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In Simms Taback's, Joseph had a Little Overcoat, Joseph teaches a simple moral lesson to the reader about being resourceful and thrifty. Throughout the book, Joseph makes his overcoat into many different pieces of clothing. He begins with his overcoat becoming a jacket. He then makes a vest out of his jacket, a scarf out of his vest, a necktie out of his scarf, a handkerchief out of his necktie, and then a button out of his handkerchief. In the end, Joseph writes a book about making something out of nothing. He proves to the reader that you can make something out of very little. Taback, also the illustrator, uses watercolor, pencil, ink, and color patchwork collages to illustrate this Caldecott award winning children's book. Many illustrations consist of clippings from magazines and photographs. This paints a realistic picture. Pictures of real coffee cups and saucers are arranged on a shelf that Taback drew. This technique is also used in the rugs on Joseph's floor. Taback has drawn the rugs but placed photos of real pieces of a rug into his drawing. This is such a unique and innovative characteristic of Taback's illustrations. The colors that Taback chose to use are very vivid, primary colors. This may represent the simpleness of Joseph's life. Taback also uses "cut-outs" to illustrate to the reader how Joseph's overcoat becomes different articles of clothing. Each time this occurs, the "cut-outs" get smaller, to show each different piece of clothing that Joseph is wearing. On each page of this book, Taback illustrates various aspects of the life of a Jewish peasant. Jewish life in Poland is visible to the reader through pictures of farm animals, various fruits and vegetables, the minora, Jewish proverbs, motza crackers, and hot tea with lemon. Each of these symbolize Joseph's culture. Taback also convinces the reader that music is a prominent part of the Yiddish culture. One illustration of this shows Joseph dancing at his nephew's wedding, while musicians play. There is another example showing Joseph singing in the men's chorus. In both of these illustrations, Joseph appears to be enjoying the music. It is also evident that Joseph's family and community are a central part of his life. This is a characteristic of the Yiddish culture. Many illustrations in this book have a Jewish proverb hanging on the wall. One proverb says "What one has, one doesn't want, and what one wants, one doesn't have." This indicates a society that is not materialistic. Another proverb simply states, "Better to have an ugly patch than a beautiful hole." Again, thriftiness and simplicity are valued. Pictures of different individuals, such as Moishe, the Melamed, the Rebbe, and Molly Picon, are hanging on the walls of Joseph's home. These individuals must have a special meaning to Joseph and are a part of his culture. Another interesting part of the book is the trip that Joseph takes to the city. Taback illustrates Joseph in his finest clothing. This may show that he does not leave his community often and he only does so on special occasions. Finally, this book captures your attention by the simple moral lesson presented. The book shares information on a culture many people are not familiar with. This simple story promotes cultural diversity along with an ethical message.
This is a great children's book. This book is about a man named Joseph who had an overcoat, which gets old and worn and he makes a jacket out of it. Once the jacket gets olds and worn, he makes a vest out of it. Joseph continues to make something out of the overcoat until there is nothing left to make out of it. The moral of the story is you can always make something out of nothing.
The pictures in this book are very bright and colorful. The pages in the book have cut outs so the children can use their imagination and guess what Joseph will make next. This would be a great book to read aloud in a classroom for children of ages 5 - 8.
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Very simply, Rabbi Telushkin's writing is direct, concise, up-to-date and easy to understand. Also ... important! You don't have to be Jewish (I'm not) to appreciate the relevance of the ethical guidelines on which the author elaborates. For each day of the year (excluding the Shabbat) one of a broad range of issues is discussed and highlighted either anecdotally through quotes by other noted Rabbis or supported by reference to important Jewish literature (e.g., the laws of the Torah and Talmud). You probably won't find 300+ issues applicable to your life, but every page is worthwhile reading nevertheless. The most pertinent and/or interesting topics to me were the ones involving relationships, charity, kindness, and speech.
The book's format is suited to every kind of reading habit, so go at whatever pace you like. Each day is comprised of 1-3 pages, with cross-referencing where related discussion appears elsewhere in the book. Also, footnotes can be found on the same page where a reference is cited (I appreciate this) so you don't have to turn to the back of the book to check a source. In the event you do turn to the back, you'll find a decent glossary, bibliography and index.
Whether your intention is to learn or to simply bolster your moral convictions, I give this book my highest recommendation.
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I used these Examples and Explanations books in every class possible. They're all good, but this one is probably the best. Everyone called these books "Glannons," no matter who the author was!
One important point: I wrote laborious answers to the examples, which I then "graded" against the explanations, noting issues I'd missed, and analysis I'd mishandled. This practice writing mini "exam style" answers, with instant feedback, probably helped me more than any other exercise in doing well my first year in law school. If you just read the examples and then the explanations, you're cheating yourself out of a great opportunity to practice writing good exam answers before you're faced with the real thing.
I ended up making law review after my first year, and I owe a lot of the credit to this incredible book. Do yourself a favor.
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George MacDonald, a Congregational minister turned novelist, who seems nearly forgotten now, was one of the seminal figures in the development of Fantasy. His influence on other Fantasy authors is obvious, he was a childhood favorite of JRR Tolkein, who especially liked this book, and C.S. Lewis named him one of his favorite authors. His own stories draw on many of the themes and characters of classical European fairy tales. But where they were often merely horrific and meaningless, MacDonald adds a layer of Christian allegory. Thus, Irene and Curdie are eventually saved by a thread so slender that you can't even see it, but which leads them back to safety, teaching Curdie that you sometimes have to believe in things that you can't see.
The book would be interesting simply as a touchstone of modern fiction, but it stands up well on its own and will delight adults and children alike.
GRADE: A
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The United States' "forgotten war" began on June 25, 1950, when the People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea). At the time, Author Joseph Owen was a Marine Corps lieutenant stationed in North Carolina, living with his wife and their two young children. According to Owen: "Nobody at Camp Lejeune had expected a shooting war. Nor were we ready for one." A captain who had been an adviser to the South Korean Marine Corps predicted Korea would be "[o]ne lousy place to fight a war. Too hot in summer, too cold in winter, and straight up and down mountain terrains all year round. Except for those stinking rice paddies down in the valleys. Human manure they use. Worst stink in the world." Nevertheless, according to Owen: "The possibility of American Marines in a combat role excited us." Owen writes: "The North Koreans continued to overpower the meager resistance offered by the South Korean soldiers....Seoul, the South Korean capital, fell with hardly a fight, and the Red blitzkrieg rolled southward. In response, President Truman escalated American involvement in the war. He ordered General MacArthur, America's supreme commander in the Far East, to use U.S. Army troops stationed in Japan to stem the invaders." And: "General MacArthur called for a full division of Marines to help him turn back the North Koreans. According to Owen: "The Marine Corps welcomed the call, but we did not have a full division to put in the field;" and "More than seven thousand of us at Camp Lejeune received orders to proceed by rail to Camp Pendleton. There they would form into companies and embark for Korea." Owen's unit, "Baker-One-Seven became one of three rifle companies if the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment....Our ranks were filled by 215 men and 7 officers who had never before served together....Many of [the privates] were beardless teenagers with little training beyond the basics of shouldering a rifle and marching in step." While training, there was much concern about the readiness of the Marines for combat. At one point, after a sergeant remarks that the troops need more training in boot camp, Owen succinctly invokes reality: "They are not going to boot camp. They are going aboard ship. And they are going to fight." On September 1, the company boarded a Navy transport for the three-week voyage to east Asia. According to Owen: "Ready or not, we were on the way to war." And, according to Owen, the 1st Marine Division's orders were "to go for the Yalu River," North Korea's border with China. At one point, a veteran officer provides this paraphrase of William Tecumseh Sherman's famous dictum: "War is hell, but you never know what particular kind of hell it's going to be." The Korean War hell was cold and barren. Owen writes: "We were chilled through and bone tired as we slogged our way back to battalion....The bivouac was lumpy with rocks and boulders;" "The cold weather was as formidable an enemy as the Chinese;" and "Rarely did the [daily action] reports exceed zero degrees, and there were lows of twenty below."
By the time Owen's outfit arrived in Korea, he writes, "we were making bets that the war would be over before we got into it." Owen's Marines could not have been more wrong. While Owen is inspecting his men's weapons, a private asks: "Think we'll get shot at today, Lieutenant?" Owen replies: "We're taking the point for the regiment. If the gooks are there, they'll be shooting at us." A few pages later, after the outfit's first experience in combat, Owen comments: "We were fortunate that the enemy had not chosen a "fight-to-the-death" defense of this hill, as they would when we advanced farther north." But some fighting was hand-to-hand. At one point, Owen writes: "Judging from the noise they were making, and the direction of their grenades, the North Koreans were preparing to attack, not more than thirty yards away." The Captain tells Owen and the other subordinate officers: "The Chinese have committed themselves to this war....The people we will fight are the 124th Division of the Regular Chinese Army....They're tough, well-trained soldiers, ten thousand of them. And all of their officers are combat experienced, their very best....A few hours from now we'll have the Chinese army in our gunsights. We'll be in their gunsights. You damn well better have our people ready for some serious fighting." The combat was, indeed, brutal. According to Owen: "The Chinese attacked in massive numbers, an overwhelming weight, but they also endured terrible casualties." Owen recalls that, while waiting for one Chinese attack, the "men stacked Chinese bodies in front of the holes for greater protection." And the fighting around the frozen Chosin Reservoir may have been the most brutal of the war. Owen ultimately suffered wounds requiring 17 months of treatment, and he never regained full use of one arm.
A few months ago, I reviewed James Brady's wonderful The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea here. This book has different charms. Whereas Brady is a gifted professional writer, there is no elegant prose here. But Owen provides an equally vivid account of this ugly war. Big, sophisticated studies of military history focusing on geopolitical principles and grand strategy rarely offer narrative moments like the ones in this book. Reader are unlikely to forget the Korean War after reading Joseph Owen's Colder than Hell.
Army Korean War expert Lieutenant Colonel Roy Appleman has called the 1st Marine Division of the Chosin Reservoir campaign "one of the most magnificent fighting organizations that ever served in the United States Armed Forces." The remarkable and inspiring story of the division at the Chosin Reservoir has been the subject of numerous books and several films. During their fighting withdrawal, the Marines decimated several divisions of the Chinese People's Liberation Army while at the same time fighting an exceptionally harsh winter environment.
Joseph Owen's new book on the subject tells the story from the cutting edge perspective of a rifle company. The author served as a mortar section leader and rifle platoon commander in Baker Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines from its activation in August 1950 through the Inchon-Seoul and Chosin fighting where he was severely wounded.
There are many reasons given for the outstanding performance of the Marines in northeast Korea during the winter of 1950. It is clear from this book that a large measure of the credit goes to the Marines and their leaders at the small unit and rifle company level.
Owen's narrative covers the hasty activation and training of the company, its brief participation in the fighting north of Seoul after the amphibious assault at Inchon and the details of its intense fighting at Chosin. He candidly discusses the mistakes made by the leaders and Marines of Baker Company, to include his own. More importantly, Owen covers what they learned from these mistakes and how they used that knowledge to defeat the Chinese in a series of intense actions.
Although focused at the company level, the author frames his story with the overall conduct of the campaign. Refreshingly, unlike many books about the Chosin campaign, it is free of partisan sniping about the contributions made by the various services involved. Owen gives credit to the Army units that fought at Chosin as well as the contributions of naval and air forces and our British allies.
This book is rich in lessons about small unit leadership, training and combat operations. It is an excellent addition to the personal narratives on the Korea War.
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