Freeman and Freeman have done a superb job of writing an informative text filled with theory AND practical application. I am now able to better defend my belief of bilingual education. I am also better able to teach my students in that I have a new set of ideas for lesson plans.

This was an easy read. In fact, I could not put it down and read it cover to cover one very late Friday evening/Saturday morning. It is inspirational!

This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it!

George Moore was an Irish landowner who received his indoctrination into the world of art and literature in France. His encounter there with the realist movement led to the first three truly realistic (defined as against the prevailing moralism and/or melodrama of Victorian fiction) novels in English literature proper: A Modern Lover, A Mummer's Wife and Esther Waters.

Of the three, Esther Waters is the most fully developed and it is certainly the most engaging for a modern reader. In it, a woman has a child out of wedlock, and not only survives (through a variety of trials that are dispassionately but unflinchingly depicted) but in a manner of speaking prospers (Compare this for example with Elizabeth Gaskell's *Ruth*, written some 40+ years earlier).

A great read. An important milestone in the transition from moralism to realism in English fiction. An Irish writer who played an important role in the Irish literary renaissance in the early years of the 19th century.

Well worth the read.

I went to Columbia, with the most prominent 'great books' curriculum still in existence. 25 years later, I'm finding myself re-reading and discussing many of the titles. The Penn Greek Drama series is a handsome library of new translations that give fresh takes on the classics. It's useful to have Euripides on the shelf when you return home from the recent bravura performance by Fiona Shaw as Medea--it settled an argument too on how it 'originally' ended.

This volume from the Loeb Classical Libary offers up parallel English translations and original Greek texts for three classic Greek tragedies by Euripides: "Trojan Women," "Iphigenia Among the Taurians," and "Ion."

As preparations were made for the ruinous expedition against Syracuse, Euripides wrote "The Trojan Women," as a plea for peace. In this play the Greeks do more than enslave women: they have already slain a young girl as a sacrifice to the ghost of Achilles and they take Astyanax, the son of Hector, out of the arms of his mother so that he can be thrown from the walls of Troy. Even the herald of the Greeks, Talthybius, cannot stomach the policies of his people, but is powerless to do anything other than offer hollow words of sympathy. The play also has a strong literary consideration in that the four Trojan Women--Hecuba, Queen of Troy; Cassandra, daughter of Hecuba and Priestess of Apollo; Andromache, widow of Hector; and Helen--all appear in the final chapter of Homer's epic poem the "Iliad," mourning over the corpse of Hector. Of all the Achean leaders we hear about in Homer, only Menelaus, husband of Helen, appears. He appears, ready to slay Helen for having abandoned him to run off to Troy with Paris, but we see his anger melt before her beauty and soothing tones. "The Trojan Women" also reminds us that while we think of Helen as "the face that launched a thousand ships," she was a despised figure amongst the ancient Greeks and there is no satisfaction in her saving her life. The idea that all of these men died just so that she could be returned to the side of her husband is an utter mockery of the dead.

Agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis, but at the last minute the sacrifice was replaced with a stage. In "Iphigenia Among the Taurians" the dramatist explains the young girl was taken to a temple of Artemis in Tauris. The play takes place many years later as Iphigenia's brother Orestes, trying to appease the Furies for his crime of matricide, is ordered by the god Apollo to bring the statue of Artemis from Tauris to Athens, who have a tradition of sacrificing strangers. This play is really more of a tragicomedy than a traditional Greek tragedy consisting of a key scene of recognition ("anagnorisis") and a clever escape by the main characters. The recognition scene between Orestes and Iphigenia is well done, and atypical since there is joy in the "anagnorisis" rather than pain or death. "Iphigenia Among the Taurians" takes place after the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus and one of the more interesting elements of this play is the idea that Orestes had been hallucinating when he was seeing the Furies pursuing him. This is a rather rational explanation for his behavior following the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegithus. The key thing here is that you simply have to understand the entire background of the characters, both in terms of "Iphigenia at Aulis" and "The Orestia," to really understand this play.

In "Ion" Apollo, the god of truth, brutally rapes a helpless young girl, Creusa, and then abandons her. Creusa has a son, whom she abandons in a cave; when she goes back to find the child, he is gone. Years later she marries Xuthus, a solider of fortune who becomes king of Athens. At the start of the play Xuthus and Creusa are childless and go to Delphi for aid. There they are told that Ion, a young temple servant who has been raised from infancy, is the son of Xuthus. Creusa, outraged that Apollo let their own son die but preserved the life of a child begotten by Xuthus on some Delphian woman, tries to have Ion killed. Of course, in reality, Ion is her own child, abandoned in that cave. Condemned to death by the Delphians, Creusa escapes Ion's vengeance by taking refuge at Apollo's altar. There the priestess presents the tokens that allow Creusa to recognize Ion as her own son. Telling him the truth about his father, Ion tries to enter the temple to demand of Apollo the truth.

The common denominator for these plays is that they represent the last period of the career of Euripides, when his lyrics became much more emotional, which become quite powerful in plays like "Trojan Women" and "The Bacchae." The other key theme is the cynicism of Euripides towards the gods in general, and Apollo in particular; in addition to apparently wanting Orestes to die in Taurus, the God of Truth lies about being the father of Ion.

Mia Couto's books presents us an Africa full of magic and dignity.

Wow ! I was certainly amazed by the addictive nature of this devotional . Devotional seems to be black and white to youths but not this . A must read book .

Avianus's fables are retellings of the fables of Babrius's fables which are part of the Aesop and Indic fable tradition. Zipes' forward provides a very short history of the fable tradition. The translated by Slavitt is brilliant - the translation is loose in a way that translates the irony of the original. The fables as great fun to read - never the heavily preachy tone that often appears in translations. Here you will meet Charlie the Tuna; you'll find the crabby crab mother lecturing "Why can't you look where you're going, go where you're looking, pick up your feet, put your best foot forward, try a little harder, stand up straight, pay attention, put yourself sometines in the other person's shoes, ..." If you can't have fun with this collection of fables, don't be such a sourpuss, look on the bright side, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? ...

Bartholomae and Petrosky and their collaborators show in helpful detail the theory and practice of teaching college writing to underprepared students.

David Sandner is my "Traditions of Engilish Literature" teacher at Grinnell College. His mastery of the subject matter covered in this ground-breaking book (and in our course) is unsurpassed. He makes the Romantic era come alive in this book with his colorful prose and engaging analyses. His extensive knowledge of Romanticism, Transcendence, and children's literature come across in this critique, and make this book a must read!

Our school recently started performing this play at our school and I think it is absolutely funny. I have never read the book, but I am sure it is just as funny as the play was.