Here are some Staff Shelf Selections:
HELEN AND TEACHER, by Joseph P. LashReviewed by Bob Sorrentino, CFPL Senior Reference Librarian, 04/13/06
Helen Keller was one of the most remarkable women who ever lived, battling handicaps that would have defeated anyone else to become one of the most accomplished women of her time or any time. No less remarkable was her teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy, the young woman who unlocked the territory of Helen's unexplored mind. Joseph P. Lash ("Eleanor and Franklin") here provides a fascinating dual-biography of the two of them, detailed and yet highly readable at the same time.
For those who Keller and Macy's stories primarily via William Gibson's play (and film) "The Miracle Worker," this book admirably fills in much of the background discussed therein. The poverty and privations of Anne Sullivan's child versus the privilege of Helen Keller's only serves to underline how alike these women were at heart, both battling the darkness of blindness (and, in Keller's case, deafness, as well) to prove that the handicapped did, indeed, have a place in the world and that DISabled did not mean UNable. This was a battle that Keller and Macy fought their whole lives, and they fought it triumphantly.
And biographer Lash, who knew both women, brings this to life on every page. By the time you're done reading this lengthy (but fast-moving) book, you feel not only as though you're read a book about both women, but that you KNOW both women.
Highly recommended.
SHADOWS & DELIGHTS, by Ted KooserReviewed by Alfred Encarnacion, CFPL Reference Librarian, 3/29/06
Ted Kooser's Delights and Shadows, his Pulitzer Prize winning collection, contains all the pleasures that readers of the U. S. Poet Laureate have come to expect of him from his previous volumes. Concise, rhythmic narratives, Kooser's poems are never flashy or complicated for complexity's sake. Instead, his work exhibits the same poetic qualities that made Robert Frost and William Stafford such perennial favorites. Like those two quintessentially American writers, Kooser-by the authenticity of his poetic "voice"-seems to instantaneously engage his readers' attention. This is indeed a significant accomplishment for it allows, as James Dickey once pointed out in an essay on Frost, the poems to enter the reader's consciousness unchallenged.
Initially the poems in this volume may seem familiar in style and subject matter to the work of many contemporary American poets; however, what sets Kooser apart from the rest is his ability to effortlessly endow the poem with a greater emotional poignancy than might be expected. Even with such unpromising subjects as pegboards, the poet is able to surprise his readers by an uncanny ability to pivot the poem toward some deeper significance: in this case poetry is used not merely to describe the function of a pegboard but rather to create a metaphor which suggests the entire history of human technology, and all this is accomplished in a twelve-line opus of less than seventy words that never strains to make a statement. Likewise, in "Walking on Tiptoe," "Gyroscope," "Creamed Corn," "Home Medical Dictionary," and "In the Hall of Bones" Kooser places at the heart of his poems a distillation of meaning that offers readers a sudden moment of enlightenment.
The two longer poems, "Pearl" and "The Beaded Purse," while not as intense as the briefer pieces, are still moving narratives in which the poet explores familial relationships. In the former, a trip to an elderly relative reveals the sad deterioration of a cousin's mental faculties and, by extension, the altered sense of reality many encounter when faced with the consequences of time and human mortality. The latter poem is a third-person account of a Kansas father who must transport his adult daughter's body home for burial after they had been estranged for a dozen years while she was pursuing an unsuccessful acting career in the east. Although reconciliation has come too late for the pair, still a reconciliatory act is performed by the father who puts a few bills into the expensive, but empty purse shipped back with his daughter's body so that his wife will be spared the knowledge of their daughter's indigent state. As in the shorter poems, Kooser's economical writing and musical phrasing create a credible poetic voice that compels the reader to suspend his disbelief in order to partake, in this instance, of the ironic insights offered at the conclusion of the poem.
Delights & Shadows (811 KOO) is one of a number of new poetry collections to be found on the poetry display table in the library's third-floor Nonfiction Dept. Along with Kooser's The Poetry Home Repair Manual, a practical guide for beginning poets, this book is highly recommended for poetry readers of all tastes.
CLOSE TO SHORE, by Michael CapuzzoReviewed by Pat Dillenschnieder, CFPL Librarian, 7/12/05
Almost hidden by the larger, picture-filled books on sharks in 597.3, is a small winner. CLOSE TO SHORE, by Michael Capuzzo, tells the gripping true story of a shark that somehow lost its way and swam down Matawan Creek in northern New Jersey. Mr. Capuzzo's account is horrifying but so well written and so interesting, it was impossible to put it down. The only thing that would make it better is pictures. So, be sure and check out CLOSE TO SHORE: THE TERRIFYING SHARK ATTACKS OF 1916 by the same Michael Capuzzo (J597.3) in the Children's Department. I don't know how the author did it, but this shorter version is still beautifully written and includes wonderful illustrations of the people, buildings, and articles from the newspapers of the time.
So, go back to the Jersey of 1916. "Seconds before the attack, a shiver traveled down his spine - humans are gifted, as are all large mammals, with the instinctive ability to detect that they are being hunted. As the creature's shadow merged with his on the bright, sandy floor of the sea, Charles experienced an adrenal explosion, the overpowering urge to live. He was in only three and a half feet of water, close to shore. Safety was at hand. But it was too late."
