by Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt with Seth Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2023
A pleasure for college basketball fans, especially those of religious inclination.
The 103-year-old nun, famed for her courtside presence at multiple NCAA men’s basketball tournaments, serves up anecdotally driven lessons for life.
“Thank you, God, for all our blessings and the chance to serve You. But goodness gracious, can’t we make March Madness just once?” So writes Sister Jean, as she’s known, who doesn’t shy away from opining about the mixed quality of the coaches with whom she’s worked as the longtime chaplain for the Loyola Chicago Ramblers. Neither does she shy from puns or pronouncements on all sorts of matters, from the utility of the iPad for studying Scripture to the power of positive thinking and even self-praise (“As I nod off, I pat myself on the back for all the good things I’ve done that day”). As the author writes, assisted by longtime CBS college basketball guru Davis, those good things include simply waking up, purpose or no. Clearly beloved by Loyola’s students and players—who, she notes, are religiously diverse, with a large Muslim population—Sister Jean is both deeply religious and fond of poking fun at life’s foibles, not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Charles Barkley. On that note, she is solid in her courtside commentary, as when she breaks down some of the key moments in the team’s historic run to the Final Four in 2018. Throughout, she acknowledges that her constant presence next to the bench has made her an icon, though she pokes fun at herself as well, saying, “Let’s face it, people love little old ladies!” Clearly people love underdogs, too, and though Loyola Chicago went for three decades without making it to March Madness, they’ve had a good run in the last few years thanks to strong coaching and, of course, excellent players.
A pleasure for college basketball fans, especially those of religious inclination.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781400333516
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper Select/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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by Jennette McCurdy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 9, 2022
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
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The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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