My Name Is America: The Journal Of William Thomas Emerson, A Revolutionary War Patriot (My Name Is America)

My Name Is America: The Journal Of William Thomas Emerson, A Revolutionary War Patriot (My Name Is America)
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Watch out ! Reading Level Deflated

The Journal of William Thomas Emerson, A Revolutionary War Patriot

Journal of William Thomas Emerson

A Regular Person's Perspective On Important Events

The boring life of a colonial kid

My Name Is America: The Journal Of William Thomas Emerson, A Revolutionary War Patriot (My Name Is America)
Barry Denenberg
Manufacturer: Scholastic Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Fiction | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Military & Wars | Fiction | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Colonial | Fiction | United States | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0590313509

Customer Reviews:

Watch out ! Reading Level Deflated.......2006-04-17

A fourth grade teacher used this book in her class for guided reading/literature circle, based on the age range listed. As a special educator in the classroom, I quickly became concerned for the vast majority of the class who did not grasp 80% of the book. The author requires the reader to draw many inferences, a difficult task for nine to ten-year olds. There is a great deal of historical period vocabulary and prior knowledge of the Revolutionary War and colonialism that needs to be pre-taught for anyone under sixth grade to comprehend, especially as the curriculum standards don't introduce the American Revolution until fifth grade.

In addition, there are pages of illustrations of handbills in Colonial English. If you plan to use this novel in a class lower than seventh grade, you had better create study guides!

The Journal of William Thomas Emerson, A Revolutionary War Patriot.......2006-03-13

I used this book for a literature circle group. Before reading you need to do a lot of background building about the conflicts between the British and the colonist that lead up to the revolutionary war. Lots of unfamiliar vocabulary. Good for very experienced readers. Less experienced readers will need more support. Very enjoyable reading and the students are learning a lot about the revolutionary war and colonial era

Journal of William Thomas Emerson.......2006-03-09

Can you imagine being a 14 year old boy and a orphan during the revolutionary war patriot in Boston, Massachusetts, 1774?
I'd like to introduce the Journal of William Thomas Emerson. By Barry DenenBerg a historical fiction.
William runs away so he can get away from the war, and Mrs. Thomason is the person who gives him work as a servant. Paying bills, doing chores, paying taxes. Things boys his age can't do. Usually things 14 year old boys cant do cause there to busy having fun. The setting of this book is in Boston Massachusetts summer of 1774. The setting of the book stays the same except for the year and the season. William is a spy and a run away kid. Mrs. Thomason helps William by giving him work and taking him in. Mr. Wilson brings William to Mrs. Thomason at the begging of the book.
What I liked about this book was that William is only 14, and can do all this stuff. I can't imagine being 14, and already doing all this. Can you? That would be hard. Don't you think?
What I didn't like is that it was confusing and hard to understand. Because, it was set back in 1774. During the Revolutionary War Patriot. The words were hard to say.
I think this book is realistic because, a boy could do bills, and runaway like he did. There was a Revolutionary War, so it's most likely realistic.
Here is two quotes from this book "one of the Fitch sisters is blind I think they should get the same treatment that Mr.Carslie did." This quote is important because, it shows you how they don't like the Fitch sisters. another quote is "Mr.Marsh is a drinking man; he can beat you till your black and blue!" This quote is important because, it shows you how it was back then.
I would recommend this book to other people. It's realistic and interesting. I would especially recommend this book to people who like to read journals about other peoples lives.
That was my book review hope you like it and please read this book.

A Regular Person's Perspective On Important Events.......2006-02-22

The life of 10 years-old William Thomas Emerson is forever changed when his family is killed when their home is struck by lightening. William eventually ends up at The Seven Stars Inn in Boston where he finds himself amidst the turbulent days leading up to America's Revolutionary War.

Written in the form of William's journal, this historical fiction provides the reader with a glimpse into young Mr. Emerson's life regarding events both mundane and profound. As a border at the Inn, William comes into contact with a committee of Patriots assists them in a number of tasks essential to the survival of liberty in America such as aiding in the defection of a British office to the Colonial side and in ferreting out a spy from the ranks of the committee's own membership.

Crafted as a first person account, Denenberg does not gloss over incidents that would shock our contemporary sensibilities as might be the case in a more detached theoretical account. Neither does he sugarcoat the shortcomings of either side.

For example, not only does Denenberg depict a Redcoat pummeling an innocent bystander to death, but he also portrays a Patriot mob that vandalizes and burns down the house of a Tory sympathizer.

Of America's Founding Fathers, it has been said they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. This truth is movingly emphasized in the book's epilogue where it is revealed what ultimately happens to the characters and one learns some of them were called upon to give the last full measure of devotion.

In addressing the purpose behind the book, Denenberg writes, "The American Revolution, more than any other event in American history, has been presented to young readers as an abstract, artificial, distant, and disembodied occurrence involving old men who wore funny clothes and later became statues and oil paintings...I hoped to accomplish two things: to reveal...what it was like to live in 1774 in Boston. And to bring the revolution to life by showing it affected ordinary people and how they affected it."

The Journal of William Thomas Emerson will help the reader better understand what those living at this period in American history had to endure and to more fully appreciate the gift of liberty those forefathers assisted in passing down to each one of us.

by Frederick Meekins

The boring life of a colonial kid.......2004-12-18

1 This book The Journal of William Thomas Emerson is about a boy who's parents die when he is young and he is token in by a kind lady. He struggles day by day to keep business whill the British haras him.
2 I thought this book was very boring because it was very stupid.
3 This book has a lot of external conflict. It has a lot of external conflict because he must deal with the harasment of British soldiers.
4 I gave this book one star because it was extremly booring. I do not recommend this book to anybody.

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"Uniquely American and Americanly Unique...."
Beautifully written, courageous, honest and enlightening
Fascinating Page-Turner!!
Very insightful, compelling read

My War at Home
Masuda Sultan
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0743480473

Book Description

Born in Kandahar in 1978, Sultan fled to the United States at age five with her family. Raised in Brooklyn and Flushing, Queens, Sultan saw her life change when she was married by arrangement at the young age of seventeen to a virtual stranger fourteen years her senior -- a marriage she struggled to maintain and then hastily fought, eventually (after three years) being granted a divorce. This very divorce would become one of the first in her close-knit Afgan community, where the subject is considered rare and taboo.

Sultan went on to graduate from college summa cum laude with a degree in economics, and in July 2001, she returned to Kandahar, to explore her family roots and find herself. There she met her relatives and surveyed the conservative provincial town where she was born. on return visit to afganistan, she discovered the tragic death of her relatives at the hands of American troops and began to seek answers.

My War at Home is her memoir of self-discovery, family tradition, and life as a Muslim and feminist with political ideals. It speaks to the younger generation of Muslims in America as they struggle to resolve the ever-present inner conflict about what it means to be an American and a Muslim, while also examining the Muslim-American identity at both personal and political levels.

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"My War at Home is her memoir of self-discovery, family tradition, and life as a Muslim and feminist with political ideals. It speaks to the younger generation of Muslims in America as they struggle to resolve the ever-present inner conflict about what it means to be an American and a Muslim, while also examining the Muslim-American identity at both personal and political levels. "My War at Home is her memoir of self-discovery, family tradition, and life as a Muslim and feminist with political ideals. It speaks to the younger generation of Muslims in America as they struggle to resolve the ever-present inner conflict about what it means to be an American and a Muslim, while also examining the Muslim-American identity at both personal and political levels.

Customer Reviews:

"Uniquely American and Americanly Unique....".......2006-07-12

The story of an immigrant seeking the American dream and also the story of an American striving to meld her conservative heritage with Western freedom, Ms. Sultan's tome is a modern day reckoning of the experiences of all peoples who sought bridgehead on the shores of the United States -- set against the backdrop of a war in the backyards of both her past and future, a war where the casualties she experienced were family members, freedom, and in many senses identity. From the embarassment wearing home-made clothes to public school as a child of an illiterate mother, to breaking out of the strangulation of an arranged marriage in her teenage years - to the triumph of influencing the Afghan Constitution in the name of women's rights as an international leader, Ms. Sultan's story reverberates with both common humanness and hums with the timbres of early greatness. Ms. Sultan's book pushes envelopes most other authors don't even know exist. Her story is uniquely American and Americanly unique. At not yet 30, she has already begun to change the world, and this relevant, engaging, provocative, fun, sad, and sometimes disturbing tome are easily a first volume of a life meant to meaningfully impact the planet we inhabit. "My War At Home" is a book for the present and the future.

Beautifully written, courageous, honest and enlightening.......2006-04-08

I was astounded from the first page of this amazing account and was not able to put the book down until I'd finished it and the issues she raises in her book now have me tied in knots and puzzled as to the solutions. Masuda herself told us she is confused and who in her shoes would not be? How many people would risk even their most precious thing...the relationship with her family in this case, to tell a story that needs to be told? It is even more amazing because Masuda is only 28 years old. Such wisdom is seldom found in people twice Masuda's age; her courage and honesty are exceedingly rare and should be applauded rather than scorned and mislabeled as pandering for attention. Masuda blames noone for what happens to her. In fact that is her point...we have people living in the same country but on completely different planets and people stuck within their own cultures and unable to transcend it even when they themselves are hurt by their beliefs or actions. Afghanistan has impoverished itself with its own denial of education to its people and especially women. At the same time this does not make it right for the United States to impose its culture and kill innocent people in the name of moral superiority or freedom. A messy and complicated story told in a very eloquent and moving way. My head is spinning and I am wondering what I personally can do to help Masuda in her cause. Bravo!!! This book is a must-read for almost everyone and I am sending it to all my friends this year for their birthday.

Fascinating Page-Turner!!.......2006-03-15

Masuda's story is incredible. I couldn't put it down and have already recommended it to dozens of people. Masuda for President!!

Very insightful, compelling read.......2006-03-06

If you've ever seen an American Muslim woman walking down the streets of New York or anywhere else in the US and wondered about the many Americas in which we live, this book is for you. How do these people live and think in a USA that is as much theirs as it is ours? My direct experiences of my own country couldn't be more different than Masuda's. I grew up in the mid-west and most of my friends were white mid-westerners. Growing up, I knew on an intellectual level that there are a lot of different ethnicities that make up our country but every time I passed a Hassidic Jew, an American Hindu wearing a turban or an American Muslim woman covering her hair I wondered what their lives were like and how they experienced America. This book offers amazing insight into how this specific minority lives and thinks. What's more, upon meeting Masuda (disclaimer - I have) you could also come to the conclusion that no one is more quintessentially American. She seems to completely bridge the gap and can relate to me as much as I imagine her being able to relate to a shop keeper in Kabul.

The more people like her that we have helping us understand our interlocutors in the Middle East the better off America will be. Masuda shows us that we're all human and that understanding the perspective of the other side is key to reaching any long-lasting mutually beneficial relationship with their countries of origin.

My Holy War: Dispatches from the Home Front

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Outside view

My Holy War: Dispatches from the Home Front
Jonathan Raban
Manufacturer: New York Review Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Iraq | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

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Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America
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ASIN: 1590171756
Release Date: 2005-11-15

Book Description

Ranging from Seattle to Cairo, from the high seas to the US presidential campaign, Raban brings a distinctive and often unexpected perspective to the issues facing post-September 11 America.

What does the "war on terror" and a new era of religious ferocity look like to an Englishman living in the Pacific Northwest? Jonathan Raban finds, as he reads the source texts that have inspired modern-day jihad, memories of his own adolescent atheism help him understand why young people suffering from cultural alienation and moral uncertainty turn to a backward-looking version of Islam to help them resist the upheavals of modernity.

Raban reflects on the Bush administration's manipulation of the threat of terrorism to undermine civil rights. In diagnosing what has gone wrong in the Iraq war, he emphasizes the US failure to understand the history of the Middle East, and explains the region's shifting and complex loyalties of religion and ethnicity. He traces the continuing support for a disastrous war to the legacy of American Puritanism: the tendency of Americans to be inspired by a religious fervor oblivious to history and reason. And he explores the increasing polarization of American politics, as exemplified by the issues that he has seen divide his urban from his non urban neighbors in the Northwest.

Customer Reviews:

Outside view.......2005-12-11

A small but valuable and articulate series of essays on 9/11 and subsequent events and issues written from the vantage point of a British author living on the West Coast of the US. Raban builds upon insights into Arabic culture acquired for an earlier work to offer a perceptive point of view. Recommended.

My Mother's Fort: : A Photographic Tribute to Fort Des Moines, First Home of the Woman's Army Corps

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My Mother's Fort: : A Photographic Tribute to Fort Des Moines, First Home of the Woman's Army Corps
Penelope A. Blake
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Fort Des Moines (IA) (Images of America)

ASIN: 1419608177
Release Date: 2005-10-20

Book Description

In the summer of 1942, 440 women walked through the stone gate of Fort Des Moines to become the first female military officers in American history. In the months and years to come, thousands of women would follow, serving in non-combat roles in order to free thousands more men to fight on the front lines against totalitarianism during the bloodiest conflict in human history, World War II. Among these women was a red-headed farm girl from Illinois, Carrie Jones LeFew.

Married to a soldier who became "Missing in Action" when the Philippines fell to the Japanese in May 1942, Carrie joined the Women"s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) for the same reason thousands of others did: to do her part to bring the war to a swift end so that her life with the man she loved could begin again. She was assigned duty at Fort Des Moines where she would spend most of the next four years of her life as she moved up the ranks of the military, eventually achieving the officer's rank of captain. Her wartime journal provides a personal and poignant frame for this story of the fort she came to love.

Today, most of the historic fort, once called the "West Point of the Midwest," has been demolished. The few remaining original buildings have been renovated and now represent the Fort Des Moines Education and Research Center, which opened in July 2004. The center pays homage to the entire history of Fort Des Moines, from its earliest days as a cavalry post which saw the first African-Americans become army officers to its role as the first home of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in World War II.

My Mother's Fort: A Photographic Tribute to Fort Des Moines, First Home of the Women's Army Corps captures this entire history both through the words of those who served at the fort and hundreds of photographs from its earliest cavalry days to its current renovation. The book is the culmination of over three years of research, including extensive interviews with former "WACs" and others who lived at the fort, the study of every primary source available on its long history (including many published and unpublished WAC memoirs), and on-site research at the current fort. As a result, this book offers the only comprehensive history and photographic documentation of Fort Des Moines.

Man-O-War, my island home: A history of an Outer Abaco Island
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Man-O-War, my island home: A history of an Outer Abaco Island
Haziel L Albury
Manufacturer: Holly Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006XSVGQ

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Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000

So what is the answer?

California Al

GREAT BOOK FOR UNIVERSITY COURSES!!!

Bible for our generation

Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000
Martin Torgoff
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Amazon.com

Martin Torgoff came of age just about the same time as the drug boom, a circumstance that informs his overview of America's "Great Stoned Age." Chronicling the irrepressible onslaught of mind-altering substances from the end of World War II through the close of the century, Torgoff (whose previous publishing efforts have centered around rockers Elvis Presley and John Cougar Mellencamp) intersperses the personal with the historical. Laying the groundwork with his own recollections of indulgence beginning in the late 1960s, the author flashes back to the Beat era, which he asserts opened the door for all that followed. Interviews with the obscure and celebrated add color and detail to the chronicle. Here's Herbert Huncke, the unapologetic hustler and heroin addict who lurked on the periphery of '50s bohemian scene and turned up as a character in William Burroughs' pulp memoir Junkie. Into the 1960s, there's acid guru Timothy Leary, poet Allan Ginsburg, record producer Paul Rothchild, Woodstock MC Wavy Gravy, and others caught up in a wave of revolutionary experimentation and excess. The '70s leads to the cocaine craze (embodied here by party girl Suzie Ryan), which begets drug wars (with plenty of casualties on both sides), Just Say No, the crack epidemic, and rave culture. While Torgoff's tome is too capricious to serve as the final word on America's drug obsession, it's eminently readable and entertaining, thanks to its expansive, pop-culture-informed tone. There's an almost insane momentum to this tale, with dozens of astonishing twists and turns. Imagine Jimmy Carter's drug czar, Dr. Peter Bourne, snorting cocaine at a party thrown the by pot legalization group NORML. Then picture George H.W. Bush's point man on drugs, William Bennett, remarking in an interview that it would be "morally plausible" to behead drug dealers. So much for moderation. --Steven Stolder

Book Description

Can't Find My Way Home is a history of illicit drug use in America in the second half of the twentieth century and a personal journey through the drug experience. It's the remarkable story of how America got high, the epic tale of how the American Century transformed into the Great Stoned Age.

Martin Torgoff begins with the avant-garde worlds of bebop jazz and the emerging Beat writers, who embraced the consciousness-altering properties of marijuana and other underground drugs. These musicians and writers midwifed the age of marijuana in the 1960s even as Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) discovered the power of LSD, ushering in the psychedelic era. While President John Kennedy proclaimed a New Frontier and NASA journeyed to the moon, millions of young Americans began discovering their own new frontiers on a voyage to inner space. What had been the province of a fringe avant-garde only a decade earlier became a mass movement that affected and altered mainstream America.

And so America sped through the century, dropping acid and eating magic mushrooms at home, shooting heroin and ingesting amphetamines in Vietnam, snorting cocaine in the disco era, smoking crack cocaine in the devastated inner cities of the 1980s, discovering MDMA (Ecstasy) in the rave culture of the 1990s.

Can't Find My Way Home tells this extraordinary story by weaving together first-person accounts and historical background into a narrative vast in scope yet rich in intimate detail. Among those who describe their experiments with consciousness are Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Robert Stone, Wavy Gravy, Grace Slick, Oliver Stone, Peter Coyote, David Crosby, and many others from Haight Ashbury to Studio 54 to housing projects and rave warehouses.

But Can't Find My Way Home does not neglect the recovery movement, the war on drugs, and the ongoing debate over drug policy. And even as Martin Torgoff tells the story of his own addiction and recovery, he neither romanticizes nor demonizes drugs. If he finds them less dangerous than the moral crusaders say they are, he also finds them less benign than advocates insist.

Illegal drugs changed the cultural landscape of America, and they continue to shape our country, with enormous consequences. This ambitious, fascinating book is the story of how that happened.

Download Description

"Can't Find My Way Home is a history of illicit drug use in America in the second half of the twentieth century and a personal journey through the drug experience. It's the remarkable story of how America got high, the epic tale of how the American Century transformed into the Great Stoned Age.

Customer Reviews:

Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000.......2006-11-12

An excellent and very detailed history of drugs and its impact on our society. The book is thoroughly researched. It's entertaining and very readable. It's not only a review of the history of drugs in American society but also covers a number of individuals and the effect narcotics had on them. I found it fascinating and scary. Having lived through those turbulent times it brought back many memories.
Pictures and a summary of the cast of characters would have enhanced the book. All in all a good read.

So what is the answer?.......2005-05-29

If you have been there then you know the answer. The question is: Why did we travel there in the first place. Addictions are sneaky. Sometimes we write about them, other times we fight them. Addicted movie stars are just addicts. Hard drugs have no respect for who we are.

California Al.......2004-06-24

I wanted to be interested in this book, but it became pretty boring ater a while. There is an undercurrent of romanticism that pervades the authors purpose. He claims to be neutral, yet his descriptions and conversations with many of the people slant towards idol worship. Although the author claims to be in recovery, I did not get the sense of how drugs and alcohol can ruin peoples lives. I felt that his narrative was self serving, and glorifying the wonders of drugs and experimentation. There is a price to pay. What was good was hearing his father's take on the whole down side of watching his son grow up loaded. That was interesting. I'm getting weary of the proselytizing about how epochal the 1960's, 70's and 80's were. I didn't like his picture either.

GREAT BOOK FOR UNIVERSITY COURSES!!!.......2004-05-26

I'm reading this book a bit at a time. Each part is like a little history lesson - full of specific people, places and things that I've heard a lot of stories about - usually from folks who didn't have a great deal of clarity when they were either living through them OR speaking about them.

Torgoff has that clarity and there's humor in his prose that gives it a certain kind of bop. Yes, it's a long book. Most people who write long books these days write them as if they are "afraid of going to hell" for having done so - there's no ease, things get really claustrophobic in such books. Torgoff sails through this material not so much like a man who's afraid of going to hell...but as a man who's been there.

There's a kind of ease, a kind of compassion and a sense of spaciousness to Torgoff's style in this work. The length of the book doesn't seem that long. Maybe it would SEEM LONGER if Torgoff attempted to adapt his style to the demands of the market...some kind of a weekly reader version of the lifes, legends, loves (and drugs) of the times he's telling us about. Thank GOD he didn't cave into that.

Can't Find My Way Home makes me want to listen to a hell of a lot of music, see some movies again and read more books about the myriad folks who inhabit this book.

I see this book as a definite college text for classes focusing on the the history of jazz, rock and roll, film and literature in the last sixty years of American culture.

The fact that Torgoff weaves his own story into this piece communicates to me that he's not of those people who goes around chanting phrases like "If you remember the 60's you weren't there". Torgoff indicates to the reader that he was "there" and that he managed to extricate himself from the oblivion of those times through either the grace of God, or his own luck, karma or whatever.

Thus, Torgoff's writing in this book is infused with a kind of all pervasive sharpness, like the razor edge of a hatchet, that only comes from the words of those who have lived...and survived. I have a sense that Torgoff has been swinging this blade for some time...I suspect he's cut through a great deal of his own personal reference points in order to find the patience and perseverance to not only deliver this work...but to have the humility to title the work as he has.

Bravo!!

Bible for our generation.......2004-05-25

This is a fantastic book--the history of our time, the author's insights and synthesis. It's wildly affecting and entertaining, and it's bigger than what it seems to be about. Torgoff has a touch of Balzac in him, that's for sure. He gets the joke, but he also captures the loss and pathos. I especially liked his own story--he wove it into the narrative in a really detached way that made it all the more affecting. I stayed up all night reading.

All My Love, Forever: Letters Home from a World War II Citizen Soldier, Written in 1943-1945

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Delightful!
I couldn't put the book down!

All My Love, Forever: Letters Home from a World War II Citizen Soldier, Written in 1943-1945
Lloyd D. Lane
Manufacturer: 1st Books Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Military & Spies | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This is a compilation of poignant excerpts from 760 letters written by a soldier during World War II to his wife and newborn son. They cover 34 months from his being drafted to being bound for Europe.

Customer Reviews:

Delightful!.......2007-03-08

Real life letters from a soldier to his beloved wife and son during World War II, written by two of that soldier's sons. The love and longing are palpable in Lloyd's letters to Irma and David. So many of the humorous, serious and mundane events of a WWII soldiers life are here, along with a look at the war itself and the friendships it created. The book was written with as much love as the original letters.

I couldn't put the book down!.......2002-07-12

I highly recommend this read to anyone interested in WWII or anyone who has experienced it. I'm 32, and I learned a lot about the war that our grandparents didn't like to talk about. The letters that Mr. and Mrs. Lane left behind are true treasures. It was like the letters were being wrote to me. Very romantic, emotional, sad at parts and happy at most. I don't think I've ever read a book so fast, just so I could find out what was happening next. You'll laugh, cry, and WON'T be abole to put it down. This makes a great gift for anyone. I bought one for my grandmother, and she loves it! My grandfather was in the war, and I know she can really relate to it. ENJOY!!

My Faraway Home: An American Family's WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival in the Jungles of the Philippines

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Stories from WWII
Stranded by War
Interesting WWII story
WW II -- UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
evocative and insightful

My Faraway Home: An American Family's WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival in the Jungles of the Philippines
Mary McKay Maynard
Manufacturer: The Lyons Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1585747238

Book Description

A beautifully written, courageous memoir of a wartime childhood behind enemy lines. (SEE QUOTES. Use #2 if not too long.)

Customer Reviews:

Stories from WWII.......2007-05-10

This is a marvelous book and makes for fascinating reading. Gave me pause to reflect and wonder if I would have the strength to endure a similar hadrship. WWII was such a long time ago and it shaped the lives of so many people around the world. It is great that there are some really worthy movies available to educate the young people about sacrifices made by their grandparents (I should say great-grandparents) generation.

Stranded by War .......2007-02-26

When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in World War II most American soldiers and civilians surrendered. A few took to the hills and spent the war years as guerillas or simply hiding out from the Japanese. The author was an eight year old child during the war, the daughter of an American couple managing a gold mine on the island of Mindanao. They chose to live in the jungle and evade the Japanese. They didn't have any thrilling adventures, but the description of their day-to-day life is vivid and interesting.

The author doesn't pull any punches about her experiences. Neither of her parents are sympathetic people, nor are many of the other characters. She tells us of being sexually molested by an older boy. She gives us a picture of the stress the fugitives were under from the standpoint of a young girl.

One of the interesting aspects of the book was the almost-total separation of foreigner and Filipino before the war. The foreigners, mostly Americans, were unfamiliar even with Filipino food. Western men who married Filipino women were outcasts and the social and cultural separation of the cultures was almost complete. The automatic assumption by Americans and Europeans of the superiority of their cultures has broken down in part over the last half-century -- and that's a good thing.

As a true and true-to-life story of people uprooted by war, this is one of the best you will find.

Smallchief

Interesting WWII story.......2003-05-05

A child in remote Phillipines at the outbreak of the ware. The author leans heavily on her mother's diary for material.

WW II -- UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.......2003-04-18

Ms Maynard reaches a long way back into her memory to bring us this absorbing tale of a family forced to hide in the jungle on Mindanao when World War II broke out. The Japanese took over the Philippines, leaving nine-year old Mary McKay, her parents and a brother away at boarding school, stranded. With the American Pacific fleet sunk at Pearl Harbor, General McArthurýs advice that Americans were in no danger turned out to be very wrong. McArthur was a stockholder in Mindanao Mother Lode, a mining operation where the authorýs father worked. From a comfortable existence with servants to cook their meals and wash their clothes, this family had to flee to another inactive mining camp well into the interior of the island, where they were further from the Japanese soldiers now swarming over the coastal areas.

Other families in the same situation lived with them at Gomoco, a gold mining camp that consisted of a few rickety buildings with a little stream flowing by. That stream became a river as it flowed to the coast, but boats could not navigate through the shallow water near the camp. Maryýs father was in charge of the collection of people who came and went over a two year period, and he presided over numerous arguments, often over whether to use more of the canned food or (as Mr. McKay thought) to preserve it for the even tougher times that might come.

In the end, the family is rescued by an American submarine that took them aboard to share the tight quarters with sailors, dodging Japanese ships as they made their way to Darwin, Australia. Maryýs brother Bob spent the years in internment camps and was rescued from a prison in Manila when the Americans finally came and took back the Philippines. General McArthur kept his promise to come back.

The book includes snatches of Maryýs motherýs diary which she kept during the years of hiding. I suspect this was the main source of information from so long ago, although surely a girl who lived through so much peril and fear would not forget these events. But research and that diary must have supplied many of the details. Mary gives us interesting glimpses into the complicated relationship of her parents -- a father who could not understand his wifeýs need for comfort and reassurance, and a mother who begged her Filipino suppliers to find lipstick, believing that putting on a good face could hide her fears. The author also is willing to deal with the lopsided relationship between the Americans and the hard-working and loyal Filipinos, who did most of the work of keeping the foreigners fed and safe. That did not keep the Americans from feeling superior or making fun of the ýpigeon Englishý spoken by the natives. It took many more years of living for the author to see how insensitive and ungrateful were these actions.

I found the story pulled me in as I read, and I wanted to find out what new problems would appear and to learn how this family would finally found their way back home, whatever ýhomeý had come to mean to them. Once Mindanao ýfellý they had to decide whether to give themselves up (as the Japanese demanded of all Americans) or to continue to try to evade notice. Eventually enough servicemen and civilians who did not surrender themselves were able to put together an organized guerilla action to provide mutual support, harass the Japanese and keep in contact with American military forces fighting the war. That led to the submarine rescue and the end of the book, an interesting story from a time soon to be relegated to history books as memories fade completely and the story tellers are with us no more. This book is a rare opportunity to see the war from a new perspective, through the eyes of a child who experienced the disruption and terror of war up close and personal.

evocative and insightful.......2002-02-04

I learned about this book from my high school alumni web page and read it mostly out of curiousity. A fascinating book, a coming-of-age tale of a young girl in wartime. I so appreciated the author's skillful melding of her childish observations and her retrospective adult understanding of this difficult period of her life. She unflinchingly, and often humorously, describes the colonial prejudices of her parents and other Americans in their small community, their condescension toward Filipinos and Filipino-American mestizos, the tensions arising from a basic incompatibility between her parents, their strained relations with other fugitives from the war, and even a sexual assault. What makes the book so special, beyond its extraordinary tale, is the author's mature and sensitive handling of the subject matter. She owns up to her own failings and seeks to understand and forgive those of others, without condoning bad behavior. As an expatriate child in the Philippines (more than 20 years ago), I too felt superior to and made fun of the locals and am now heartily ashamed of it. Just as it took age and distance to fully appreciate my family, I can now admit to my love for the Philippines and her peoples. Our situations were so different, nevertheless McKay's words resonated strongly for me and inspire me to seek to develop even a fraction of her graciousness.

Book Description

A classic American story of a young man's return from war and his search for peaceâwhile rafting the entire length of the Mississippi River.

One August day, veteran Marcus Eriksen set off on a journey down the entire length of the great Mississippi River on a homemade raft kept afloat by 232 empty soda bottles, recycled junk, and a dose of ingenuity. Though he had never made such a trip beforeâ2,000 miles from Lake Itasca, Minnesota, past his childhood home near New Orleans, to the Gulf of Mexicoâhe had dreamed of doing it over a decade earlier, while serving amid sandstorms and oil fires in Kuwait as a marine in the Gulf War.

While struggling against a river with an unpredictable personality, Eriksen recounts a personal shift from proud soldier to self-destructive veteran to engaged activist protesting the injustices of the Iraq War. Startlingly honest and warm with affection for the people he meets, in My River Home Eriksen explains, through his own story, the allure of the military, the tragedy of modern war, and the courage it takes to fulfill a dream.

"A beautiful story of healing, hope, faith, and renewal. Eriksen takes us on an extraordinary journey; home from war, chaos, and sorrow, down the mighty Mississippi, he searches to find meaning in all that has been lost and all that has been wasted." âRon Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July

"All politicians considering war as a policy toolâespecially those with no personal military experienceâshould read this book, and take special note of Marcus Eriksen's epiphany as he wandered with his brother amongst Iraqi corpses during the Gulf War. 'I'm glad it wasn't us,' says his brother. Eriksen, with the added perspective of the current Iraq War, finds devastating precision for his response: 'But it was.' The futility and tragedy of war is made agonizingly clear by the inspirational journeys recounted with searing elegance in My River Home."
âPeter Laufer, author of Mission Rejected: U. S. Soldiers Say No to Iraq

"My River Home is a Homeric epic that starts at the top of the United States, plummets to the depths of the Gulf War, and probes the soul of a man born to be a Marine who learns the dangerous truth that 'sometimes patriotism requires that one be willing to protect one's nation from its own government.' Through vivid stories, Eriksen exposes the tragic personal consequences of corporatocracy policiesâwars that enrich a few and ruin the lives of millions."
âJohn Perkins, author of the NY Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

"Marcus Eriksen is a natural writer. In the best American tradition of Twain, Kerouac, and others, he uses the hard-fought journey as a means to cross not only physical space but psychic space as well. Eriksen's memoir cuts to the core of the great dilemma of what it means to be an American man. As his story of an epic journey down the Mississippi attests, he is immensely courageous, determined to overcome every obstacle in his path, and an ingenious problem-solver. But as the memories that won't leave him alone attest: he, like so many other Americans, both male and female, allowed himself to be trained and used as a professional killer. The beauty of this book is that Eriksen takes it one step further: he begins the forging of a badly-needed new archetypeâan American man who is both participant and witness in the great struggle for forgiveness and a final end to all war."
âGerald Nicosia, author of Home to War

"Eriksen is honest and reflective about the way his character has been formed . . . a complex, subtle portrait of what makes the warrior spiritâwhether fighting for his country abroad or fighting for peace at home. So when he talks about what we owe our servicemenâour time and attention, first of allâit has the ring of conviction and wisdom . . . Marcus Eriksen, a hero indeed, speaks for soldiers everywhere when he writes of the need for peace.
âTimes-Picayune (New Orleans)

Customer Reviews:

A fantastic book!.......2007-07-11

This is one of those rare books that comes along once every decade or so that everyone should read. The true story deals with the realities of war, which are sharply contrasted with tales of a raft trip from the source of the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. This book had me laughing out loud on one page and gripping the book in suspense the next.

Through the book, from his time in the First Gulf War to his 2003 trek down the Mississippi, the author is candid and open about his surroundings and the people he encounters along the way, and objectively articulates his own thoughts and feelings, both at the time of the events and retrospectively. The book is an amazing tale of reflection and self-discovery, and the realization that no matter how far your travels may take you, the greatest journey is always the path that leads to yourself.

A travelogue or true adventure.......2007-06-09

MY RIVER HOME: A JOURNEY FROM THE GULF WAR TO THE GULF OF MEXICO tells of the author's five-month, 2000-mile voyage down the length of the Mississippi on a homemade raft. It was while on this journey that Ericksen found the courage and ability to understand his war experiences, and here tells of his many military changes from new recruit to self-destructive veteran to a critic of the Iraq War. While MY RIVER HOME could easily have been reviewed as a travelogue or true adventure, what makes it so much more is its insights on military transitions - and so it reviews feature here.

Brilliant weaving of two parallel narratives.......2007-03-31

I loved this book. Humor, whoring, introspection, adventure, and a personal reckoning with the state of the world and the prospect of free will. What's not to like? I am impressed with Eriksen's ability to so dexterously interweave the two narratives: his Gulf War experience and his Mississippi River trip. And at the end of that braid hangs a pearl. I'm not going to drop a spoiler here, but just say that the existential challenges Eriksen faced, every veteran of the Iraq war will face. I'm glad his book is here for them. I'm also glad his book was there to open the eyes of civilians like me who understand what the military-industrial complex is, but do not understand how it affects the lives of those who were an active part in it. Thanks Eriksen!

Wonderful, engaging and beautifully written.......2007-03-30

Eriksen delivers an amazing story and gripping account. He is a truly talented storyteller and this is a book that is tough to put down.

More importantly is that he pulls off something very hard in one book: while critcizing America's involvement in the war we're in now, the one he personally fought in, and all of his disallusionments along the way he undertakes the most American adverture of all: navigating the Mississippi on a raft like a modern day Huck Finn. It's a great reminder of what our values as a country really are - not what we're told they are.

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