Treacly boluses of inspiration, some previously published in Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. De Vinck, who teaches high-school English in New Jersey, offers essays of one to five pages with titles such as ``Illuminations,'' ``A Daughter's Question,'' and ``Children Know Best.'' Although the book is divided into sections—''Childhood,'' ``Adolescence,'' ``Family,'' ``Career,'' and so on—de Vinck says in his introduction that it's ``really'' about the voices of his mother and father and ``the extraordinary whistling sound [of the wind] as it rushed past the weather stripping of the front door.'' De Vinck's subtext is that adults are essentially corrupt and children are innocence and light, therefore closer to God—an idealized view of childhood that has children gathering flowers, discovering lizards in the pond, and dressing up in clothes found in the attic: There is no sickness, no rage or shame, no bad parents. De Vinck calls up Yeats, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Dickens, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, Goethe, and others- -curiously, without quoting—perhaps to show that his saccharine sagas are grounded in great literature. He informs us that ``The moon is one of the saddest objects in the sky...''; that ``We all [need] something that is rooted in memory, in desire, and in loneliness...''; and that ``A green smile-face card is on the refrigerator.'' Readers looking for the wonders of childhood will have better luck with Blake, Twain, or Erik Erikson. Somewhere, Mary Poppins is gagging.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-670-83876-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1991
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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