A humorous, good-natured blueprint for saving the planet.
A walk in the park sets off a mission to awaken humanity and save Earth, as Cromwell’s (If I Gave You God’s Phone Number, 2002) work weaves an argument for living in awareness of all life.
When her boyfriend announces a troubling decision that disrupts her world, Sarah turns to nature for comfort, only to discover that nature wants help in return. The rustically dressed woman who greets Sarah in the forest turns out to be Earth Mother, whose gentle, compassionate embrace melts Sarah’s pain and convinces her of the woman’s identity. Earth Mother has something to say to humanity (13 things, in fact) and invites Sarah to be the conduit. In the weekly conversations that follow, Earth Mother imparts observations, pleas and guidelines for living in greater harmony with her and with other people. Her messages cover familiar territory (respect the earth; plant trees) and some terrain that’s not typically associated with her—violence, conflict, competition, gratitude, etc. She’s not crazy about social media or the belittling of women, and she follows guidance for males with a pep talk for females. Earth Mother’s vision of the future is an innovative twist on Utopia, with renewable energy, biodegradable objects, telepathic communication and therapeutic criminal justice. The components might veer toward the simplistic—share food; sing; conserve “things that you’ve broken [Earth Mother’s] soil or skin to get”; leave her offerings of organically grown tobacco—but the cumulative effect isn’t trite. A self-styled “plant intuitive, sacred gardener and worm wrangler,” the author imbues her characters’ conversations with a convincing earnestness and ambition. Despite the instructional nature of the messages, Cromwell cloaks Earth Mother in lightheartedness and gives her an endearing predilection for corny jokes as well as messages of hope and love.
A humorous, good-natured blueprint for saving the planet.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0971703230
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Pamoon Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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