Ellen and William Craft were a young (mid-20's) slave couple who made a daring escape to freedom. Light-skinned Ellen cut her hair short and dressed in the suit and tophat of a white planter. Since she was illiterate, her husband William made a sling for her arm, so she had an excuse not to sign hotel registers. And since she had a womanly voice, the couple devised a poultice tied around her jaw indicating she had a bad toothache and could not speak. William played the role of his white massa's slave. And the couple traveled by train, steamship, and wagon to their destination in the north. They soon became popular lecturers in the United States and Europe. This is a remarkable story of daring and bravery and should be read by everyone. Anyone who wants to introduce their children to good historical fiction should get them The Journal of Darien Duff, an Emancipated Slave, The Diary of a Slave Girl, Ruby Jo, and The Journal of Leroy Jones, a Fugitive Slave.

I read this for a college history survey course before it was mistakenly announced that the book was out of print. The book was dropped from the syllabus, but I am glad I read it anyway.

The first and shortest part of the book is William Craft's powerful account of how he and his wife Ellen executed a daring escape from servitude in Georgia. Their plan was remarkable in its ingenuity: The almost white Ellen, outfitted with a master's clothes and a poultice on her face to prevent incriminating speech with strangers, and her husband William, disguised as a servant, escaped to freedom in the north. Travelling by rail, the pair exultantly crossed over into Canada and from thence headed for England.

The second part of the book is a third person summary of the couple's travels after their ambitious escape. It follows them from Georgia through the slave and free states, in which they were well received and protected (especially in Boston), up to Halifax and across the water to England. I found the final two thirds of the book the most enjoyable, as it treated of foreign travel, in which I have a keen interest. Both portions of the book are beautifully written and often gripping. I hope a few of my classmates read this before that announcement. This book is both pleasurable to read and historically vital.

This book is a captivating account of the injustices of slavery and a amazing story of two fugitives running for there freedom. This book is a great story that should be taught in schools and should not be ignored in American History classes. It opened my mind to the horrors slavery actually caused. It represents a part of our history that should never be repeated. 5 plus stars.

In 1980, when Jane Nardin first came across the novels of Barbara Pym, as she remarks, 'almost no literary criticism had yet been written' of Pym's work, while Dale Salwak, in his epilogue to All This Reading, records the 'appearance since 1985 of twenty full-length book studies or anthologies, with more soon to arrive'. An extraordinary growth of interest, which is now further reflected in the publication of this stimulating collection of nineteen new essays. Part I examines the significance of reading in the novels; Part II is devoted to literary encounters and collaborations in Pym's life and works. Hazel Bell's index successfully draws together the threads running through the contributions by various hands, allowing the reader to trace, for example, references to spinsterhood in the essays of Frauke Elisabeth Lenckos, Katherine Anne Ackley, Barbara Everett, Helen Clare Taylor, Anthony Kaufman, Anne Pilgrim and Barbara Dunlap.

In attempts to pin down Pym's special quality as a novelist, she has been compared to, and with, a quite disparate list of writers, from Jane Austen to Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth von Arnim, E. M. Delafield and a whole host of other names, many listed by Lenckos in her introduction. Kaufman compares the rivalry of Belinda and Agatha in Some Tame Gazelle to the humour of E. F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia, and Everett commends Pym's 'high originality' which sets her fiction 'far above the intransigently reactionary ... Angela Thirkell'. Dunlap, tracing the influence on Pym of Charlotte M. Yonge, asserts that 'Pym's fiction is steeped in the work of Yonge' (even the unusual name of the heroine of A Glass of Blessings, Wilmet, is borrowed from a very different heroine of Yonge's).

To what extent are Pym's novels autobiographical, and her well-read heroines reflections of herself? Orphia Jane Allen, writing on 'Reading Pym Autobiographically', comments that 'Pym was aware that she could permit herself to become like Leonora' (in The Sweet Dove Died), but Leonora represents only 'one of the directions an aging, unmarried woman's life could take'. The most obvious incarnation of Pym's own personality is Belinda in Some Tame Gazelle, with her near-obsessive love of literary quotation. Pilgrim notes that, while Archdeacon Hoccleve and Bishop Grote quote aloud, sometimes not very felicitously, and Harriet 'tends to be oblivious to literary references', Belinda 'hardly ever quotes aloud, but silently recollects and meditates upon scores of passages, many of them quite obscure', and Nardin also finds significance in the fact that Belinda keeps her literary references to herself, 'restrained by a sense of personal modesty and strict propriety at once pathological and deeply lovable'. In being made privy to Belinda's interior monologue, the reader is at the same time granted access to the author's own stream of consciousness.

As Ackley points out, Pym 'often blurs the distinction between literature and life', suggesting in various ways that some of her characters have lives outside her fictional world. Dulcie in No Fond Return of Love, who cannot resist prying into people's lives, finds it 'so much safer and more comfortable to live in the lives of others'. Pym's characters, says Ackley, 'view the world as if they, too, were writers', and Nardin writes that 'in Pym's novels, there is a tension between the impulse to read and the impulse to contextualize or interpret'.

The inner monologues of Pym's heroines reveal her own uncertainties and need for reassurance. Pilgrim comments on Belinda's habitual alternation between self-doubt, 'expressed in her diffidence, timidity and constant anxiety', and self-confidence. Everett remarks on the unpretentiousness of Pym's early novels, and adds that the modesty of her approach 'possibly worked to Pym's disadvantage during the period when her manuscripts were being rejected' and 'makes her too easy to dismiss now'. Surveying the six earlier novels, she considers these thoroughly enjoyable but 'probably minor art', while Quartet in Autumn is to her mind a major work. She finds Excellent Women the 'most accomplished,... the most admirably competent', and has a kind word for An Unsuitable Attachment - it 'has a first-rate cat and a wholly believable public library'.

These are only some examples of the many rich insights provided by All This Reading. Further pleasures are provided in the second part of the volume, such as the reproduction in the essay by Paul De Angelis of Pym's letters to him of 1978-9, almost up to the time of her death in January 1980, and of A Year in West Oxfordshire, Pym's contribution to Ronald Blythe's anthology Places of 1981.

Janice Rossen's essay, 'Philip Larkin: Barbara Pym's Ideal Reader', discusses the crucial role played by 'virtually the only fellow writer with whom she discussed her work in progress'. Larkin's influence and advice were clearly of great importance to her: not only was he able to give her very specific and practical advice, but he was a writer of established reputation who treated her as an equal and gave her 'constant reassurances that her work was of extraordinary value'.

And not least, there is an account of thirty years of friendship and collaboration by Hazel Holt, Pym's literary executor, who tells us that she no longer reads Barbara Pym. 'I don't need to. ...once you've read the novels, she is with you forever.'

Eudora Welty found Pym's novels to be "quiet, paradoxical and sad." I think she described them perfectly. All this Reading explores the life, novels and publication of Pym. The book comprises a series of essays by many distinguised contributors. Educated at St. Hilda's college, Osford, she joined the Wrens during WWII and was posted to Naples. Her novels draw on her circle of college friends and her military life. Her writing highlights the theme "only connect" from Howard's End by Forster.
In Katherine Ackley's essay, she suggests Pym's characters are devoted to literature. They recite passages from an Austen novel or a Donne poem. Literature is a source of comfort to them. In John Bayley's essay, he further seees Pym as a comforter. He expands upon Matthew Arnold's theme that great art calms and comforts us, and he cites Pym as such a writer. Bayley notes that Pym's confidence about the sexes comes "from her sense of the arbitrary, almost ruthless, way they join up."
In "A Life Ruined by Literature", Elisabeth Lenckos argues that reading is a central theme in Pym's novels. The related topics of reading, romance and redemption are central in her novels. In A Few Green Leaves, the heroine Emma Howick recalls Austen's Emma. She stars in her own drama of misplaced affection, rejection and humiliation before leaving romantic fantasy behind. Lenckos suggests that Pym's world is like Austen's where the gentlewomen of reduced circumstances in post-war England have moved from manor houses to village cottages, and work part time in gentile jobs as librarians, clerks and social helpers.. "Like Austen's heroines their desire is to find a loving partner with whom to share life...." Those who love literature will find the nineteen essays in All this Reading satisfy every taste in a fine collection.

Ellen Craft, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell should be familiar names to anyone interested in women's history or black history. Unfortunately, too few are aware of all three women.

The author accompanies brief (40 pages) well-written biographies of each woman with photographs and a timeline of key events in her life. The introduction provides an overview of the significance of each woman, and there is an excellent bibliography.

This book was Great! My mother bought it for me as a "Gift", (I collect Barbara Reid Books-I'm a clay artist as well), I found the book to be artistically perfect and the story captivating. Another book well done by Barbara Reid!

I purchased this for my mother and she loves it. The book is a nice combination of facts/trivia, growing tips and recipes, plus the illustrations are stunning. The unusual size of the book (tall and narrow) adds to the fun and enhances the illustrations.

This book is long overdue. Anyone who owns or rents a home/apartment will benefit from this book. All businesses in the book are recommended by satisfied customers - which makes it different from the Yellow pages. Each business has an informational write-up which is helpful for the consumer. In addition, each consumer was asked to quote on what that business did for them. The quotes are a good read. We have used several businesses from the book and were very pleased. This eliminates the hit and miss technique we were using before.

When abuse plays such a strong role in shaping the lives of children and the adults they eventually become, why is it that there are so few books that speak to children at the time of the abuse? Sure, there are analytical books on the topic, and scholarly works, but the real need lies in reaching out to our children at their most vulnerable time: when they're being abused. I think it's not only important, but revolutionary that Tears of Joy touches on that most taboo of subjects: sexual abuse of children. My wife was subjected to the cruelty of molestation as a young girl, and she swears by the fact that if she had had a vehicle by which to relate what she had gone through, she may have escaped the torture far sooner. A child will never tell what they don't know how to explain. How can we expect our children to learn how to explain if we don't give them the proper channel through which to do so. Thank God for this book.

This is one of the most important book you will ever have as an occupational therapist. It's the only book you would need to get through the OTR(Occupational Therapy Registration) exam.

this is a wonderful book for 4th graders who are working on their Mission report. Thanks.

Excellent resource geared for a childs level of reading and research. We have several of these books (as I believe it is a series with all of the missions) and they are written in depth, but perfect for our children.

Who knew that there were so many recipes for bread pudding? My wife has always loved bread pudding on Christmas morning. So when I saw this book at the library, I had to check it out. I am very glad I did.

"New-Fangled, Old-Fashioned Bread Puddings: Sixty Recipes for Delectable Sweet and Savory Puddings, Puffs, Stratas, and Bread Soufflés" is packed with all kinds of goodies. There is something here for everyone (unless you hate bread for some reason).

There are, of course, the sweeter choices. Recipes like Crunchy Apple Bread Pudding, Coconut Rum Custard, and Fudgy Chocolate Hazelnut Bread Pudding will definitely appeal to those with a sweet tooth.

For those looking for something a little heartier, selections abound. The Eggplant, Basil, and Parmesan Bread Pudding with Charred Tomato Vinaigrette is a meal in itself. The Welsh Rarebit Single Strata and the Winter Spiced German Steamed Bread Pudding are textbook definitions of comfort food.

There are so many great recipes here that I could go on endlessly about them. Yet to do so would be wasting your time. Instead, I encourage you to get this book right now--and start cooking! You will not be disappointed.

I recommend "New-Fangled, Old-Fashioned Bread Puddings" very highly.