A sweet, if occasionally hackneyed, book of advice for young girls.
A mother’s collection of bromides to her young daughter that centers on healthy emotional growth.
This life guide and memoir from Herman (Stories We Tell Ourselves, 2013, etc.) aims a set of life-rules at 7- to 11-year-old girls, along with stories that show these values in action. The author originally wrote the guide at the request of her then-8-year-old daughter, Grace, who wanted a book of advice like the ones that Marmee gives the March girls in Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women. Years later, Herman’s daughter rediscovered the guide, which served as the basis of this book. Initially, the platitudes about growing up and doing the right thing veer the book into vague, self-help territory. Its overstatement of the universality of the golden rule, for example, almost feels like a lecture. Herman’s advice becomes more nuanced as the chapters progress, beginning with a section that distills the golden rule’s fundamental requirement: empathy. A later section illustrates the importance of expressing all types of feelings, even if they aren’t positive ones. Herman allows room for girls to experience a range of emotions, rather than confining them to “good and happy” feelings. In other chapters, the author depicts situations that girls may find tough to navigate, using honest phrasing that shows compassion and restraint (“If people are angry with you…for saying “no” to something that’s bad for you, then these are people you will not enjoy having in your life”). She pairs the tidbits of advice with black-and-white illustrations, drawn by her husband, which show women of all ages at work, play and home, in both solitude and sisterhood. The book closes with some prescient tips on finding love, aimed at girls who are likely still in the awkward, crush phase of adolescence, yet on the cusp of dating. It provides young women with an adult perspective, even if, at times, it feels oversimplified. Overall, however, Herman’s book may help to ease readers into their teenage years, at a time when they want to be both independent and nurtured.
A sweet, if occasionally hackneyed, book of advice for young girls.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1632260208
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Thought Catalog Books/Prospecta Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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