Humorous anecdotes and advice are offered as tools to resist food, drugs, alcohol and/or gambling in this debut self-help guide.
For Ward, to avoid or kick addiction, consider lightening up. “It has been said, ‘The best way to help ourselves is to ridicule, make fun of, or criticize’ anything that is not good for us,” he says. This laughter-is-the-best-medicine philosophy informs the rest of his work, which is organized into four core chapters full of stories and tips targeting food, drugs, alcohol and gambling abuse. In “De-Fat-Lization,” he details an array of “Slimmers” types and products, including spritzing your family with “Slimmers Fragrances” to prevent them from snacking before dinner, since there are “certain food smells that probably repel us all.” In “De-Drug-Lization,” Ward introduces a character named Kid Resistor, who counters dealer Dak Druggery’s come on, “Do you want some drugs?” with “No, I don’t have any bugs.” “De-Alcoho-Lization” features the adventures of Albert “Al” Cohol as well as some sobering advice. All chapters contain silly mantras, including “De-Gamb-Lization,” which includes “Refuses” (rather than Confucius) sayings: e.g., “Refuses has no other choice than to say, Ca-si-no tomorrow and eventually Ca-si-no life!” Ward concludes his book with a summary chapter that provides links to addiction prevention and recovery resources. It’s difficult to get too cranky about Ward’s narrative given that he includes these resources and obviously is notably well-intentioned with his approach. His humor, however, can be quite old-fashioned and even politically incorrect: “If you take a trip over the Canadian border, they will attack you with a CANADIAN CLUB, until you feel a CANADIAN MIST, and you wake up with a headache.” The book’s title is just one of too many examples of cutesy overthink. Readers might also wish for more of Ward’s own back story and personal relationship to addictions. Still, he offers an array of tips and stories to choose from, and his eye-rolling humor may very well serve as a useful, nonthreatening introduction to conversations about addiction, particularly with younger children.
Avuncular advice about battling addiction featuring well-meaning if rather cornball humor.
Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1498405607
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Xulon Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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