"This Is Sailing" is a wonderful, extremely useful manual for beginning sailors -- and more experienced ones who would like to broaden their knowledge of sailing or sailing terminology. There is scarcely a page without colour illustrations (photos and drawings), all of which are easy to see and to understand. The text is succinct and lucid, and the sailing vocabulary is in boldface. This book is quite serious when it calls itself "a complete course". Containing a massive amount of sailing know-how, "This Is Sailing" is a must for everyone who wasn't actually born sailing.

I picked this book up at the library recently and I have to say that although the storyline is a good one, I found the telling of Bo's tale to be much too drawn out.

The story begins with a car accident and Bo, a bi-racial child, is dangling upside down in his mother's car. His mother Jenny has been killed and Bo is now an orphan. From here the story continues with both sets of grandparents fighting for custody of Bo. The white grandparents only want Bo when they come to the realization that there may be some money involved. The story of the whole custody battle was slow moving and really not developed enough.

I enjoyed parts of the book but really felt it could have been a little less confusing in its depiction. It was somewhat disjointed and the characters never became real to me.

Joanna Scott, the book's author, writes lyrically astounding portrayals of what Bo, the main character, sees happening to him and his family. Bo isn't even 10 years old yet and more has happened in his life than one could bear in a life time. The struggles and paradoxes that him and his care-takers face are dramatic and show reality; what real people go through.

Although, because this book is very lyrical and also because its looking through the eyes of a child, sometimes its hard to understand if you're not concentrating completely on the book. That's its one, and only, drawback.

Only four years old, Bo knows his African-American father Kamon died before he was born. Now as he dangles upside down in the car wreck, it appears to him that his white mother Jenny left him too. His paternal grandparents have always been there for Bo, cherishing and loving him. On the other hand, his maternal grandparents have not seen him since he was born, shunning him as a pariah.

However, when the hospital initially errs by initially missing the fact that the child suffers from a ruptured spleen, suddenly his white grandparents file for guardianship. Jenny's father sees Bo as a means to making millions in a negligence suit against the hospital. He wins guardianship though Bo's Black grandparents have always been there for him and already given him a new loving home. However, Bo quickly learns how much Eddie detests him as the malevolent treatment turns uglier and uglier.

MAKE BELIEVE may be the best book of this year. The story line is believable and emotionally taut and complex. The story line grips the reader from the very beginning when an injured frightened little boy wonders what he did to cause his mommy to go away. The characters are well written and their motives slowly surface so that the reader realizes how complex each key player truly is. Anyone who relishes a profound relationship novel will want to read Joanna Scott's latest story and some of her previous works such as THE MANIKIN.

Harriet Klausner