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THE SEVENTH CHILD

A LUCKY LIFE

An alternatingly touching and humorous walk down memory lane that illuminates as often as it entertains. In an era in which big is assumed to be better and celebrity is envied, this seemingly “small” tale of an ordinary life might be easily dismissed as dull. That would be a mistake. Baxter, an African-American woman who has spent much of her life serving others, is a modern-day everywoman whose story will resonate for readers of every stripe. The seventh child in a family of eight, Baxter was raised by her mother after her father abandoned the family while she was still a child. Baxter tries picking cotton and then cooking for white families but eventually decides to head north to seek her fortune in New York City. She works for a variety of women, including the one responsible for bringing her and editor Gloria Bley Miller together. (Their regular chats during bus rides to visit their former employer—friend once she moves permanently to a nursing home prompt Miller to tape Baxter’s thoughts and reminiscences to create this book.) Baxter is an independent, folksy woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to express it. Here she talks—in a rather random yet still refreshing down-home way—about everything from kids and TV to the bombings of black churches in the South. Here’s an example of her independent-minded views: —When it came to getting married, I didn—t trust the men for marriage. And I just didn—t love anybody enough to say I was going to make it my life. I like having fun too much to marry somebody. . . . I—m not barricaded in no place with no guy who’s gonna tell me when I can come and when I can go.— Part memoir, part social history, this will make readers appreciate life’s smaller moments and, yes, feel lucky. (First printing of 125,000)

Pub Date: May 4, 1999

ISBN: 0-375-40620-4

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

Well-told and admonitory.

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

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