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En route to a show, the Boston 5 help a Native American reservation and use their star power to bring the plight of this group to their predominately Anglo target audience.
Although I intially bought it when I was in Junior High because Donnie had a staring role in this predictable adventure, some parts of this book are really incredible when it is understood that the New Kids were a very early and original version of the boy bands of today. Yet, because the author's attempt does not create a modern day Billy Jack (where a peace activist provides shady justification for his use of violence while helping Native American children) it is far more interesting than it could have been.
Throughout most of the story, Donnie and the others act as mentors to the American Indian youth and learn about their friend's lives. Although the mentor plot is some what condescending in parts (after all, the book does not mention that Native Americans such as Lenoard Peltier and the American Indian Movement have long been at work on these issues) it also is a good attempt at trying to reach young minds.
While not at all known for writing political books, the authors are careful to avoid preaching to the target readers, and enough material is woven into the otherwise flimsy storyline to encourage children to think about others who may be different from themselves. Since the 1980's was filled with doomsday reports that 60's style activism was all but dead in the age of greed, this remained a nice suprise.
At the same time, there are moments where older readers (even those who grew up with NKOTB) will detect the saccharine plot and wish for something more substantial. Duh, of course the New Kids are going to help the less fortunate and help expand the conciousness of their fans.
Still, not bad for a pre-teen marketed group. Donnie's not Abbie Hoffman or Martin Luther King, but he is given some nice lines in the blook.
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One assumption the Cowans make is that there are two types of people- Jews and Christians. Based on this assumption, they go on for pages about the history of Christians persecuting Jews and completely ignore the fact that there is more than one combination possible for an intermarriage. I am a gentile, but not a Christian, and in my acquaintance there is a Jewish/Buddhist couple, a Jewish/Wiccan couple and many other such pairs. This oversight made the book even less useful than it was to begin with.
There were several passages in the book that were so mean and insensitive that they almost made me cry! For instance, the way in one of their seminars they allow the Jewish participants to berate a Christian woman endlessly for wanting a Christmas tree (and she came from a broken home where Christmas was the only happy time!). There is much on how she must be sensitive to her husband's feelings about Christian persecution/being a minority, but what about her? She has feelings too, as do all us other gentiles in intermarriages! Eventually she was pressured into not only giving up the tree but also converting.
I mean no disrespect to those who choose to convert- I considered the same at one point. But I do object to books such as this one which is blatantly insensitive and mean to Christian partners. I would be just as mad if it was this cruel to Jewish partners, because marriages should be based on kindness, fairness, and honesty, not coercion, guilt, and cruelty!
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