I felt fortunate to have the flu the day I started this book, because I was able to stay home and lie in bed and devour it. My 23-year-old daughter has since gobbled it, and started all over, as I pant to one side waiting for my second go. Yes, it's that good--and I am seldom satisfied. The characters--so developed and idiosyncratic. Every small detail combining to make the world real: the humour, the names, the philosophies, the grim, strange tilt it imposes on one's mind. My only problem now is trying to get my friends to read it without telling them what it's about, since it defies expectations.
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Any age heart needs this book. Each story with its illustrations could not be more simple at the surface level, but resonates with complex comfort. I don't use the word "love" lightly, and yet I loved this book when I first read it to my very small children. Since, I have read it for myself many times. I quoted it in my Interdisciplinary Ph.D. thesis on empathy, and use "Tearwater Tea" when I teach Early English Literature. And I am about to make it the first book I give to my new godchild.
Written in response to the killing of an American Fulbright scholar in South Africa, this book is what it's author claims she wanted it to be--a deeply empathic encounter with the background to the murder. The narrator is the mother of one of the killers, and she writes to the mother of the murdered young woman. The various Xhosa characters are fully realized, and the question of responsibility is never shirked, as this stricken mother seeks to understand her son. The style is occasionally uneven, the details of trauma handled clumsily at times, but the story as told raised the hairs on the back of my neck repeatedly.
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Karen Cooper has commented on (3) products.
Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow
Karen Cooper, March 24, 2008
I felt fortunate to have the flu the day I started this book, because I was able to stay home and lie in bed and devour it. My 23-year-old daughter has since gobbled it, and started all over, as I pant to one side waiting for my second go. Yes, it's that good--and I am seldom satisfied. The characters--so developed and idiosyncratic. Every small detail combining to make the world real: the humour, the names, the philosophies, the grim, strange tilt it imposes on one's mind. My only problem now is trying to get my friends to read it without telling them what it's about, since it defies expectations.(2 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
Owl at Home (I Can Read Books) by Arnold Lobel
Karen Cooper, December 11, 2007
Any age heart needs this book. Each story with its illustrations could not be more simple at the surface level, but resonates with complex comfort. I don't use the word "love" lightly, and yet I loved this book when I first read it to my very small children. Since, I have read it for myself many times. I quoted it in my Interdisciplinary Ph.D. thesis on empathy, and use "Tearwater Tea" when I teach Early English Literature. And I am about to make it the first book I give to my new godchild.Mother to Mother (Bluestreak) by Sindiwe Magona
Karen Cooper, November 21, 2006
Written in response to the killing of an American Fulbright scholar in South Africa, this book is what it's author claims she wanted it to be--a deeply empathic encounter with the background to the murder. The narrator is the mother of one of the killers, and she writes to the mother of the murdered young woman. The various Xhosa characters are fully realized, and the question of responsibility is never shirked, as this stricken mother seeks to understand her son. The style is occasionally uneven, the details of trauma handled clumsily at times, but the story as told raised the hairs on the back of my neck repeatedly.(1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)