The Education of Hyman Kaplan is an almost lost creation of Leo Rosten, a book I discovered a few years ago. On the face this book is a comedy of language set among the immigrant students of an adult language school in New York. There is no doubt the Rosten has a flair for bringing out the hilarious subtleties of the English language, and the book moves so quickly it seems unfairly short. Mr. Parkhill's beginners grade classroom is the scene of countless battle and wars, where the students struggle against syntax, diction, and each other. Some of the botched quotes from Shakespeare are masterpieces in themselves. I had no idea a book of this kind could be such a riot, and never knew our language was so close to lunacy.

The hapless hero, Kaplan, provides a wonderful vehicle for Rosten to maneuver through the pitfalls and traps of the many idiomed English Language. However, behind the books' mangled metaphors, garbled grammar, and reinvented history, lies the world of the immigrant in New York City. The light-hearted episodes are interspersed with an occasional look into the difficult life of a brand new American. These chapters show the optimism and the will to succeed that Kaplan's fellow students brought with them to America. Kaplan himself is an emblem of endurance; forever doomed to stay in the beginners grade, yet never despairing of the always elusive verb tenses.

This book has only one "weakness": it does not cater to cynicism. It looks ahead, from the eyes of each of the characters, to a better time, a better place, with better pronunciation. This is a glimpse of the Dream of America that I had not seen, a different view that fascinated me. I think the strangest thing is that the book is never preachy. It is likely this is because Rosten wrote this book as a mature writer, with many other works under his belt. His tendency to constant revision has left this book a polished gem. Read, laugh, and enjoy.

Hyman Kaplan will win the heart of the most cold hearted reader. The honest enthusiasm of the title character fills the book. You will find yourself writing your name in bright crayons for months after reading.

Fentastik! My! such vonderful void? How is Kaplan tinking of such a void?
This book is absolutely great. Taking place entirely within the confines of an English class for prospective American citizens, it captures the essence of a remarkable generation of immigrants. Of course, this is not a sociology book. It is good-natured humor, and a good look at human nature. Anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy this book, and if you are any kind of linguist it is even better. The poor souls in the beginners class are characters for the ages, including, of course, the inimitable and irrepressible H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N. This book is warm and humorous with no ridicule or mean-spiritedness at all. If written today it might be characterized as belittling to immigrants, but anyone who reads it in its true spirit will find it enjoyable and uplifting.

This combination how-to, reference book is aimed at school librarians, teachers, home schooling parents, and even kids who want to learn. It advocates a four-way synergy among these phenomena: 1. Talented programmers, who have distributed literally thousands of educational programs on the Internet, 2. Libraries with extremely austere budgets, that can still acquire tons of quality educational shareware, free ware, and CD ROMs (made available by those programmers), 3. Prematurely obsolete PCs and Macs that can be brought back to life by running lean, efficient shareware, 4. Librarians, whose learning curves can be lowered markedly (by referring to this book), and soon can be finding software gems of their own.

It sounds good, almost like a Disney movie, but instead of Peter Pan you get programmers on a mission in cyberspace. Still, there is a silent criticism. A criticism that ends up trashing the review even more than had it been discussed. People, including myself, are reluctant to criticize anything motivated by the love of children, so they don't ask the tough questions, like: "Doesn't shareware lack polish?", or, "Aren't the big companies like MicroSoft going to take over the educational software market?", or, "What about viruses?". Or they don't say: "By now the economic boom should have filled the coffers of libraries everywhere.", or, "Some of the titles are probably already out of date."

I had all the above misgivings, yet there was something special about this book. No matter what the topic or sub-topic, the author seemed to know a lot about it, and even conveyed a sense of how it fit into the big picture. For instance, Mr. Ross cites Netscape to underscore one the book's central concepts, which is this: In the wild and woolly dawn of the information age, shareware is on the cutting edge, and quality shareware tends to last.

Every book has a story (how its ideas were conceived, developed, etc.), and usually the more intertwined the book's story is with the author's own, the better the book. This author's story can be found in bits and pieces in this book, in another book: The Whiz Kid's Starter Kit, and in the archives of The Family Computer, a weekly column he writes. Calvin Ross is a teacher and computer lab manager at two schools, a single dad with a gifted son, the designer of the NewTechHigh (an experimental high school) website, and a former resident of Japan, whose understanding of our own freewheeling economy was deepened by observing theirs. When he writes about austerity remaining a way of life for most school librarians, or virus-free web sites that will be around for a long time (like Compuserve, or AOL), or the advantages of a particular math program--it's in the words of a man who's "done been there," and not for just a little while, but for years. That's what's special about this book.

One other thing: the overwhelming majority of the 298 educational programs that the author has carefully culled, cataloged, rated, and described are still available. In most cases they've actually been improved.

Keep in mind now that I have not read the book, I am only noting what I heard that hooked me enough to put it on my wish list.
I was reading "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen", impressions of Texas by Larry McMurtry. Larry McMurtry was talking about the western sky. He said that while driving from Virginia back home to Texas he would notice, after crossing the Mississippi, a lifting of his spirits due to the widening view of the sky. He felt closed in by the limited view of the sky in the wooded areas of the east. He quoted another author who expressed the same feeling, and he then specifically recommended this book for addressing this feeling.
At the same time that Larry McMurtry was talking about the sky he was talking about the arid land of west Texas, and how difficult it was to establish life there. He recommended this book, written in the 1940,s, as a good study on the accomodations living creatures must make to aridity.
That's enough for me.

I do not understand. Repetative sentences. Big words for a simple book. It is not exciting. Makes me sleepy.....

This book was non-understandable, and made no sence