I read this book in the 8th grade. I found a copy of it at the library, and decided that it looked like something I'd like. I was so wrong...It was something that I LOVED. Luckily, the library that I checked it out at decided to sell it to me, since I was the only one to check it out. This is a fabulous book with beautiful imagery. After reading it, I found myself thinking about it constantly, and wanting to know as much about the former voodoo queen as I possibly could. To anyone that loves to read, I would reccomend this book. Totally fabulous!

I am so sorry it is out of print! The language soars from the opening paragraph to the very last sentence. The story is fascinating, the characters well-sketched and varied. The author's adept interweaving of the myths and realities of old New Orleans makes for a "can't miss" novel that should be a classic.

This book is very well written. Francine Prose does well in her other novels, but this one is, by far, her best, in my opinion. With her skillful use of words she opens a door into another world, one of magic and beauty. It's a shame it's out of print.

This is my latest favorite photography book. I have a large collection that includes many with Manhattan as subject. The images captured by Levitt are stunning and the binding of the book itself is wonderful.

Helen Levitt is not one of those New Yorkers who look neither to the left or right as they travel the streets of the city. This is a book about life. The neighborhoods she shoots are generally poor ones, yet we see people that are involved; people who are actively engaged in life even when they seem to be doing nothing. Her subjects -often children- play, they love, they communicate, they are lost in thought, and occasionally are sleeping.

A fine sense of humor permeates many of the scenes. Some subjects are caught in contorted, puzzling positions. We see the incongruous position of objects: an old 33rpm record in the street; a pair of shoes sitting by themselves on a sidewalk; three chickens wandering around a decrepit room -where did they come from? A mother's head is buried in the bottom of a baby buggy while the tyke yelps with joy. A dog is caught in the act of mistaking his owner's leg for a fire hydrant while she talks to a friend.

In general HL catches the warm side of humanity. Only a couple of pictures look like they were taken from a file of Jacob Riis (a 19th century photographer of New York tenement life). There was one particularly sad shot of a woman and her three children sitting on their front steps. They are obviously impoverished. The two youngest children seem quite content, but the mother seems weighed down with her life, and in the teen-age daughter we see the beginning of lost hopes.

This book is a must for anyone interested in street photography. It will take you a long time to get through this book as each photograph will hold your attention for some time.

Helen Levitt's name is less well known than some of her images of New York street life. Perhaps that is the way she would wish it since she seems to have never sought fame. The book is as reticient as she and there is little commentary, but in truth little is necessary though I would love to know more about her and her work. This is a beautifully printed, organized and designed book and it was a pleasure to spend hours looking at the photographs. Often it was difficult to turn the page because each image is so compelling and resonates on many different levels. In a way, they are the perfect street images; they have the look of a snapshot but are so much more than that. Though they are all of New York they have a universal quality and speak about the truth of people's lives in a profound way. I admired the formal qualities of the photographs but what resonates most is the deep humanity of what she does, what she sees and records. It sometimes seems to me that photographers, in their quest for a good images,treats subjects with a level of distain and distance that is uncomfortable and ultimately manipulative. Crosstown is nothing like that and even when the photos are funny, and several are, they are funny in a very human way. There is nothing saccharine or trite in her work either and she has a great gift of photographing children without slipping into cuteness. I am a photographer and I treasure this book. I would certainly recommend it to others interested in photography, but I thinks its' appeal extends to anyone interested in the human condition and how we relate to one another.

Schmuel was a shoemaker whom the other people in Plotchnik called Poor Schmuel or Poor Stupid Schmuel because he often forgot to charge his customers and if they forgot pay, forgot to ask. But always somehow magically appeared whenever trouble emerged. To a beggar who came to town, Schmuel gave free and to a fierce bear which arrived in the streets, he gave a bowl of water.

No one cared if he prayed, because they figured he was too stupid to read, and God could therefore not hear them. When, during a drought everyone prayed for rain and none came, Schmuel meekly said from the rear of the synagogue, "Maybe I should pray. Please, God, send rain." Immediately, distant thunder roared, the sky blackened and huge raindrops began tapping on the town's roofs.

It rained for forty days and forty nights. Now the people prayed for the rain to stop, with equal success. Only when Schmuel said, "God, please make it stop raining" did the sun immediately appear.

That night the rabbi dreamed of Chanukah menorahs with 36 candles, and a banquet with 36 men. These were the Lamed Vavniks.

Lamed WHAT? Sorry, if you don't know, you'll have to get the book, which contains secrets about this special breed. If you know already, shhh! Stay as quiet as the stars, and let the Lamed Vavniks shine as brightly. Alyssa A. Lappen

A Lamed-Vavnik disappears/ Amongst us all for years and years./ This book should last for years as well/ A classic tale, as time will tell

Wonderful illustrations and a fabulous moral tale. Recommend for 4-6 year olds. It's a little over the head of my 3, but she's interested anyway.

I always thought Chelm stories were for older children and adults but Francine Prose has proven me wrong.

In this 21-page rendition of Chelm, that mythic town in Eastern Europe where all the people were fools, she introduces their most classic foibles.

When the man who woke the people every morning for prayers got too old to walk from house to house, they took their doors off the hinges and carried them to him so he could knock without leaving his yard. The people went barefoot in the snow so their shoes wouldn't get wet. They wore their hats upside down when it rained to keep them dry.

They built their new synogogue without a roof so their prayers could rise to heaven. They tried to move the mountain to remove their town from shadow. They tried to catch the moon and store it in a barrel. And when a fire broke out, they threw on logs to smother it. Needless to say, it burned higher.

This book has none of the character development or pithy dialogue of other Chelm volumes, but Mark Podwal's illustrations more than make up, in pictures, for the hallmark word-play of Chelm.

The angel's biggest mistake was letting this fine introduction to Jewish humor go out of print. Alyssa A. Lappen

My daughter (age 8) loves this book. It's one of her favorite read-alouds, and it's easy enough for her to read by herself. It is based on an old Jewish folk tale about a town in Eastern Europe where the people are incredibly stupid. The kids think it's hilarious.

Steve Gross and Sue Daley have been dazzling the oft-oversaturated "coffee table" book market since their unusual and eclectic book OLD HOUSES was published more than a decade ago.

Unlike many photographic books of this genre--or photographers for that matter--Gross + Daley look for the unusual, the misplaced, the forgotten, even the sublime. Their photographic style, while crisp, is voyeuristic without being intrusive. Rarely styling their photographs, they allow the interiors or exteriors to speak in their own evocative voices.

As with their previous books, CATSKILLS COUNTRY STYLE is infused with a variety of architectural styles and unusual homes, even little-known museums and undeliberate vintage set-pieces. And, as in their other books, the houses they select are styled by their talented, often capricious, owners or the benign patterning of neglect and wear and age. This photographic team always embrace the off-beat or the discarded, forgotten time-encapsulated gems which fall away from "back road" America.

If you do not live in the Catskills or have no intention of going there, it doesn't matter. If you like unusual houses and their interiors or have always desired a place in the country, this book will delight, inspire and captivate.

With an apt, well-written introduction by Francine Prose and excellent captions--instead of text-heavy chapters--which keep the focus on the photography.

A visual feast! Check out OLD HOUSES, too, as well as Gross + Daley's other recently published book, SANTA FE COUNTRY STYLE, and AT HOME WITH PAST. All books have a similar aesthetic and approach and you will not be disappointed.

This book through the use of superb photograhy and simple but informative captions conveys the love the owners have for these homes in the country. From the ornate victorian to the simple country style cottage of a beekeeper this book is a pleasure to own and display.

It's too bad the demons who struck New York on September 11 didn't come from Chelm. Though fools, they'd have learned (from Francine Prose) the utter dementia induced by trying to tackle the New World with the Old.

They'd have been locked up in crates for 50 years, trying to get out. They'd have found that rubbing against party guests in embarrassing places, turning wine into vinegar, curdling the milk and tangling hair doesn't frighten people in a city that knows no darkness, even when the moon doesn't shine.

They'd have known that while gossip was to the Old World "like opening the door and letting the demons in," New World people gossiped all the time. They'd have learned that New Yorkers frightened the demons more than the demons frightened them.

Of course, Francine Prose did not write this story as an allegory about September 11, 2001. The book came out a year earlier. And Sept. 11 was obviously no joke.

Yet post Sept. 11, the New World voice Prose gave to Chelm's mythic Old World laughter and lessons seems addressed to the foolish medieval demons who struck at America's heart without cause: Only those smart enough to adapt survive and thrive. That's why we will win.

It's a good lesson, if only those demons would pay attention. And your kids will understand it, even if the demons don't. Alyssa A. Lappen

This story from Chelm features pictures by Mark Podwal and a tale which requires good reading skills as it tells of the demons of the Polish town of Chelm, where only fools live. The demons decide to move to New York City, but find the big city is more than a match for their spirits in The Demons' Mistake, a fine story of adjustments.

Ida Fink uses vivid langauge and impectable details to bring faces to the Holcaust. She tells haunting stories about Jewish life in Poland before and after World War II. Fink's stories are beutifully told and evoke every emotion; from fear to joy, hatred to pity. The book tells about individuals and gives faces and lives to the often impresonal Holocaust.

A Scrap of Time is a collection of short stories that masterfully presents the Holocaust experience from the perspective of survivors, witnesses, and victims in the villages of occupied Poland. Acts of personal courage, the day to day decisions that meant life or death, personal attempts to carry on with dignity, are all expressed here in powerful language and moving tales that evoke the Holocaust as it is not often told: as an experience that was as personal as each person who lived it. I have read and re-read this book several times. Each time, the stories seem to resound with their original power. Ida Fink, a Polish survivor of the Holocaust, is a master storyteller. With the very first sentence, she has the ability to create scenes of astonishing clarity and suspense. You simply cannot put the book down until you finish the story. With simple, lyrical language, she creates scenes of tremendous emotional impact. I don't believe I will ever look at the Holocaust in quite the same way. No television documentary could ever do justice to the Holocaust experience as these unforgettable stories of the personal lives of human beings in the most impossible of situations.

I'm beginning to become addicted to these little neglected treasures that the NYRB Press is reissuing. Not only are the editions themselves little marvels (with beautiful and well-chosen color covers and gorgeous paper stock), but whoever is making the choices for which books are reissued has near-infallible taste.

A HOUSE AND ITS HEAD, like so many of Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels, reads something like a modern updating of a Greek tragedy: most of the novel is told through dialogue, there is a kind of chorus that comments on the action of the principal characters, and the plot involves murder, incest, and familial cruelty. Yet for all these borrowings Compton-Burnett paradoxically remains wonderfully sui generis: no one else has ever mastered her capability for evoking such extreme subtlety in manners that the merest cruel nuances can become evoked (if one reads carefully enough). She is also a master plotter: just when you think you've caught up with the characters' schemes, she allows the other characters in the novel to make similar realizations, and then jumps even further ahead. This is a real page-turner as well as a subtle commentary on Edwardian manners and moral monstrousness.

This book really hit me. The combination of theater and Jewish legend made it very real for me. I can still picture the rabbi's home, with the copper pots shining on the walls. The description on the Yiddish Art Theater, the lovely "secret" romance, the ghost story, all made it one of my all-time favorites. I read it several times - and then I lent it to someone ... and never got it back!