An inspirational book about how to achieve one’s goals, wrapped in an adventure tale.
Mountain climber, investment banker and entrepreneur Fejtek, born with a condition that resulted in a partial paralysis of his right arm, writes of his quest to conquer the highest mountain on each continent.
With his wife and climbing partner, Denise, Fejtek spent eight years on a quest to reach the summit of seven of the world’s highest peaks and bring attention to athletes with physical disabilities. Starting with Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and ending with Mt. Everest on the border between Nepal and Tibet, the Fejteks overcame physical disability, brutal weather, life-threatening avalanches and illness to accomplish a feat only 65 other people at that time had achieved. Along the way, the author realized that the steps he took to prepare himself had relevance in his everyday life and business experience. Fejtek’s story is cleverly and succinctly told in 15 steps that encompass his philosophy for finding success in life and in particular as a businessman and athlete. Fejtek not only uses his steps to carry him over the finish line in Ironman competitions but also in business transactions. As he points out, steps such as “Have a Little Faith,” “Move Fast,” “Just Breathe” and “Never Give Up” can be applied to many large and small challenges. The author demonstrates most of these steps in his story of climbing Mt. Everest, an endeavor that has claimed the lives of hundreds of well-prepared climbers. The mountaintop was elusive, but the Fejteks made it to the top of the world; they also brought 23 of their friends to Everest’s base camp (at an altitude of more than 17,000 feet) in a project called Everybody to Everest. The project helped raised money for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, a group whose members were instrumental in inspiring and helping Fejtek achieve his lofty goal. (All the profits from the sales of this book will go to the CAF.)
An inspirational book about how to achieve one’s goals, wrapped in an adventure tale.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0984012510
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Peak Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.
Debut authors Pi and Pi offer a debut picture-book alphabet of occupations, featuring photos of children playing dress-up.
Each of the 26 pages of this book features a photo, with illustrated details, of a child in the midst of a game of dress-up and imagination. The first shows a cheerful girl, costumed as a doctor, imagining, “What can I be today?” For “A,” a young artist paints on an easel; then, in a transition sentence, she decides to do ballet. The next page shows a ballerina who, when she gets hungry, visits a chef—and so on. Most transitions make sense, and the photos of children with occupation props, set against mostly white backgrounds, offer plenty of smiles. The simple sentences make this book easy to read aloud to its early childhood target audience. However, a few job titles may be a stretch for them to understand, such as “geologist,” “horticulturalist,” and “optician.” The jobs are varied and include artistic positions (illustrator, knitter, musician), service professions (firefighter, judge, librarian, soldier), and science jobs (engineer, X-ray technician). Surprisingly, the only sports-related position is an umpire, but a leading question at the end, about other jobs that one may discover, leaves room for young listeners to create their own.
A simple ABC book whose vibrant photographs will grab kids’ attention.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4808-5453-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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