"Halfway to Hollywood," more

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Washington Post Book Reviews For You Monday March 28, 2011 NONFICTION CHILDREN'S BOOKS NA NA ISBN NA NA pages $NA Reviewed by Abby McGanney Nolan "THE UNFORGETTABLE SEASON: The Story of Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and the Record-Setting Summer of '41 By Phil Bildner. Illustrated by S.D. Schindler. Putnam. $16.99, ages 4-8 Just in time for opening day: an engaging, well-illustrated chronicle of 70-year-old hitting milestones that remain unbroken. In 1941, Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 straight games while Ted Williams finished the season with a batting average above .400. Excitement spread well beyond New York when DiMaggio's streak extended into July and the hit song "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio" played day and night on the radio. Phil Bildner recounts that Williams could have played it safe by sitting out the last two games of the season with his .39955 average rounded up to .400 for the record books. But instead he played, adding six more hits and ending the year at .406. In his last at bat, as Bildner excitedly describes it, he walloped "a double that rocketed off the loudspeaker horns atop the outfield wall and ricocheted all the way back to the infield!" S.D. Schindler's clean-lined illustrations bring to mind the pristine clarity of the baseball field; a particularly amusing one shows DiMaggio shocking a pitcher with a base hit up the middle -- right between his legs. "ENERGY ISLAND: How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed Their World" By Allan Drummond. Farrar Straus Giroux. $16.99, ages 6-10 Because a surprising number of illustrator-author Allan Drummond's subjects -- in picture books such as "Moby Dick" and "The Flyers" (about the Wright Brothers) -- have been visibly windswept, it seems natural that his latest book should concern harnessing the power of wind. Drummond invents a youngish native of Denmark's Samso island to be his narrator-tour guide and show why Samso, aka Energy Island, should be a model for us all, with its massive reduction of carbon emissions and wide-ranging efforts toward energy independence. The guide takes readers through Samso's initial reliance on traditional energy sources to power its lights and vehicles to the gradual adoption of alternative energy, including both small and large wind turbines. One double-page spread contrasts the construction of a small wind turbine with a massive one that required a ship, giant trucks and two huge cranes to put it in place. Drummond fills his pages with detailed images of a variety of scenes that soften the didactic storyline, while sidebars describe a range of energy-related issues from renewable energy to climate change. "NIGHT FLIGHT: Amelia Earhart Crosses the Atlantic" By Robert Burleigh. Illustrated by Wendell Minor. Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. $16.99, ages 4-8 "Women must try to do things as men have tried," Amelia Earhart wrote in 1937. "When they fail, their failure must but be a challenge to others." In this picture book, author Robert Burleigh and illustrator Wendell Minor portray one of Earhart's shining successes rather than the disappearance that shocked and bewildered a world of admirers. Her "night flight" -- leaving Newfoundland at 7:12 p.m. on May 20, 1932 -- was her first solo attempt to cross the Atlantic. Earhart and her bright-red Vega were aloft for nearly 15 hours, and Burleigh conveys her subject's joy in flying, as well as how she handled a storm. "Lightning scribbles its zigzag warning across the sky," and Earhart tries to out-climb the clouds but ends up just above the ocean's surface. Minor's richly colored double-page illustrations capture the eye-catching perils of the flight as well as the heartening sight of the Irish coastline. The book ends with Earhart emerging from her Vega, having landed in a pasture ready to take on the next challenge. "AMELIA LOST: The Life and Disappearance Of Amelia Earhart" By Candace Fleming. Schwartz & Wade. $18.99, ages 8-12 Earhart remains a captivating figure, her unfinished life subject to both speculation and the myth-making she helped foster while she was alive. Beyond the picture-book treatment, she calls for a thoughtful biographer, one who appreciates both her accomplishments and her showmanship. She said all she "wished to do in the world was to be a vagabond -- in the air," while others claimed she used aviation "merely as a means toward quick fortune and fame." Candace Fleming, who has recently taken on the Lincolns and P.T. Barnum, seems convinced of Earhart's honest passion for flying. She describes her lifelong adventurousness, independence and "gut courage." The story alternates between Earhart's biography and the extensive search for the aviator in July 1937. Fleming suggests that Earhart could have benefited from further training, especially with her new radio system. The book includes intriguing accounts of a few Americans, including a 16-year-old radio buff, who claimed to have heard Earhart's distress calls. "TOTALLY HUMAN: Why We Look and Act the Way We Do" By Cynthia Pratt Nicolson. Illustrated by Dianne Eastman. Kids Can. $16.95, ages 9-12 When kids have had their fill of extraordinary accomplishment, they can turn to the perfectly ordinary activities that fill our days -- laughing, crying, yawning and so on. Cynthia Pratt Nicolson makes young readers think about actions we take for granted, tracing them back to early humans and sometimes to creatures further down the evolutionary chain. Hiccups, for example, are a useless reflex that may have occurred first in ancient tadpoles, who hiccupped in order to avoid breathing water into their brand-new lungs. Tears, on the other hand, are not found in any other species, and were apparently useful for early human bonding. The text explains scientific concepts with concision and wit, though suggestions for further reading would have been helpful. Each action described is accompanied by a playful illustration, such as the one of a girl with elephant's ears that may well inspire that familiar human impulse: laughter. Abby McGanney Nolan is a freelance writer and editor. Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top HALFWAY TO HOLLYWOOD: Diaries 1980-1988 Michael Palin Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's ISBN 978-0312682026 622 pages $32.50 Reviewed by Charles Matthews If the name Palin makes you think of a dead parrot and a fish called Wanda instead of moose burgers and mama grizzlies, then this is the book for you. Among many other things, Michael Palin is the member of the Monty Python troupe who played a pet-shop owner trying to persuade John Cleese that his Norwegian Blue parrot is not dead but just "pining for the fjords." "Halfway to Hollywood" is the second published volume of his diaries (the first was "The Python Years: Diaries 1969-1979"), and it covers a fruitful period in his life. From 1980 through 1988 he wrote and acted in "Time Bandits," "The Missionary" and "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life"; acted in "Brazil," "A Private Function" and "A Fish Called Wanda"; wrote a children's book and screenplays for the BBC; and served as chairman of a British public transportation advocacy group. The volume concludes with Palin setting off to follow the route taken in Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days," the start of the next phase of his career: travel writer and documentarian. Through it all, he found time to write "over a million words of diary entries," which, he tells us in the acknowledgments, he has reduced to "something nearer a quarter of a million." So what we have here is the extensively documented life of an enormously talented and genial man who also seems to be a model husband, father, son and brother, as well as a generous and dutiful citizen. In one entry, he quotes a reviewer's observation that "there is something roundly Victorian about Michael Palin's face, a durable cheerfulness not to be found among other members of Monty Python's Flying Circus. ... Alone of the Python team he can deflate cant without venom." Instead of venom we get wry, ironic observation, as when he writes about Kevin Kline, his co-star in "A Fish Called Wanda." Kline, who has a reputation for scene-stealing, "is very complimentary about my performance -- 'In the scene with me I was watching you,' he admits incredulously." John Cleese, he notes, "does seem to spend an inordinate amount of his time thinking about himself -- trying to get to the bottom of why he is what he is and is there anything he can do about it?" The diaries give us privileged glimpses of people such as Maggie Smith, his co-star in "The Missionary" and "A Private Function." He observes, "I feel that sometimes she is going through the motions of life -- there is always a part of her -- the passionate, instinctive part which makes her a great actress -- which is in abeyance or being held in reserve -- somewhere in there, private from us all." He shows us George Harrison, who was a major backer of Python film projects, nervously helping Palin find where he's parked his car: "A bit like an animal caught in a searchlight is our George when out on the streets, and I can see him getting a little twitchy as he and I -- a Beatle and a Python -- parade up and down before the diners on the pavements of Charlotte Street." But the diary is most revealing about Palin himself, struggling to balance the solitary life of a writer with the demands not only of celebrity but also of family, including the clinical depression and eventual suicide of his sister. We get at the essence of his character as a humorist when we writes about his initial unhappiness with the script for the most successful film in which he has appeared, "A Fish Called Wanda." When Cleese calls to talk about it, he writes," I swallow for the moment my reservations about the film itself -- well, I can't say I don't like it, that I find it everything I wouldn't write myself: hard, uncompassionate, leering. I have a feeling this is the one I shall do for money, rather than love." He admires Woody Allen's "intelligent, perceptive, graceful" films, but finds much American comedy typified by the Bette Midler-Danny DeVito film "Ruthless People," about which he comments, "the fact that it has been so successful accords with my reading in the paper that 40 percent of students in a poll at the California State University hadn't heard of Mikhail Gorbachev." That last, though a bit of a non sequitur, is in line with Palin's general discomfort with the United States, which blazes up after John Lennon's murder ("America -- land of the free and the armed and the crazy") and in various reflections on the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whom he dislikes almost as much as he does Margaret Thatcher. Clearly, this is a book for Pythoniacs, and the ideal reader is probably an Anglophile movie buff with a side interest in the Thatcher-Reagan years. The book may be a bit of a slog for those outside this rather narrow slice of the reading public. But a man as intelligent and witty as Palin is worth the effort of getting to know. Charles Matthews is a writer and editor in Northern California. Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top Recent Stories    HOW ITALIAN FOOD CONQUERED THE WORLD    LOSING GRACELAND    33 MEN: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners    PICTURE BOOKS    POETRY	Quick Clicks Can Anyone Win The Lottery? They may with "The Lottery Black Book" BareLifts - Lifts & Firms! The Invisible Solution For A Naturally Perky Look Eliminate Windows PC Errors Improve PC's System Speed by Up to 70%
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"How Italian Food Conquered the World," more

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Washington Post Book Reviews For You Sunday March 27, 2011 HOW ITALIAN FOOD CONQUERED THE WORLD John F. Mariani Palgraev Macmillan ISBN 978-0230104396 288 pages $25 Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley John F. Mariani's informative and entertaining examination of the rise of Italian cookery suffers from a flaw all too common these days in American book publishing: title inflation. Not merely is it questionable to claim that Italian food has "conquered the world," this really isn't the subject of the book, which deals almost entirely with the rise of Italian cuisine in the United States. No doubt Mariani himself is an innocent party to this -- the title was probably dreamed up by someone at his publisher's office -- but the reader should be warned not to expect what the title promises. It is true that Italian food has spread all over the globe, especially in the endlessly enticing form of pizza, as anyone who travels just about anywhere can attest. Though Latin America scarcely gets a mention in Mariani's text -- so much for "conquered the world" -- I can testify that within two blocks of the apartment my wife and I own in Lima, Peru, are two full-service Italian restaurants and, believe it or not, two Pizza Huts, more than are to be found within a couple of blocks of our apartment in Washington (D.C.). In addition, a 15-minute walk away from us in Lima is the elegant Trattoria Mambrino, one of the huge city's best restaurants and one in which any native Italian would feel at home. That would seem to prove Mariani's point, except that his real argument has less to do with restaurants than with how Italian ingredients and cooking styles have infiltrated the cuisines of other cultures. But to stick with Peru for just a couple of sentences more, this simply isn't the case in that country. Peruvian food is known (and celebrated) for being a fusion of many cuisines, among them indigenous, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and African, but with the exception of the occasional appearance of pasta, Italian cuisine really isn't one of them. It's here in the United States that Italian food has had its most visible and deepest influence, but only within recent years has what most Americans think of as Italian food become recognizable as such to Italians themselves. Today, as Mariani points out, thanks to the combination of readily available authentic ingredients and broader receptivity to the unadulterated foods of other places, Americans have gone beyond spaghetti and meatballs, learning about such matters as the different gradations of olive oil, the endless variations on pasta, the previously unknown delights of balsamic vinegar. Still, as Mariani understands, celebrating the discovery here of the real thing -- and in England as well -- raises the possibility of dismissing the not-inconsiderable virtues of what is properly called Italian-American cookery. It came into being when "more than five million Italians ... immigrated to the United States between 1880 and 1910 -- 80 percent of whom were from southern Italy -- seeking to escape la miseria of the Old Country." They were poor, and they crowded into the Italian ghettoes of the big cities, most notably New York and San Francisco. They used cheap ingredients -- pasta, canned tomatoes, garlic -- and they tried to recreate the simple, hearty cooking of southern Italy. Though tomato sauce was virtually unknown in wealthier, more sophisticated northern Italy, it became a staple in the south and came to the United States along with the immigrants: "While southern Italians increasingly enjoyed pasta with tomato sauce, it was in the United States where it became a ubiquitous Italian-American food, the first of many that would seem inextricable from any discussion of Italian cooking. Not only was it served with pasta, but it also was the sauce that was lavished on their meat, chicken stews, and seafood. They spread it on eggplant, used it as a dipping condiment for fried foods, and poured it on sausage and peppers. They cooked big meatballs in it. And it was the sauce that made pizza a pizza alla margherita." An early form of the sauce was marinara, "supposedly because it was made quickly, as soon as the mariners' wives spotted their husbands' returning fishing boats in the distance." Quick and simple, over the years it "became the all-purpose 'red sauce' by which Italians would always become known in and out of their communities." Never mind that "there is no record of Italians enjoying tomato sauce with pasta before the middle of the nineteenth century"; on this side of the Atlantic it became, in the words of the film director Martin Scorsese, "sacred to the Italian family." Red sauce, turkey alla Tetrazzini, spaghetti alla Caruso and other staples of the Italian-American menu have been scorned by food snobs for generations, but Mariani has unearthed one 20th-century visitor to New York to the contrary: "A Sicilian named Niccolo de Quattrociocchi reported in his memoirs that he'd dined at an Italian restaurant 'where I was introduced to two very fine, traditional American specialties called 'spaghetti with meatballs' and 'cotoletta parmigiana,' which he thought were 'just for fun called Italian,' but added, 'as a matter of fact, I found them both extremely satisfying and I think someone in Italy should invent them for the Italians over there." Although this cannot much please devotees of true northern Italian food, to this day it is Italian-American food that much of the world thinks of when Italian food is mentioned. Since much Italian-American food is mediocre -- think Chef Boy-Ar-Dee or Rice-A-Roni -- it's hardly surprising that it has a poorer reputation than the best of it deserves. Whether the best of it is as good as or inferior to the best of true Italian food is a matter of individual taste, but the two differ more substantially than their names suggest. It's also true, as Mariani says, that until fairly recently Italian food of any sort "never received anything like the respect accorded French cuisine, even though the ingredients used in French kitchens were no better than in Italian kitchens and it was very likely that a French meal was being cooked by an Italian back in the kitchen." For the change in this perception, Mariani credits a number of people: Marcella Hazan, the author of "The Classic Italian Cook Book" and other influential books; Lucio Caputo, Italian trade commissioner in New York, who was instrumental in gaining international sales and respect for Italian wines; Tony May, "a fierce crusader for authentic Italian food," who was Caputo's counterpart for Italian cuisine; Wolfgang Puck, the Los Angeles chef who turned "pizza -- long regarded as a low-class item that Italian restaurateurs should distance themselves from -- into the chic food of the moment, and in so doing shower(ed) celebrity glamour onto the whole idea of simple, good Italian food." Puck is himself a restaurateur, and although this is meant to be a book about cuisine, there are long stretches when it turns into one about restaurants, most of them expensive ones in chic locales. This is perhaps understandable inasmuch as Mariani is the food and wine correspondent for Esquire magazine, which throughout its existence has sought to be hipper than hip, but these passages probably will not be of much interest beyond the clientele of those establishments. For me, at least, they slowed down what is otherwise a most engaging book. Jonathan Yardley can be reached at yardleyj(at symbol)washpost.com. Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top LOSING GRACELAND Micah Nathan Broadway ISBN 978-0307591357 211 pages $14 Reviewed by Michael Lindgren, a writer and musician who lives in New York City Ah, the road novel. Ever since Huck and Jim stepped onto that raft, the romance of travel has run like a bright thread through the psychic landscape of the American dream. From Sal and Dean to Thelma and Louise and beyond, hitting the pavement has become reliable shorthand for our collective fantasy of endless freedom and escape. There are rules, of course. The buddies involved must be desperate, with nothing to lose. They must be aggressively mismatched, and their relationship at some point has to descend into mutual hatred and even violence, before being transformed into something else -- something closer to love. Above all, they must emerge from their travels reborn, baptized by the road. Micah Nathan's engaging but uneven "Losing Graceland" fits almost too squarely into this tradition, with a blend of the slapstick and the slapdash, the ironic and the painfully sincere. A recent college grad with no prospects, Ben Fish is at loose ends when he answers an ad from an old man looking for someone to drive him to Memphis. This wheezy eccentric sports an out-of-date ducktail hairstyle, a jewel-studded belt buckle and "the hint of an involuntary sneer, a wrinkled curl to his upper lip." Is he Elvis Presley, three decades after faking his own death? He's not saying for sure, and the only thing Ben needs to believe in is the old man's 10 grand, cash. What ensues is a wild road trip, a yarn spiced with plenty of humor and romance, undone only occasionally by bouts of clumsy writing. In the tradition of the picaresque, the pair encounters a freewheeling carnival of grotesques, ranging from brawling, born-again bikers to roadhouse honeys looking for just one night of love. The narrative has a rickety, nailed-together feel, almost as though it were written with half an eye toward being a screenplay, and some awkwardness shows through the joints. Intentionally or not, as a romantic hero, Ben is not entirely likable. He's prone to moping about, "nostalgic for experiences I never had," and the old man's cornpone asides hover uncertainly between kitsch and folk wisdom ("Every molecule has its own path -- some seek death, others love"). But that territory, like the mythic old South of their travels, belongs to the dreamers in the end: wide-eyed with wonder, a little too self-serious, but ready to believe in miracles. Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top Recent Stories    33 MEN: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners    PICTURE BOOKS    POETRY    THE TIGER'S WIFE    TWICE A SPY	Quick Clicks FREE Presentation: Weird Tips and Tricks for a Lean Body and Flat Tummy! Love Pasta? Cook, Strain & Serve Perfect Pasta Using Just Your Microwave Full Court Records Available: Find Out Anything About Anyone! Click now...
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Hans Christian Andersen

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New Books Newsletter For You Sunday March 27, 2011 Check out this week's newest featured books from BookDaily! No matter what you're looking for, you'll be able to find it here -- there are thousands of books available, from classics to the hottest releases. Read sample chapters online and by e-mail, and buy your favorites right off the site. Enjoy this week's trivia and quizzes, and happy reading! BookDaily.com Featured Books Romance - Outlander, Diana Gabaldon - Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers Mystery - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson - World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks Sci Fi - World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks - Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1), Orson Scott Card Health - Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell - You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder, Kate Kelly Teens - Awakened (House of Night), P. C. Cast - The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens, Sean Covey Literature - A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein - The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition, Jalal al-Din Rumi Religion - Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence, Sarah Young - The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle Business - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey - Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell Spirituality - The Shack, William P. Young - Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore Hans Christian Andersen (Apr. 2, 1805 - Aug. 4, 1875) Hans Christian Andersen was born into a shoemaker's family living in a one-room house, where he began creating his fairy tales with a small self-constructed puppet theatre. He moved to Copehagen at the age of 14, hoping to become an actor; when his voice changed, he became a writer at the suggestion of a colleague. King Frederick VI paid for his education, and he began writing his fairy tales soon after, with a focus on his own feelings of being different. His career continued until 1872, when he suffered an injury from which he never fully recovered - he died three years later near Copenhagen. Take the Hans Christian Andersen quiz. Featured Book and Quizzes Featured book by Hans Christian Andersen: The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen: A New Translation from the Danish This week's quizzes: P.G. Wodehouse Poetry First Lines The Wizard of Oz This Week's Birthdays Alfred de Vigny -- March 27, 1797 French playwright whose became a poet after the end of his military career. Rene Descartes -- March 31, 1596 French philosopher considered by many to be the father of modern philosophy. Read A Companion to Descartes by Janet Broughton at BookDaily. Edgar Wallace -- April 1, 1875 British novelist and journalist, considered in his time to be the king of the modern thriller. Read King Kong by Edgar Wallace at BookDaily. Kids' Home Library Spring Books are Blooming Everywhere Lee Littlewood After a particularly cold and dreary winter, youngsters love to hop into spring with books that celebrate plants, bugs, worms and being outdoors. "Ants in Your Pants, Worms in Your Plants! (Gilbert Goes Green)" by Diane deGroat; HarperCollins; 32 pages; $16.99. ... Continue reading...	Quick Clicks FREE Presentation: Weird Tips and Tricks for a Lean Body and Flat Tummy! Love Pasta? Cook, Strain & Serve Perfect Pasta Using Just Your Microwave Full Court Records Available: Find Out Anything About Anyone! Click now...
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"The Secret River," "Where's Walrus," more

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Washington Post Book Reviews For You Saturday March 26, 2011 33 MEN: Inside the Miraculous Survival and Dramatic Rescue of the Chilean Miners Jonathan Franklin Putnam ISBN 978-0399157776 307 pages $25.95 Reviewed by James M. Tabor On Thursday, August 5, 2010, Chile's San Jose copper mine collapsed, trapping 33 men underground for 69 days. Given that CNN's Anderson Cooper and more than 2,000 other journalists reported from the disaster scene for weeks, can anything new be said? Yes, thanks to journalist Jonathan Franklin, who settled with his family in Chile 17 years ago "because nothing ever happens there" and wound up covering Latin American trouble spots for several newspapers. Arriving at San Jose on August 24, two days after contact was established with the miners, he finagled a coveted "Rescue Team" credential by convincing the mine's insurance company that their salutary rescue effort deserved worldwide recognition. Thus while police lines held the rest of the media at bay, Franklin rubbed shoulders with the rescue's key players, including Chilean president Sebastian Pinera, mining minister Laurence Golborne, master driller Jeff Hart and lead psychologist Alberto Iturra. The miners faced Poe-quality horror during their first 17 days underground: possible premature burial followed by slow, agonizing starvation. Death seemed first likely and then inevitable; as de facto leader Mario Sepulveda said: "I waited for death and was tranquil. I knew that any moment the lights would go out and it would be a dignified death. I prepared my helmet, my things, rolled up my belt and arranged my boots. I wanted to die a miner." Franklin, who covered the disaster for The Washington Post as a special correspondent, understood the importance of those early days. Moreover, unlike other journalists, he had unlimited telephone and video access to the miners so he could interview them while they were still underground. He recreates the stink and squalor and despair as news accounts could not. Their diet, he reports, consisted of one teaspoonful of tuna fish and one-half cup of milk or juice every three days. At least one man preferred to drink his own urine rather than the available polluted water. Others ate moldy orange peels and drank rotten milk. Alternative sources of food existed, of course. The men were acutely aware that, in 1972, Uruguayan rugby players earned lasting infamy by eating their dead teammates after a plane crash stranded them high in the Andes. Some miners admitted to Franklin that they had sized up their fellows, including young Claudio Yanez, even before anyone died. "For days, his companions had been hinting that it was time ... to eat the skinny newcomer. At times, Yanez felt they were joking, but never enough to scrape away the meaty slab of truth." Starvation wasn't the only threat. Franklin discloses that the collapse was not a single event but continued week after week, culminating in a dangerous cave-in on the first day of evacuation. The government tried to squelch reports of these recurring collapses, but no one could hide them from the miners, who constantly cringed at "the crack of rocks crashing down, the blast of falling rock and the creaking of an entire mountain." While the outside world remained ignorant, the trapped men knew exactly what was happening, and their awareness made an unimaginable situation worse. Once rescuers made contact on August 22, the miners' situation improved dramatically. Starving before, now they had catered meals, television, ice cream, video games, beer and wine, even girlie mags and, reportedly, both prescription and recreational drugs. They even had their own therapists. But Franklin's revelations about Alberto Iturra, the local psychologist appointed team leader, are shocking. Charged with overseeing the miners' mental health, Iturra nearly drove them to destruction instead, according to Franklin. "If the men hate me, it will keep them out of trouble," he said, and he gave them plenty of reason to do so. Iturra censored their mail, limited family phone calls to 60 seconds, dictated what news and movies they could watch. Formal protests filed by other psychologists did nothing. Finally the miners threatened a hunger strike and demanded Iturra's arrest. Authorities replaced the controversial doctor, and not a minute too soon. Some miners were seriously depressed, and one was diagnosed schizophrenic. More than a few were hallucinating, telling Franklin that they "saw shadows, figures, and beings that would later melt away. They called these apparitions mineros chicos, or 'little miners.'" None were completely stable, and Iturra's actions could easily have cost lives by inciting conflict or suicide. The miners fell victim to neither, a tribute to their extraordinary fortitude and faith. The men's ordeal did not end with their escape. Upon reaching the surface, each of them was whisked off to the hospital in nearby Copiapo. Three days later, it was as if they had exchanged one prison for another. "Inside the hospital, the miners were confused. They had never considered themselves physically ill or mentally weak, and freedom had replaced depression with jubilation. With the exception of a few specific dental problems, damaged eardrums and sprained muscles, they were ready to leave. The doctors refused." Those doctors relented only after the men and their families made veiled threats. Even then, claiming concern about his mental health, the doctors would not discharge Sepulveda, whose stellar leadership underground for all 69 days did much to ensure the men's unity and survival. Their concerns were misplaced; continuing confinement was the real problem. Only when a local physician warned, "Get him out of there or it will be a major (expletive) because I will knock out a couple of cops and get sent to jail," was Sepulveda finally allowed to leave. A disaster book's success depends on multiple factors. Speedy publication and new information are two musts. "33 Men" is both first out of the gate on this event and rich with revelations. Serendipity is important, too -- being in the right place at the right time -- but even that is not enough. Twenty-nine people survived the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest, but it took a Jon Krakauer to write "Into Thin Air." A couple of thousand journalists were in the right place at the right time in Chile in the summer of 2010. "33 Men" is proof that Franklin was the right man among them to write the book. James M. Tabor's most recent book is "Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth." His novel "The Deep Zone" will be published next year. Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top PICTURE BOOKS NA NA ISBN NA NA pages $NA Reviewed by Kristi Jemtegaard "THE SECRET RIVER" By Marjorie Kinnan. Rawlings. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon Atheneum. $19.99, ages 4-8 The Dillons' lush illustrations burnish this new edition of a 1956 Newbery Honor title with an elegant rustic glow. Add to that a generous trim size, handsome page design and thick, creamy paper, and you've gone a long way toward revitalizing a text that seems a bit long and leisurely for the format. Determined young Calpurnia, worried when her father declares, "Hard times have come to the forest," sets out on a quest with her faithful dog, Buggy-horse, to find a secret river where the fish are plentiful. In true fairy-tale fashion, she seeks advice from a wise woman, catches almost more fish than she can carry home, gives some away to those she meets on the return journey, and succeeds in turning hard times back into "soft times." Full-page images surrounded by expansive borders evoke the old-fashioned plates found in classics from an earlier era, a formal style that is relieved by the tiny, scattered vignettes and snapshot-sized scenes decorating almost every page. Careful eyes will delight in spotting mysterious details embedded in this dreamy tale of danger and reward. "WHERE'S WALRUS?" By Stephen Savage. Scholastic. $16.99, ages 3-5 This sophisticated send-up of another well-known seek-and-find series is for kids who want their books -- even wordless ones - to include a soupcon of story. Walrus is a sly creature, and when we first meet him, he's winking at the audience. The camera rolls back to reveal him incarcerated in a torpid zoo -- but not for long. Escaping easily, he leads the lackadaisical zookeeper on a merry chase, donning a chic red hat to mug with the mannequins in a store window; holding up a hose in a line of firemen; even easing behind an easel alongside the artists in the park to paint a portrait of -- who else? -- the zookeeper himself. But when he wins a medal in a diving competition, the keeper realizes that it's acclaim as much as freedom that our finny friend seeks, and the final scene is identical to the opening one with the addition of a diving board -- and a host of admiring onlookers. Clean lines, blocks of color and carefully patterned layouts mean that Walrus -- though apparently invisible to the clueless keeper -- is always hiding in plain sight, a perfect gambit that allows young readers to feel one-up on the adult who's supposedly in charge. What more could any child want? "RED WAGON" By Renata Liwska. Philomel. $16.99, ages 3-5 Rendered in the softest possible pencil strokes and the palest pastel tints, this tender story of a feisty little fox and her animal friends -- a hedgehog, rabbit, bear, raccoon and mouse -- will surely satisfy the diminutive demographic that longs to leave home, but only if there's a nap at the end of the adventure. Lucy's new red wagon bespeaks independence, but Mama thinks it means a shopping list and a trip to the market. Never mind. Lucy and her sidekicks manage to work in a pirate trip on the high seas, an overland trek in a Conestoga wagon, a whirl through a circus ring, a chug up the hill in an old-fashioned train and a rocket ship ride into space. Good cozy fun for one and all that ends where it began in that most versatile of vehicles, with Lucy sound asleep. "LOST & FOUND" By Shaun Tan. Arthur A. Levine. $21.99, ages 10-adult Shaun Tan's recent Oscar win for the short animated film "The Lost Thing" will surely pique interest in this omnibus edition, which includes that story and two earlier ones by the master of all things curious. In "The Red Tree," an unnamed young girl drags herself through a life filled with darkness. Unsettling images abound: A giant fish shares the street with oblivious pedestrians; a sealed bottle imprisoning a tiny aquanaut washes up on an empty beach. But all is not lost, for "suddenly there it is right in front of you/ bright and vivid/ quietly waiting." The "it" is a fiery tree, blooming at bedside as unexplained and mysterious as all that went before it. In "The Lost Thing" a large, red, prickly headed, bulbous creature walks through town on pointy gray tentacles. Enter the Federal Department of Odds and Ends (motto: "sweepus underum carpetae"), which turns out to be exactly the wrong solution. The final story, "The Rabbits," may be a parable about the loss of indigenous cultures or just a tale about wildlife run amok. As the narrator of "The Lost Thing" remarks, "Don't ask me what the moral is." In Tan's oblique world, the story takes place in that interactive space between the reader and the page. "WON TON: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku" By Lee Wardlaw. Illustrated by Eugene Yelchin. Henry Holt. $16.99, ages 4-8 The fur-whorled endpapers of this loving but unsentimental ode to adoption almost invite petting. Won Ton, a smoke-gray cat with vivid blue eyes, is a resident of "The Shelter: Nice place they got here. Bed. Bowl. Blankie. Just like home! Or so I've been told." Throughout each successive chapter readers are treated to a cat's eye view of humans and their foibles: "The Choosing," "The Car Ride" ("Letmeoutletme/ outletmeoutletmeout./ Wait -- let me back in!"), "The Naming," "The New Place ("Deep, dark bed cave. Me?/ Hiding? I'm no scaredy-cat!/ I like dust bunnies!"), all the way through to "Home" ("Your tummy, soft as/ warm dough. I knead and knead, then/ bake it with a nap."). Eugene Yelchin's sinuous draftsmanship, playful perspectives and sunny palette provide just the right counterpoint to this tale of a cat with attitude to spare. Kristi Jemtegaard is a library manager for Arlington County, Va. Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top POETRY Karen Macpherson NA ISBN NA NA pages $NA Reviewed by Karen MacPherson Poetry comes naturally to kids, who revel in rhyme and rhythm, but too many adults are wary of poetry, worried about not catching all the nuances. That's too bad because verse can add literary zest to family reading time. To help parents feel more comfortable with poetry, here's a look at some great collections for various age groups: BABIES, TODDLERS AND PRESCHOOLERS Mother Goose is the bedrock for this age group. To adults, the rhymes may seem nonsensical, old-fashioned or even violent -- think what happens in "Rock-a-Bye Baby." But nursery rhymes provide an important way for the youngest readers to develop pre-reading skills, especially phonological awareness, as they learn to play with the sounds of words. Iona Opie is a leading international expert on nursery rhymes, so parents will want to check out "My Very First Mother Goose" (Candlewick, $22.99). Featuring colorful, humorous illustrations by Rosemary Wells, it's the perfect size for sharing, and it showcases more than 60 nursery rhymes collected by Opie over decades of work with her late husband, Peter Opie. The book, which presents the rhymes in four chapters, includes favorites like "Hey Diddle, Diddle" and "Humpty Dumpty," along with such unfamiliar verses as "If I had a Donkey." An index of first lines helps adults quickly locate their favorites. Opie and Wells have also collaborated on a second collection, "Here Comes Mother Goose" (Candlewick, $22.99). For a different spin on the traditional rhymes, try "The Neighborhood Mother Goose" (Greenwillow, $17.99). Photographer Nina Crews uses children and scenes from her Brooklyn neighborhood to create an urban update on several dozen favorite nursery rhymes. And in May look for a companion volume, "The Neighborhood Sing-Along" (Greenwillow, $17.99), in which Crews matches her photographs to the lyrics of beloved songs like "The Wheels on the Bus" and "London Bridge." Two final suggestions for this age group: First, the classic "Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young" (Knopf, $19.95), a collection of more than 200 poems chosen by Jack Prelutsky, with illustrations by "Arthur" creator Marc Brown. And, second, a newer volume, "Here's a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry" (Candlewick, $21.99), which contains more than 60 poems collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters. The text is nicely complemented by Polly Dunbar's sprightly illustrations. CHILDREN As they grow older, kids enjoy exploring poetry in more depth, and "A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms" (Candlewick; paperback $9.99) provides a perfect launching pad. Edited by Paul B. Janeczko and featuring illustrations by Caldecott medalist Chris Raschka, this slender volume explores and explains all kinds of poetry, from limericks to haiku to riddle poems. The duo also published an entertaining earlier volume titled "A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems" (Candlewick; paperback, $7.99). Joyce Sidman expertly melds poetry and science in her prize-winning books, such as "Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night" (Houghton Mifflin, $16.99). This volume, with illustrations by Rick Allen, won a 2011 Newbery Honor. In her work, Sidman pairs pithy poems about creatures and natural wonders with clearly written informational sidebars. Her books also feature beautiful artwork; artist Beckie Prange won a Caldecott Honor for her illustrations in Sidman's "Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems" (Houghton Mifflin, $16). For kids edging toward their teenage years, try "Hip Hop Speaks to Children" (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, $19.99), which highlights poetry written by a wide variety of people, from Langston Hughes to Queen Latifah. Edited by poet Nikki Giovanni, this book and CD set celebrates what Giovanni succinctly describes as "poetry with a beat." TEENS For most teens, poetry is personal. Instead of reading poetry, they prefer to write it, and poems by other teens, like the ones collected in "Falling Hard" (Candlewick; paperback, $6.99), can serve as inspiration. Edited by poet Betsy Franco, this book consists of 100 poems about love, all written by teens. In "Punch-drunk Love," for example, Ellie Moore writes: "With you I'm always speeding,/ zig-zagging 'cross double yellow lines,/ eyes closed in ecstasy." For teen readers, the emotions reflected in these poems will be instantly -- and intensely -- recognizable. Karen MacPherson, who writes a weekly children's book review column for Scripps Howard News Service, is the children's & teen librarian at the Takoma Park Maryland Library. Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top Recent Stories    THE TIGER'S WIFE    TWICE A SPY    PROFILE OF ESMERALDA SANTIAGO    MICHELANGELO: A Life on Paper    THE ILLUMINATION	Quick Clicks Why pay over $90 a month for Cable or Sat.TV services? Download A TV! Discover Why the Every Other Day Diet's Weird Tips are Changing Lives! Eliminate Windows PC Errors Improve PC's System Speed by Up to 70%
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