Hank Finds an Egg
A wordless picture book speaks volumes.
See Hank Finds an Egg at amazon.com
by Janice Harayda '70
What is the use of a book without pictures or conversation?" Alice asks in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Looking at the recent bounty of wordless picture books, you might instead wonder: What's the use of a book without words?
Rebecca Dudley '85 offers a wonderfully imaginative answer in Hank Finds an Egg (Peter Pauper, 2013), a wordless picture book that tells a captivating story so clearly that even very young children will have little trouble understanding it.
Hank Finds an Egg depicts the adventures of a furry woodland creature in a way that makes guessing his unspecified species part of the fun. The New York Times describes Hank as "a small, hand-sewn stuffed monkey." Elizabeth Bird sees it differently on the School Library Journal website: "I think he's a bear, though his tail is admittedly a bit long."
No one could mistake Hank for a dog. But part of his charm lies in the lovably canine mannerisms he displays upon finding a white egg that has fallen from a hummingbird's nest in a tree high above him. Hank tries a clever but unsuccessful strategy for returning the egg to its perch with a homemade ladder. Then he comes up with a tactic that enables the mother bird to hoist the egg and hatch her full brood, whom Hank treats in the last pages as potential friends.
Drawing on her background as an architect, Dudley has created by hand all the flora and fauna, skies, and ponds that appear in the beautifully composed dioramas of a forested realm at once real and magical. Her pictures capture the enchantment of everyday sights and eloquently reaffirm what we instinctively know: Sometimes the beauty of nature transcends words. Hank Finds an Egg is also a quietly subversive entry in a field in which nurturing animals still tend to be overwhelming female. Dudley's forest scenes may look timeless, but their theme couldn't be more timely: Men and boys, too, find deep joy in caring for others.
Catherine
This modern Wuthering Heights has a punk rock beat.
See Catherine at amazon.com
by Janice Harayda '70
Novelists have set retellings of Wuthering Heights at a school in Maine, on the island of Guadeloupe, and in other places far from the Yorkshire moors of Emily Bronte's classic tale of doomed love. But April Lindner '84 is almost certainly the first to move the action to a rock club in downtown Manhattan, where her stand-in for Catherine Earnshaw once had a tumultuous romance with a brooding young musician.
That premise—if it sounds improbable—makes perfect sense when you consider the surly, defiant hero of Wuthering Heights. And in her young-adult novel Catherine (Poppy/Little, Brown, 2013), Lindner finds a natural counterpart for Bronte's Heathcliff in Hence, the former frontman for a band called Riptide. Hence fell in love with Catherine Eversole when she and her family lived above the Underground, a storied punk-rock club owned by her father, Jim.
Like Heathcliff, Hence lost his Catherine to a man who could offer her a more stable life, but he remains so obsessed with her that he buys the Underground after Jim Eversole's death, in case she returns. The story takes off when Catherine's 17-year-old daughter, Chelsea—whose father had told her that her mother was dead—shows up at the club after finding a letter suggesting she may be alive. Hence's volatility makes for a fast-paced plot as Chelsea risks her life trying to learn what happened to her mother.
An award-winning poet who updated another Bronte classic in Jane, Lindner writes here from the alternating perspectives of Chelsea and, via an old diary, her vanished mother. Lindner follows the broad contours of Bronte's plot, but for many teenagers—and for the many adults who read young adult fiction—the true pleasure of this book may lie in its sympathetic portrayal of punk. Catherine shows why, at a certain stage of life, it's normal to rebel. And that may comfort not just teens but parents who, decades later, still cringe at the memory of their own youthful excesses. ~
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Of Note:
Fallen Forests: Emotion, Embodiment, and Ethics in American Women's Environmental Writing, 1781-1924
by Karen L. Kilcup '77G The University of Georgia Press, 2013
See at amazon.com
Field Notes
by Charles Butterfield '54 Encircle Publications, 2013
See at amazon.com
Navigating Through Teen Challenges
by Mary Murphy Gryczka '65 Mill City Press, 2013
See at amazon.com
Also of Note:
Acts of Conspicuous Compassion: Performance Culture and American Charity Practices
by Sheila Moeschen '98 University of Michigan Press, 2013
See at amazon.com
Sheila C. Moeschen brokers a new way of accounting for the legacy and involvement of disabled people within charity—specifically, the articulation of performance culture as a vital theoretical framework for discussing issues of embodiment and identity dislodges previously held notions of the disabled existing as passive, "objects" of pity. This work gives rise to a more complicated and nuanced discussion of the participation of the disabled community in the charity industry, of the opportunities afforded by performance culture for disabled people to act as critical agents of charity, and of the new ethical and political issues that arise from employing performance methodology in a culture with increased appetites for voyeurism, display, and complex spectacle.
The Encyclopedia of Sports and Recreation for People With Visual Impairments
by Andrew Leibs '87G Information Age Publishing, 2012
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The Encyclopedia of Sports & Recreation for People with Visual Impairments is the first consumer-focused, action-oriented guide to this new world of accessible activity, profiling the people, programs, and products that are helping move blind and visually impaired people from the sidelines into the game. This groundbreaking guide profiles every accessible blind sport and recreation activity with entries that outline how athletes (both novice and elite) got involved in the sport and how participation has shaped their life. The book also profiles major blind sports organizations and includes chapter and resource listings on camps and accessible recreation providers. Through this book, blind people will be inspired to embrace sports as the rest of society does-as a vital component of personal expression and human interaction that opens paths to adventure, confidence, and lifelong health and fitness.
The ELL Writer: Beyond Basics in the Secondary Classroom
by Christina Ortmeier-Hooper '98G, '07G Teachers College Press, 2013
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This resource for secondary school ELA and ELL teachers brings together compelling insights into student experiences, current research, and strategies for building an inclusive writing curriculum. The ELL Writer expands the current conversation on the literacy needs of adolescent English learners by focusing on their writing approaches, their texts, and their needs as student writers. Vivid portraits look at tangible moments within these students' lives that depict not only the difficulties but also the possibilities that they bring with them into the classroom. The case studies are complemented by findings from current research studies by second-language writing specialists that will inform today's classroom teachers.
Financing Our Food Shed
by Carol Peppe Hewitt '74 New Society Publishers, 2013
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Financing Our Foodshed is a collection of real life stories of these Slow Money pioneers and the local food entrepreneurs, sustainable farmers, bakers, and restaurateurs that they have chosen to support. Fueled by their desire to do more than just eat local food, lenders of "nurture capital" are making low-interest, peer-to-peer loans to the people who produce, process, distribute, and sell food. Financing Our Foodshed tells the compelling stories of ordinary people doing something extraordinary, and will appeal to anyone who understands the critical importance of sustainably grown local food and resilient local economies, and wants a blueprint to get us there.
Icons of the Civil Rights Movement
by Pamela Chatterton-Purdy '63 , self published, 2012
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This book has a foot in two worlds: art and history. With the inspiring art work of Pamela Chatterton-Purdy, the "Icons of the Civil Rights Movement" honors those who sacrificed for freedom. The use of the iconic form (gold leaf on wood panel) represents the sacred nature of the Movement's non-violent philosophy. This casebound book is enhanced by Rev. David Purdy's written account of the people and events depicted in the 26 icons.
The Pale of Memory
by Peter Halsey Sherwood '90 , iUniverse, 2012
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In the mid-1990s, Manhattan quivered under a dreadful affliction. For one group of New Yorkers, what starts out as a caper worthy of the Hardy Boys themselves quickly spirals into a reckless mission of obsession and a dangerous love affair with dire consequences. Crafted with the focused perspective of the voyeur, the pale of memory portrays a shifting world of the questionable protagonist, a young man named Scott. As he attempts to hide his secrets, he also tries to transform his new lover in a desperate attempt to recreate his own past. For Scott, nothing is as it seems in the swirling vortex of lies, trickery, and emotional misdirection. As perceptions are revealed and confronted, everything Scott wants to believe is challenged with haunting vigor. Too soon, Scott's mania reveals more than he can comprehend or manage. From the darkest memories of his curious, confusing past, Scott's present is about to spin out of control too, to a place where the pale of memory builds to a devastating crescendo. Hitchcock's Vertigo with sexy, dangerous young men. Had me hooked from page one. -Charles Busch, author of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
Portsmouth Women: Madams & Matriarchs who Shaped New Hampshire's Port City
by Laura Pope '78 , The History Press, 2013
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In the history of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, countless women rose above a rigid society to make their marks on the seaport city. In the eighteenth century, Allice Shannon Hight became a successful tavern keeper, outliving two husbands and providing for ten children. Others flourished in more scandalous ventures, like Alta Roberts, otherwise known as the Black Mystery of Portsmouth always donned in black, she operated a successful brothel at the Roberts House Saloon in the nineteenth century. Even greater achievements would come in later years from the likes of Mary Carey Dondero, who became one of the first women elected mayor in New England. This collection of essays, compiled by author and historian Laura Pope, celebrates the victories large and small of Portsmouth's notable women.
Preserving With Pomona's Pectin
by Allison Carroll Duffy , Fair Winds Press, 2013
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If you've ever made jam or jelly at home, you know most recipes require more sugar than fruit—often times 4 to 7 cups!—causing many people to look for other ways to preserve more naturally and with less sugar. Pomona's Pectin is the answer to this canning conundrum. Unlike other popular pectins, which are activated by sugar, Pomona's is a sugar—and preservative-free citrus pectin that does not require sugar to jell. As a result, jams and jellies can be made with less, little, or no sugar at all and also require much less cooking time than traditional recipes, allowing you to create jams that are not only healthier and quicker to make, but filled with more fresh flavor! If you haven't tried Pomona's already (prepare to be smitten!), you can easily find the pectin at your local natural foods store, Williams-Sonoma, or online.
Send review copies of books written by UNH alumni, students, faculty members or staff members to the editor's office at:
UNH Magazine
University of New Hampshire
New England Center G75
Durham, NH 03824
To inquire about book reviews, email alumni.editor@unh.edu or call (603) 862-1239.
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