The Catholic Challenge Bible Game offers over 2,000 Q&A referenced to The New American Bible and officially approved by the Church's imprimatur and nihil obstat. The game has depth and intergrity for all Catholic Christians who want to test their knowledge in five areas of Biblical literature: the Law, the Prophets, Wisdom, Gospels and Epistles.

The game has all the bells and whistles which will keep a player involved and interested in achieving the best score possible.

A Certificate of Merit can be printed showing the player's name, level of play and total score allowing students, families, youth groups, Bible study groups, etc., to play contests and tournaments.

The game is a "must buy" for any Catholic household with kids in elementary or secondary education. The game promises many, many hours of fun and enrichment enabling curiosity and knowledge about the Scriptures.

Rita Joe gives us brief but very deep glimpses of her people's painful attempts to understand the white man's world in which they must live and cries for understanding of her people's ways as they try to conform yet continue to walk their own paths in their hearts.

"Pray, meet me halfway," as she dons the requisite and uncomfortable store-bought shoes and tries to understand ways that are not only foreign to her but so obviously destructive to the land her heart owns and loves.

"If today's Indians are not fictitions, then know them," she cries.

Beautiful and deeply touching.

This is a punctuation lesson in the form a mystery book. I wish I had read it in grade school or high school. After reading it, I found remembering the proper way to punctuate much easier. It is not as well written as an Agatha Christie mystery, but I cannot think of a more entertaining way to learn.

Joe Devine teaches grammar and punctuation through stories. As a skydiver with 1,206 jumps, I love the story of the parachute where the canopy was replaced in the container with popcorn (she landed safely in a haystack).

Anyway, writers will enjoy Joe's financial experience in publishing and this will give you an idea as to his writing.

Human Costs of Literary Creation Finally Revealed

Everybody knows the price of a book, but how many know the cost? For the first time ever the human costs of writing have been measured in dollars and cents. The heartaches, the sacrifices, the psychic bruises-they're all there. Herewith the human costs of the 2,042 first printing of Commas Are Our Friends by Joe Devine:

1. The agony of creation, the anguish of being a sensitive artist in a harsh and cruel world $4,415.99 2. The sting of anonymity, the pain of not being lionized by total strangers $1,831.35 3. The aching injustice of not receiving a large advance from greedy, money﷓mad publishers $3,965.08 4. The annoyance of having people insist that the book be published before they pay for it $2,942.74 5. The hurt and humiliation of not making even one pre﷓publication bestseller list $2,627.50 6. The shock of being snubbed by the Pulitzer Prize Committee $3,500.00 7. The misery of receiving a balanced, perceptive and completely honest review $4,726.13 8. Fresh, creative, original ideas $3.41

Total: $24,012.20

There you have it. Figures don't lie. The human costs come to $11.76 per book, but Commas Are Our Friends retails for $11.95. That leaves a profit of $.19 a copy, thus honoring Dr. Johnson's dictum: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money".

As the author of 113 books (including revisions and foreign-language editions) and over 500 magazine articles, I highly recommend this fun book. DanPoynter@ParaPublishing.com.

This play, though filled with poignant messages about the state of Native Canadian societies, is very rough structurally. There are great uses of light, and the setting Ryga proposes is excellent, but the play itself is so rough and deliberate that it is a less-than-pleasant read. It was written in 1967, so though perhaps groundbreaking in its time, this play is not really one to read for enjoyment alone.