Simple stories that remind readers there is more to Christmas than the stress of shopping, partying and striving to make...
Pleasantly amusing and tender stories of holiday cheer from the man in the red suit.
When Lizard agreed to don a Santa suit one Christmas for a local radio station and hand out toys to impoverished children, little did he realize that he had stepped into a role practically made for him. Having a natural white beard and hair helped with the role, but once he put on "the suit," he found that people of all ages just seemed to become "more generous, openhearted, and happy." With Lane's assistance, Lizard writes a humorous account of some of the memories accrued from two decades of playing Santa. That first season with the radio station led to more public appearances, some in malls and some in hospitals, where Lizard had to learn to shut down his own emotions and truly play the role of St. Nick, despite the ache he felt at seeing so many sick children. One small boy in particular left a deep scar, which the author has not been able to forget. Private gigs in homes where children tried to stump Santa with questions, such as why he used a shopping bag from the local store to carry his presents or why a child did not receive the requested BB gun, left Lizard scrambling for answers. As the years progressed, he found himself embodying the spirit of Santa year-round, which led to healthy lifestyle changes and embracing the spirit of Christmas, which, to Lizard, "happens anytime someone reaches out to another with love; when someone gives just for the sake of helping another fellow human being; when a child's eyes light up with the wonder of believing in miracles."
Simple stories that remind readers there is more to Christmas than the stress of shopping, partying and striving to make everything perfect.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-592-40756-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
