John R. Holt, When We Dead Awaken (Bantam, 1990)

It may be stretching it a bit to stick John Holt's wonderful first novel into my ongoing re-reads of 1980s horror novels, since it was published in 1990. Indulge me for a few minutes, though, because When We Dead Awaken was one of the finest horror novels published during the decade, even if Bantam missed the cutoff by a few months. Holt's novel still has the feel of eighties horror; it's still wrapped up in old legends and ghosties/ghoulies/long-leggetie beasties that go bump in the night instead of taking the decidedly ecological turn that has been the basis of much of the horror fiction of the past fifteen years. It's gloriously awash in excess (without hitting the pitch that splatterpunk would only a year or so later), while the language used to convey it is minimal, almost journalistic. You know, eighties horror fiction. Holt was deserving of being among the decade's great lights with this novel, but for whatever reason you care to blame, it never made a huge splash. Lack of advertising dollar by the publisher is usually a good punching bag. We'll go with that one.

Holt's novel takes another old, almost-forgotten legend revived by the upswing in popularity of Dungeons and Dragons, the revenant, and puts a savage spin on it. By legend, the revenant is the avenging ghost of someone against whom a great wrong was committed, let loose upon the earth to achieve vengeance. Such is the case here, except the great wrong to the ghost in question is all in his mind. What happens when your revenant is insane? Very bad things.

The story centers around a family-owned motorcycle sales and repair shop in Florida. One of the members of the family, Billy, a mechanic in the repair shop, went nuts a year before the story opens and killed his wife and child before dying himself (the story is intentionally vague in the beginning as to whether Billy's death was suicide, accident, or murder; it's revealed later on). Billy, never the nicest person to be around, has gotten a whole lot worse after death. He's had a year to do nothing but lie around and nurture his hatred for those who he thinks wronged him over the years. And when something brings him back to the point where his consciousness can affect things in the living world, there's going to be some trouble.

The plot, the action, and the delivery are nothing special, though Holt throws in a few twists and turns that are unpredictable (layering them, quite cleverly, right under the predictable ones). Those aren't the reason this book deserves to still be around in a hundred years. What really makes this thing tick is the development of the characters and Holt's mastery at revealing the right details at the right times. Why is Billy nuts? And why, when his kid is the only thing in the world he cares about, would he suddenly decide to go on a bloody rampage that specifically targets his own family? Why is there such a love/hate relationship between Billy and is brother? The reader will be asking all the right questions by the end of the first chapter, and Holt knows exactly how long to let them drag on in order not only to heighten the reader's pleasure when the answers are finally revealed, but to highlight the depth and complexity of his own creations.

An excellent book. Hard to find these days, but well worth tracking down for the horror fan. Holt deserves a far wider audience than he's got. ****

Even to the very end, you think you know, and then you don't. That's how this book reads. It is very captivating, a page-turner that you don't want to put down. It is about a family cursed, cursed by sins of the past, and perhaps a fierce soul from the past who just won't die.

Make sure you have a few hours to put into this one before you start. You won't want to stop until you finish! The ending is superb!

This book is a terrible representation of the Navajo Indians. None of the information that is in this book is a valid representation of their traditions. The information that we are teaching to our children from this book is false and very stereotypical. It should be taken out of every school.

An Indian boy asks his Grandfather to tell him about the night he was born, and the Grandfather ties another knot in the counting rope. The night was windy, and when the boy was born, they thought he might die. The Grandfather took him outside and two blue horses came by and gave him their strength. The boy lived, but lives in darkness. He begs begs for a promise that his Grandfather will always be with him, to which the Grandfather replies, "I love you, boy; that is better than a promise!" A gentle story of love, blindness, and some pretty illustrations make for a memorable book.

this is a book that has more intensity and insight with each new reading. it is the story of a physically handicapped child who with the support of his grandfather takes on a difficult challege and competes to his highest potential. the story integates overcoming challenges, uncondition parental love, hard work, and aging while finishing with a realistic outcome. the reader will be moved with pride and hope.

hello, i am on my 3rd year of french(texas) i have to say that i have had the hardest time this year because of this text book. it lacks in grammer and i feel i dont learn very much. with the exception of cultural information...which is interesting, but i am interested in pursuing french as a possible career option, and i feel that this book is not preparing me for a future in fluent french speaking.

Bonjour! I am in my first year of French, and I have found Allez, Viens to be one of the most thorough foreign-language textbooks that I have ever studied with. Cultural notes and useful expressions are highlighted to grab the students's attention, and each chapter studies a different francophone (French-speaking) country. I would highly recommend this book.

Allez Viens is a well planned, comprehensive text book. I was exposed to it in my first year of teaching French and plan to use it until the end of my career.

I read the book, "A Seperate Peace", by John Knowles and it was pretty good. It involves two main boys going through high school during World War II. One of the boys,Phineas, is superior at everything involving sports. The other main character is Gene Forrester. He is great at school but not in sports. These boys are roomed together in their prepatory school named Devon and are best friends. Gene starts thinking that Phineas, a.k.a Finny, is trying to hold back him from doing so great at school so he can be the best at everything. So Gene starts hating Finny and ends up creating a horrible accident that ruins Finny's life forever. It shows that there is always some darkness in the back of Gene's mind but never once was there in Finny's. Gene goes to tell Phineas that he created the accident but Finny doesn't belive him. So Gene drops it and hopes Finny won't try to remember what actually happened that one day and remember the truth. Another character in the book is a boy named Leper Lelliper who is always looking to find the best things in life he can look at slowly and not rush anything. He decides to go look at and take pictures of a beaver dam then go and work on the railroads to help the WWII fighters get through the town. But in his childish life he becomes to be the first person in his and Gene's and Finny's class to enlist in the army. After doing this everybody's life takes a turn. Brinker Hadley, the class president, drops out of all extra curricular activites and becomes lazy. Gene starts working at sports and pitys Finny every chance he can. Phineas starts trying to get his life back in order and trys to do all the things he did before the accident. But then one day Gene recieves a letter from Leper asking for help. The army has done something to Leper and tooken something away from him he can never get back. Gene goes to visit him but can't take it and goes back to Devon, never speaking of what happened. Then one night Brinker Hadley and a bunch of other boys awaken Finny and Gene to take them to a trail. A trial that would change Finny's life and Gene's life forever. The whole story is told by Gene Forrester in a flashback fifteen years ago. The story shows great symbolism with tree. And always has great themes, such as:private war versus public war, Gene's view of life vs. Finny's view of life, and a life of conformity vs. a life of freedom.

This book is the story of John Lathrop, an early English non-conformist, and his fight for religious freedom.

Accounts of people like William Tyndale, John Wycliff and other similar champions of Christianity and freedom are hard to come by these days. Foxe's Book of Martyrs and other similar works contain thumbnail sketches of these champions of religious liberty that had so much to do with the establishment of America. There are extensive scholarly works on some of these figures. But it is difficult to find a popular work that has sufficient depth to really understand the struggles that these people went through to establish religious liberty as a tenet of Western Civilization.

This book fills in this gap. It is the story of an English Minister who is forced into exile because his conscience will not allow him to agree completely with his church.

It is historical and derived from primary sources, but is told in a conversational style much like that of Alan Eckert in his early American historical works. This form of writing flows smoother and is more appealing to someone looking for a good story in addition to learning more information on historical figures and periods.

As an American, I found it particularly interesting as it documented the history of a representative figure who fled the Old World for the New to find religious liberty.

I recommend it for adolescents and adults who would appreciate learning more of this early American immigrant and the causes that led to so many similar immigrants coming to America. The genealogy list of descendants of John Lathrop notes that over half of the 43 Presidents of the United States were (and are since GWB is also related) related to this man.

I have been an avid user of automotive manuals for some time now. I perform all repairs on the vehicals that I own. I have used Chilton's, Haynes, and vaarious other manuals, and they all are about the same. This manual is a little more informative then the others. I really like the way that this manual was organized.

I was assigned this book within my Education class at Macon State college. This book for me shifted back and forth between interesting and boring. Simply because it was very detailed at times and very repetetive at times. It really started getting better when I got to the section "how school's fail". I already work in the school system as a paraprofessional and I see a lot of what Holt talks about. I also agree with him that sometimes you have to slow down to a child's pace and back up to where the child is in order to bring them up. You can't just expect them to catch up with the same work the other children are keeping up with.

The idea with the balance beam experiment was good. It really gave the children something to think about. Children need to learn to think for themselves and not have everything just told to them. The Cuisenaire rods seemed like a good idea at a point, but Holt just went into too much detail and repetition in the book with them. It made it hard to read much of those sections.

This book should be required reading for all education students. It won't show you how to be a good teacher, but it will show you how to be a bad one. John Holt's careful and honest examination of the utter dysfunction that typifies classrooms to this very day, had it been digested by the education Establishment, might have helped save countless lives. It is often treated as axiomatic that what teachers do to students, whether it is facilitating, teaching, socializing, or conditioning, is ultimately for the students' benefit. Alas, many of our children learn the hard way that this is not the case; most often, teachers do far more harm than good. It is a tragedy of immense proportion that these people cloak their monstrous misdeeds behind a public perception of teaching as a noble, selfless, underpaid profession. Most teachers are despicable villians trapped in their own closed minds, petty fascists who relish their authority over helpless children and who secretly (or not-so-secretly) regard learning with fear and contempt. Holt's notes on his own experience as a teacher will remind those of you who forgot, or, possibly, enlighten those of you who were duped. This atrocity must be stopped. But please, don't hurt the teachers. They're victims too.

The book how children fail reminded me of my own childhood, during my elementary school year. Yes, I too wanted to get the right answer to please my teacher and not to be the dummy in the eyes of the other students in order for them to have a laugh for the day.

The teacher did suppress my indiviualism due to forcing me to have a lack of courage. My courage was often mistaken as misbehavior, and I was discouraged to speak my mind. I was taught to only speak in order to appease the teacher.

I truly disliked control and teachers always had control over everything in class, decision making, recess, lunch, field trips etc.

I could remember in my fifth grade class. I had a elderly teacher and my lessons in school was a big gap of not learning. All she was concerned with was retirement and not one intervened with the quality of our education.

I respect the idea of a second teacher in the classroom observing the children responses to the lesson being giving to them. A second teacher evaluates how, why and when to encourage a child in regards to their learning capablities and/or interest.

I plan to read the book more than once in order to gain a more knowlegde in regards to John Holt's observations. And I think it would be a good idea for other active teachers to also read how children fail, too.

Discovering Fossil Fishes written by John G. Maisey is a book covering fish fossilization through out history. Spanning more the one-half billion years fishes are older than dinosaurs and have links to the tetrapods on land.

This book is highly illustrated with art work one nearly half of the pages with the dialog on the other half of the book. Fishes have a unique evolutionary history that stretches back in time, they are incredibly ancient and include the ancestors of all the limbed vertebrates living on the land.

I found the book to be highly readable and easy to follow as this book could be read and understood by those twelve years old or older. There are color illustrations along with fossilized pictures comparing both. This gives the reader a good approximation as to what the fossil would look like in life.

From their ancient ancestors, the craniates, fishes evolved not once, in a single lineage, but multiple times, filling countless biological niches. Given their long evolutionary history, itis not surprising that so many species of fishes exist today; one new fish species evolving every 18,000 years, or about 55.5 species evolving per one million years. The sum total of fishy diversity through time is far greater than now, and the evolutionary history of fishes is a vast and comples subject.

But, the author wrote this book with the layreader in mind and the prose are simple but very effective. as more fossil fishes are uncovered we will know better what the ancient world looked like and come to discover more of our own ancestors.

Maisey is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. With this work he has brought the evolution of the fishes to the popular science reader. My only major complaint about this book is in format. I would like to have seen it arranged by geological period as apposed to taxonomic group. I also think that a more visual group of cladograms arranging all the fishes would have been in order. Many cladograms are included but they only show small snippets of the relationships between fishes and you have to piece a larger picture together throughout the book. The illustrations are excellent and you will have a hard time finding so many images of fossil fish, if you are just interested in seeing images of fossils then this will be great for you. I also liked how he discussed the development of major morphological features. While a person of specialized interest might be aware of these, having them all in one place is convenient.

If you have a developing interest in fishes or in vertebrate paleontology than this book would be good to have. It would also be a nice compliment to any library including material on natural history.

I came across this book while finishing my MSc at Guelph. The book soon made its rounds among all the ichthyology students and faculty. It is well written, lavishly illustrated and nicely designed. Seeing this volume going for so cheap surprises me. I paid 5 times more for mine. Any student involved with fish taxonomy, evolution and general biology MUST get this book. I found the lateral views a bit goofy but the paintings of creatures in motion in their habitat are superb. People who are interested in early life on our planet should also consider having a look at this one. BRAVO Dr. Maisey!

Through much of the book, Holt drives around the northern plains and for the most part gripes a lot about the places he visits and the people he finds there. Some of his fishing vignettes are nice, but others are little more than listings of the colors found on the fish.

Holt's perspectives and attitudes are unusual. For example, he literally sees blue light streaming from areas of the land. This is intriguing but was not explained. In addition, he seems to like and respect long-term residents of the northern plains and he has unkind things to say about more recent arrivals such as "yuppies". Yet at the start of his journey he reports that he traded in his fancy import car for a suburban so he can blend in better. So who is he and how does he fit in this land? He sounds more like the persons he apparently despises. I didn't learn much about this region from reading this book.

The quality of his writing is variable throughout the book. Some very excellent sections, others that feel unedited, without direction and void of interesting content. For better books about the west try Rick Bass, Jack Turner, J Raban, Tim Egan, Ivan Doig.

If your idea of a great family vacation is to travel to the great outdoors and spend your whole time in overcrowded campsights, ski resorts or tourist towns, then you may want to take a pass on "Coyote Nowhere." Author John Holt won't mind since he doesn't like your kind anyway. Holt spends most of the book extolling the virtures of the pristine and empty West while lamenting that so much of it is being ruined by housing developments, strip mines and golf courses. Of course, economic development is always a double edged sword, but Holt confines his comments to merely ranting impotently against it.

That said, Holt captures some great images and moments in his book. Most of these are his descriptions of the land and the joys of getting back to nature. As a storyteller, he doesn't have the touch of a Bill Bryson, and his narrative wanders unfocussed at times and not in chronological order. Nevertheless, he creates a strong sense of place that is worthwhile for anyone interested in his subject matter.

I have been waiting thirty years to see the west. Mr holt paints a vivid picture of the area that he most loves . I am sorry that he feels invaded but he should see what the same people have done to the eastern end of long island.I am coming to see his west even though i'll be driving with the wrong licence plates. If I run in to him we can have a drink, and share our frustrations

This guy is a psycho-boomer looney. His book serves best as kindling.

The New York Times called this book "astonishly cogent," and I agree. This is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking books I've ever read. Sadly, 30 years later almost nothing has changed. While the ACLU fights for the voting rights of convicted felons, a 17-year-old "child," no matter how sensible or informed, cannot cast a ballot in the United States. Millions of children are shipped off to school every day, where they are mostly taught to do as they're told (no matter how arbitrary or pointless) and above all, conform--lessons which will serve them all too well for decades to come. The transparency of Holt's writing should also be an example to authors everywhere. It is a tragedy that this book is out of print, and Holt no longer with us. The world desperately needs more like him.

This is my favorite book of the many Holt has written. It does not cover any aspects of learning/educational issues as do his other books. Instead it addresses the matter of looking at children as whole individuals who should be treated respectably, as any adult would want to be.

Our culture too readily encourages parents, and adults in general, to use their voice in a excessively authorative manner which only serves to bully and demean children. No one would want to be spoken to or treated in such a condensending manner. This book will open your eyes to the damage we are doing to our beloved kids when we accept the cultural standard way of parenting. Highly recommended!