In this poem, the lives of six troubled kids entwine. Wrapping around each other like the words to a song, or maybe more like a dance, their words work hard to make everything come out right. The fear of a teen pregnancy and it's consequences to both teens, foster care, DUI, being gay, an abusive stepfather, and the words Ms. Frost uses to convey everything are spare and concise and beautiful.
Surely a Printz Award contender.

my choice..........KATIE

"I sleep in my sleeping bag in a room
with a lock in the basement of the place
on Jackson Street. And I feel safe.
If Keesha wants to talk to me, she knocks
first, and if I want to let her in, I do.
If I don't, I don't. It's my choice.

There's not too much I really have a choice
about. Mom would say I chose to leave my room
at home, but that's not something anyone would do
without a real good reason. There's no place
for me there since she got married. Like, one time, I knocked
her husband's trophy off his gun safe,

and he twisted my arm--hard. I never feel safe
when he's around. I finally asked my mom to make a choice:
him or me. She went, Oh, Katie, he'll be fine. Then she knocked
on our wooden table. I blew up. I stormed out of the room
and started thinking hard. In the first place,
I know he won't be fine. I didn't tell her what he tries to do

to me when she works late. In a way, I want to, but even if I do,
she won't believe me. She thinks we're safe
in that so-called nice neighborhood. Finally, Katie, a place
of our own. And since she took a vow, she thinks she has no choice
but to see her marriage through. No room
for me, no vow to protect me if he comes knocking

on my door late at night. He knocks
and then walks in when I don't answer. Or even when I do
answer: Stay out! This is my room
and you can't come in! I could never be safe
there, with him in the house. So, sure, I made a choice.
I left home and found my way to this place,

where I've been these past two weeks. And I found a place
to work, thirty hours a week. Today Mom knocked
on the door here. She wanted to talk. I told her, You made your choice;
I made mine. She wondered what she could do
to get me to come home. But when I said, It's not safe
for me as long as he's there, she left the room.

My choice is to be safe.
This room is dark and musty, but it's one place
I do know I can answer no when someone knocks."

The use of those words over and over in a sestina--safe, knock, choice, room--I feel like I can really step into Katie's skin after reading the piece. Throughout this awesome verse novel we are able to step into the skin of a variety of kids--kids who all have problems that cause them to leave their "real" homes. What we find is that these young people are caring of each other and that they care about the future. You will like these kids. You'll like it at Keesha's house.

In this next piece--a sonnet instead of a sestina--we are shown why all these young people have been able to go to a safe place and stay there for free:

i know the value..........JOE

"I know the value of a house like this.
Old and solid, hardwood stairs and floor.
But when I showed up at Aunt Annie's door
when I was twelve--bruised, scared, clenched fists--
all I knew was: I could stay.
As long as you need to, Joe, was what she kept
on saying, right up till she died and left
the house to me. So now that's what I say
when kids show up and I know they can't ask
for what they shouldn't have to ask for. They need
more than I can give them. I know I'm
no Aunt Annie. I ain't up to the task
of tryin' to be their legal foster dad.
But I can give them space--and space is time."

Keesha is the girl living there who has put out the word about Joe's/Aunt Annie's house. Now everyone calls it Keesha's House and the new arrivals are surprised to meet Joe. In the long run some of these kids are able to come to terms with the adults who've raised them. They choose to go home. Others don't:

up to us..........HARRIS

"There's light ahead of me as I walk on
into my senior year. I wasn't sure
about going back, but Katie said, If you're
about to quit, The Jerks will think they won.
She calls them that--The Jerks--like Dontay calls me son
when he gives me fake advice:Stay pure,
son, in thought word and deed. We'll find a cure
for you someday. I laugh. It's all in fun.
If people we're supposed to count on can't
(or don't) support us, it's up to us to find
the friends who can and do. Of course
we want to be with both our parents in the kind
of home where we'd be loved. But why rant
on about all that? Home is in your mind."

Readers will find KEESHA'S HOUSE a great place to spend some quality time. You'll find me back there again soon.

Richie Partington
...

That the author has spent her whole career working with writing and young people is evident from the thoughtful and constructive approach she takes to writing about difficult subjects. Tactful and level-headed, specific and creative, Frost provides a sound foundation for working with students in ways that make a space for them to write about hard things if they want to.

The book is also well-written; I read the first half straight through, drawn from page to page. Here's a sample:

"If we can teach our students to use language truthfully, skillfully, and perhaps beautifully, we offer them a power quite unlike other sources of power they may be inclined to seek. If they can learn to use their writing skills instead of trying to intimidate or overpower their teachers and classmates, they may discover a tool they can use in situations in which power is used against them."

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who is a teacher, has a teacher, or knows a teacher. The author's experiences in teaching kids to write about difficult topics are described here in a warm and clear voice that serves as an illustration of how best to communicate with the kids in question. This is a very valuable tool, with specific examples and exercises which will be immediately applicable. While dealing with the stated subject, the book goes far beyond, and will be welcome reading for anyone who wants to be a better teacher of any subject, with (or because of) the added benefit of knowing themselves better through the self-examination this teaching and learning process requires.

This book has taught our child how to brush her teeth independently. She follows the demonstration of each child on every page. The book is written well for very young children. A very quick read. One sentence for each step. It is a permanent book in our library

Germans made up the largest group of immigrants to come to the United States, with over 5 million arriving between 1820 and 1920 (including one set of my great-grandparents). Today one-fourth of our population is descendant from German immigrants. In "German Immigrants, 1820-1920," author Helen Frost tells about Life in the Old Country that convinced millions to travel (Catholics and Protestants alike left for religious freedom), what The Trip Over was like for these immigrants, and then what it meant Arriving and Surviving in America. A final chapter deals with Keeping Traditions and throughout the book there are pages devoted to specific topics like Packing to Leave, doing Papierschnitt, learning German American Language, making Pfeffernuesse (German cookies), and how to Make a Family Tree. Be warned that young readers will probably be thwarted in their attempts to do Papierschnitt as detailed as they will find in these pages.

Despite its focus, "German Immigrants 1820-1920" tells the rather universal sotry of why people came to America and how they carved out their own communities across the country. The back of this book provides biographical notes on six famous German Americans: Sandra Bullock, Albert Einstein, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Henry J. Heinz, Herbert Hoover and George Herman "Babe" Ruth (I was predicting Lou Gehrig actually, but I NEVER would have thought of Sandra Bullock on this list). There is also a glossary, and short lists of other books to read, place to write and visit, and Internet sites. The "Coming to America" series also includes volumes on Chinese, Irish, Italians, Japanese and Scandinavian immigrants.

This book has excellent color illustrations, and will be of interest to students, teacher, and parents alike. It is a good introduction to the dentist's office for K-1st grade.

Thurgood Marshall is an authentic American hero: "Mr. Civil Rights;" point person for the NAACP's dismantling of segregation; Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (from 1961-1965); Solicitor General (1965-1967); and Justice of the Supreme Court (1967-1991). Mark Tushnet's Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions and Reminiscences is a welcome anthology of Marshall's professional writings as lawyer, judge, and storyteller.

Tushnet, Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center, was Marshall's law clerk during the 1972-1973 term and has written authoritatively about the civil rights movement. He knows the man and material, and has selected the entries with care.

The book contains five parts. Part I contains two of Marshall's appeal briefs, including Brown v. Board of Education, and selected transcripts of oral arguments before the Supreme Court. The briefs substantiate Marshall's "sure instinct for the facts that mattered and an ability to present his case in the way his audience . . . would understand." The oral arguments demonstrate his tenacity in urging his positions despite hard questioning. Marshall the lawyer was clearly a product of his mentor Charlie Houston, Dean of Howard Law School, who taught: "Men, you've got to be social engineers. We've got to turn this whole thing around. And the black man has got to do it; nobody's going to do it for you. . . . You've got to get out there and compete with the other man, and you've got to be better than he is. You might never get what you deserve, but you'll certainly not get what you don't deserve."

Marshall the lawyer was painstakingly thorough. One of his many anecdotes (it was said he could tell a story every day for twenty years and never repeat himself) reflects the pride he took in his legal craftsmanship: a Louisiana judge, not favorably disposed to Marshall or his case, still had to admit, "If Mr. Marshall puts his signature on it, you don't have to check [the citations]."

Part II contains speeches and articles by Marshall while he was a lawyer, for the NAACP's magazine and other periodicals. These are interesting glimpses into the fellowship and frustrations of the civil rights effort, as well as Marshall's methods of advocacy. In his testimonial remarks for Philadelphia lawyer Raymond Pace Alexander, Marshall defines true advocacy as "to put your client above everything else . . . in such a fashion as to get the respect of everyone else."

Part III, contains speeches by Marshall when he was a judge. The section includes Marshall's cautionary remarks during the 1987 bicentennial of the Constitution. Only a Constitution "defective from the start" would permit the Supreme Court to assert in 1857 that it provided blacks with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect." It took "several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, that we hold as fundamental today." Also included are Marshall's annual talks at the Second Circuit Judicial Conference. Marshall speaks with great affection for the Second Circuit, with which he was closely affiliated for over a quarter-century, and candidly admits his disagreement with the direction of the Burger and Rehnquist courts.

Part IV, contains a sampling, edited for a general audience, of Justice Marshall's "322 majority opinions, 83 concurrences, and 363 dissents" during his twenty-four years on the Supreme Court. (An appendix catalogs the most significant opinions). The number of dissents is striking. "Maybe I am just a voice crying in the wilderness," Marshall said in 1988, "but as long as I have breath in me I am going to cry."

Randall Kennedy's lucid foreword acknowledges that Marshall's career as an attorney outshone his career as a judge, but only because Marshall's career as a lawyer was so extraordinary that what followed had to be anticlimactic. Another reason for Marshall's limited impact as a judge, at least to-date, is that the court turned rightward just as he became a part of it, and he spent the last part of his career decrying the diminution of principles he had struggled so hard to establish. Sometimes the Court seemed to him to be turning these principles upside down, as in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), in which Marshall commented: "[I]t must be remembered that, during most of the past 200 years, the Constitution as interpreted by this Court did not prohibit the most ingenious and pervasive forms of discrimination against the Negro. Now, when a State acts to remedy the effects of that legacy of discrimination, I cannot believe that this same Constitution stands as a barrier." The supreme irony is that Marshall's final years on the Court were under Chief Justice Rehnquist, who wrote a memo to Justice Jackson concerning Brown arguing that the "separate but equal" doctrine was perfectly constitutional.

The final section, Reminiscences, is the Columbia Oral History Project interview of Marshall. It is a delightful collection of practiced anecdotes, reflecting Marshall's immense charm and humor. Marshall relates even the most harrowing of episodes, his near lynching, with humor. Arrested on pretext of driving while drunk, he narrowly escaped the lynch mob when a tee-totaling magistrate ordered his release. He called Attorney General Clark (later maneuvered by LBJ to resign his Supreme Court seat to Marshall), who asked, "Where you drunk?" Marshall replied, "Well, Mr. Attorney General, about five minutes after I hang up this phone, I'm going to be drunk."

This book, being a memoir, barely begins to tell the story of Robert Frost in Florida. His time in Key West is given extremely short shrift, and no mention at all is made of his important friendship with Florida's own Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The Frosts were treasured dinner guests at Cross Creek before Mrs. Frost's death; Mr. Frost alone visited Marjorie in St. Augustine and Van Hornesville, NY. I don't know how Muir missed this connection except that she was focused on his Miami ties. But in that case, the book should be called "Frost in Miami."

Still, for Frost afficianados, this book is a fix. Contains much personal information about his rotten personality, but most of us have heard that before. If you had written "Stopping by Woods," you would have a right to be a so-and-so sometimes.