was knobby and arrogant, a tomboy. The P-38, the Lightning, was lean and coltish, a rich debunte. The P-47, the Thunderbolt, was massive and dull, a peasnat girl. The bombers had their distinctions, too, but I didn't know much about them. Of all the fighters, two could really excite a flyer. One was the P-51, Mustang, lovely to look at, honest, efficient, hardworking and dependable. In those days she was thought of as a wife, and I know men who married her, back then, and are still inlove with her. The other was the P-39, the Aircobra. It was slim, with a gently curved tail section, a smoothly faired in air intake, and a perfectly rounded nose cone with its ugly, protruding cannon. But the Aircobra was lazy and slovenly and given to fits of vicious temper. It was a sexy machine, and rotten. Nanette was like that, and I was a little queer for her."
You can find a lot of books by fighter pilots, but you won't find many better to read than this one.
Book Description
They threw rocks and rotten eggs at the school windows. Villagers refused to sell Miss Crandall groceries or let her students attend the town church. Mysteriously, her schoolhouse was set on fireby whom and how remains a mystery. The town authorities dragged her to jail and put her on trial for breaking the law. Her crime? Trying to teach African American girls geography, history, reading, philosophy, and chemistry. Trying to open and maintain one of the first African American schools in America. Exciting and eye-opening, this account of the heroine of Canterbury, Connecticut, and her elegant white schoolhouse at the center of town will give readers a glimpse of what it is like to try to change the world when few agree with you.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Read.......2007-07-28
This book is about a woman named Prudence Crandal who risked her life to teach african american students. This book is filled with pictures that make the book more fun to read. I definitally reccomed this book!
Crandall's Creativity.......2007-03-28
This was beyond a doubt the best non-fiction book I have ever read. The author describes things so vividly it is almost as if you are with Prudence Crandall from the time she opened her school until after it was closed in 1835. Suzanne Jurmain photocopied actual newspaper articles about the schoolhouse and the events surrounding the schoolhouse in the book, so we readers could see them, and not just have the quotes. I recommend this book because I loved every minute of reading it. Every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. For instance, at the end of chapter three: "Things were even better than Prudence might have expected. The pieces were falling into place. The building was ready. The students were waiting. All Prudence had to do now was open her new school."
I like historical non-fiction (from the 1800's) because I like knowing how life was during the time period. How did people dress? How did they act? I like to be able to answer my own questions like that, and this book explains it well. It was really like being there with Prudence Crandall.
Hey Me. By Desw.......2006-12-13
In this book, The Forbidden School House, by Suzanne Jurmain, the author uses great detail to describe the lives of the young students, and the teacher Ms. Prudence Crandall, who was a major women's and equal rights advocate. "Although many nineteenth-century people thought educating women was a waste Prudence didn't agree. She expected her girls to learn." p. 2. This quote from the book really expresses the way that
Prudence felt about educating women, and the classes that she taught are also a strong example that she loved teaching and wanted her students to get the most out of it. Prudence was already way ahead of her time opening this incredible private girls academy, but when she began letting young black girls in the school I knew I had hit the climax of the book and found how really implausible Ms. Crandall really was. Though she went through many hardships in her teaching and lost many students when a black girl was enrolled, she kept pursuing her goal, which was to help the young black girls of America get a good education. Ms. Prudence Crandall really strived to reach her goal, and although she may not have changed the governments mind about the feelings towards black people she helped begin it. And to finish something or to reach a goal one must begin.
This was an amazing book, I was incredibly moved by the story of Ms. Prudence Crandall and will never forget it. I really agreed and was inspired by her remarkable actions, giving myself the self-esteem to pursue a risky goal. To me Prudence was a remarkable women and this book really gave me a great insight into what she and her students had to go through to make a difference that would change black and white women's education forever. Although Prudence was forced to shut her school down she never gave up her dream to fight against slavery. She knew that what she had done by opening the school to African-American girls in the country was a huge step up to where we are today, where the color of skin does not matter and women are encouraged to peruse an education.
Includes vintage photos as it traces the little-revealed struggles of Prudence Crandall and her students .......2006-01-14
Protestors broke school windows, put manure in the school well, pounded the doors with clubs, and villagers refused to sell schoolmistress Miss Crandall groceries or let her students attend the town church. Ultimately she was dragged to jail and put on trial. Her crime? Trying to teach Afro-American girls, and training to maintain one of the first black schools in America. Almost 150 pages includes vintage photos as it traces the little-revealed struggles of Prudence Crandall and her students for readers in grades 5-8.
She's Connecticut's state female hero, for good reason.......2005-12-23
In 1832, Prudence Crandall ran a private girls' boarding academy in Canterbury, a small Connecticut town located between Hartford and Providence, R.I. When a young African-American girl asked if she could attend Prudence's school, the teacher gladly took her in - much to the chagrin of local residents. In spite of their protests, Prudence went one step farther. Seeing that the educational need was a much larger one, she started a school just for "young Ladies and little Misses of color" in 1833, beginning with an enrollment of six girls from around New England. Even in a Northern state filled with abolitionists and anti-slavery supporters, this action was met with abhorence and eventual hostility. In retaliation, the legislature passed the Connecticut Black Law, which made it illegal to run a school for "colored persons who are not inhabitants of this State." Prudence was arrested and taken to court. She had powerful men on her side -- William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel May, and Arthur Tappan - and eventually, she was found innocent and the law was judged to be unconstitutional. But after the school was repeatedly vandalized, Prudence decided to close it in 1834. She married and moved out of the area, ending up in Kansas.
Her story could easily have ended there. Fifty years after she closed her school, the town of Canterbury and the state of Connecticut decided to apologize to Prudence. The Black Law had already been struck down in 1838. Now in 1886, the legislature granted her a pension of $400 a year to make up for the losses she suffered in the 1830s. Of course, the payment to her still didn't put an end to segregated schooling, but it was a step in the right direction. Prudence Crandall died in Elk Falls, Kansas, in 1890.
Suzanne Jurmain has done us a service by bringing Prudence Crandall's story to light and to life. Her re-telling makes for an interesting and easy read; and yet, it's the kind of real-life tale that makes one cringe at the behavior of one's fellow Americans, even those who are long, long gone. Jurmain concludes the book with a brief and necessary history of American civil rights since that time. The name of Prudence Crandall shouldn't slip through the cracks of our American history volumes. She should be as honored and as well-known as Rosa Parks.
Amazon.com
Once there was a little girl--an orphaned African princess--who narrowly escaped death by human sacrifice in a West African village in 1850. A British sea captain named Frederick E. Forbes saved her life by talking King Gezo of Dahomey into giving the girl to Queen Victoria of England as a gift: "She would be a present from the King of the blacks to the Queen of the Whites." As impossible as this tale sounds, it is a true one. Award-winning author Walter Dean Myers--piecing together her story from letters he found in a rare book and ephemera shop in London--paints a hauntingly detached portrait of the small African princess whom the heroic captain named Sarah Forbes Bonetta.
We follow her charmed but unlucky life as the Queen's protégée through a succession of British middle-class households, beginning with the Forbes home. Because of her celebrated association and frequent visits with the Queen, Sarah grows up in an unusual position of privilege, education, and celebrity. On the flip side, she is keenly aware that her decisions are not her own, and as a rescued orphan under the Queen's protection, her life's path is dictated by those acting in what they perceive to be her best interests. It is hard not to feel that it was cruel of her protectors to wrench her (more than once in her life) from the adopted family she adores, and eventually to encourage her to marry a West African businessman whom she clearly stated she could never love, and who would take her away from her adopted country. As the epilogue states, "She was both unfortunate in her losses, and fortunate that those losses were not greater.... She seemed to find a measure of comfort wherever she was, but was destined to be apart from the world in which she lived." This story, rich with historic prints, photographs, newspaper clippings, excerpts from Queen Victoria's diary, and Sarah's letters, is both fascinating and tragic. We have Myers to thank for rescuing this fine woman again--this time from the forgotten shelf of a London bookstore. (Ages 11 and older)
Customer Reviews:
Interesting and easy to read........2006-07-13
My son had to pick two books off of a large list to read over the summer for school. After reading the other reviews of this book, we picked it. It was a wonderful choice. The book was very interesting, fast paced, well written and easy to read. I read it in 3 hours, and my son was able to read in in a few nights without any complaints of boredom.
Why Isn't Hollywood Calling???.......2001-09-08
If any literary giant needs to have his work adapted to film, it is Myers. As one of the premier writers of fiction for juveniles, the author has added another significant piece to his long line of classics. This one tells the story of a little-known African princess who comes under the wing of England's legendary Queen Victoria.
Not only does the book reveal the horrors of the African slave trade, the atrocities that some tyrants inflict on their enemies, and the class system that pervades much of a "civilized" society, it is a marvelous tale of a girl who overcomes such obstacles and becomes the darling of English society.
Although Sarah's life is brief, it is a memorable one as the character grows from frightened child to a loving mother.
I am recommending that all my students read this book as well as others by Myers. Now, if only someone in "Tinsel Town" would discover this fine author.
I'd much rather see his stories on the big screen than any about a teenaged wizard.
Good book!.......2001-02-18
I think this is a very well written book. I think that Walter Dean Myers is an amazing writer and that it is great he found this fantastic girl that many have never heard of.
What I Think!.......2001-02-07
The book, At Her Majesty's Request was the most wonderful book I've read because it tells the story of how Sarah Bonetta overcomed so many problems. First w/ the horror of watching her parents being killed, and then almost being sacrificed by the slave holders because of who she was and where she lived.Then when she was saved by a white man whom she couldn't even understand becase she spoke a different language.And then soon after that she learned how to speak english and then she became friends w/ the Queen of England, Queen Victoria.So the book to me was very heart-warming and I hope you love the book too! Go Wells Wolverines!
Poignant and Unlikely Story of African Princess.......2000-08-14
"At Her Majesty's Request: An African Princess in Victorian England" tells the life story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who was born an African Egbado princess, captured by rival Dohamans and taken to Dahomey to be murdered in a ritual sacrifice, rescued and adopted by a British naval captain, taken to England and presented to Queen Victoria, and raised under the Queen's protection in England and Sierra Leone. This handsome book is a very fine biography for young readers; it includes many excerpts from Sarah's letters and the Queen's diaries, as well as historic illustrations. Relevant information about 19th century West Africa and Britain (e.g., the Dahomey empire, the slave trade and British actions to end it, Christian missions in Africa, Sierra Leone, the British class system, women's place in society, etc.) is well presented. Although Sarah's story is interesting because of its uniqueness, much about the lives of ordinary 19th century West Africans and Europeans can be learned here. Despite the fact that there is little material concerning Sarah's life, the author has done a fine job and readers interested in Africa should be glad he did. The book contains a useful bibliography which includes "Dahomey and the Dahomans" (1851) by Frederick E. Forbes (the captain who rescued and adopted Sarah).
19th century Dahomey is also the setting of "The Viceroy of Ouidah" by Bruce Chatwin.
Books:
- Silas Marner (Bantam Classics)
- Silent Stars
- Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity
- Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson
- Steve McQueen The Last Mile
- The Adventures of Tintin: The Calculus Affair / The Red Sea Sharks / Tintin in Tibet (3 Complete Adventures in 1 Volume, Vol. 6)
- The Complete Anne of Green Gables Boxed Set (Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne's House of Dreams, ... Rainbow Valley, Rilla of Ingleside)
- The Dark Side of the Light Chasers
- The Devil's Highway: A True Story
- The Drifting Classroom, Volume 5
Books Index
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