``The very act of living in the United States puts you at great risk for obesity,'' warns science writer Fumento in this harangue with a clear message: The fault, dear fatties, lies in overconsumption and underexertion. The formerly fat but now happily and proudly trim Fumento (Science Under Siege, 1992; The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, 1990) charges that the current craze for low-fat but not-so-low-calorie processed foods is giving consumers bigger waistlines while making megabucks for the food industry. The other profit-makers he pillories, with words like ``huckster'' and ``sham,'' are the writers (and publishers) of diet books, such as Susan Powter for Stop the Insanity and Cliff Sheats for Lean Bodies. He has some strong words for the tactics of Nutri/System and Jenny Craig, too, but it is the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance that really ticks him off. It is time for an attitude adjustment, he argues, calling for society to return to the values of moderation and setting limits. He'd like to see an anti-obesity campaign along the lines of the anti-smoking campaign that made puffing on cigarettes appear gauche, and he urges activists to enlist the food companies in a campaign against overeating just as they engaged beer makers in campaigns against underage drinking and, further, to pressure fast-food restaurants to reduce the size of their fat-laden portions. Having advised society of its duties, Fumento, whose attempts at humor do little to lighten this lecture, instructs individuals to eat the right foods, i.e., high in fiber and low in caloric density; eat only when hungry; and get a reasonable amount of exercise. A sermon on gluttony and sloth and a jeremiad against those who aid, abet, and profit from these sins. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-87059-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of...
Known for his self-deprecating wit and the harmlessly eccentric antics of his family, Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day, 2000, etc.) can also pinch until it hurts in this collection of autobiographical vignettes.
Once again we are treated to the author’s gift for deadpan humor, especially when poking fun at his family and neighbors. He draws some of the material from his youth, like the portrait of the folks across the street who didn’t own a TV (“What must it be like to be so ignorant and alone?” he wonders) and went trick-or-treating on November first. Or the story of the time his mother, after a fifth snow day in a row, chucked all the Sedaris kids out the door and locked it. To get back in, the older kids devised a plan wherein the youngest, affection-hungry Tiffany, would be hit by a car: “Her eagerness to please is absolute and naked. When we ask her to lie in the middle of the street, her only question was ‘Where?’ ” Some of the tales cover more recent incidents, such as his sister’s retrieval of a turkey from a garbage can; when Sedaris beards her about it, she responds, “Listen to you. If it didn’t come from Balducci’s, if it wasn’t raised on polenta and wild baby acorns, it has to be dangerous.” But family members’ square-peggedness is more than a little pathetic, and the fact that they are fodder for his stories doesn’t sit easy with Sedaris. He’ll quip, “Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow—it’s not like you're going to do anything with it,” as guilt pokes its nose around the corner of the page. Then he’ll hitch himself up and lacerate them once again, but not without affection even when the sting is strongest. Besides, his favorite target is himself: his obsessive-compulsiveness and his own membership in this company of oddfellows.
Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of both.Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-14346-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
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