Walker’s “recipe[s] for difficult times” provide a heartfelt response to a new generation’s yearning for public service.
In a new collection, Walker (The Chicken Chronicles, 2012, etc.) once again shows herself to be a deep and compassionate participant in global humanitarian efforts.
Beginning with a meditation on the promise wrought by the first inauguration of Barack Obama, the author’s essays, poems and letters are infused with a quiet grace and gentle resolve to act responsibly. Although now in her 60s and looking forward to a time to “withdraw from the worldly fray,” Walker was prodded off her meditation “cushion” in Mexico by world events and sent flying to far-flung places in the world that required her keen, writerly eyewitness. For example, one essay was inspired by finding herself in Cape Town, South Africa, as a juror at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine. She also headed to Gaza with CODEPINK and the Freedom Flotilla II, and she composed another essay about her “overcoming speechlessness” after the horrors witnessed in Rwanda and Eastern Congo. Brave, resilient and upbeat, Walker offers unbending meditations on injustice wherever she has met it. The “womanist” author explains why she supported Obama over “Mrs. Clinton” (“if he wins the presidency we will have not one but three black women in the White House…none of them carrying the washing in and out of the back door”) and offers reflections on her early teacher Howard Zinn and her early work for the freedom movement in Mississippi.
Walker’s “recipe[s] for difficult times” provide a heartfelt response to a new generation’s yearning for public service.Pub Date: April 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59558-872-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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