I bought this book for our own bear, last Christmas.He never has insomnia, but was as delighted as his owners were to read this enchanting story, enjoying the dreamlike prose and illutrations. This book isn't just for children. It's for the child inside all of us, so that we never forget the magic and innocence of being young, and more importantly, that we never forget the importance of bears. Remember - look after you bear, whether you're 2 or 92.

The comments from the Vermont reader match my feelings about Sleep Well, Little Bear exactly. The prose IS gentle, descriptive, and wonderful. The artwork, however, is so truly beautiful. I especially appreciated Buchholz's use of light. The text and the soft, easy, lovingly detailed pictures makes it a very lulling read. I'm keeping this for my (very) future grandchildren.

This is an truly lovable book. A little bear, in typical little boy style, can't quite get to sleep so he reviews his day of being a pirate on the river that flows past his house, and helping old Mrs Rose with her garden, and other wonders of a child's (and bear's) life. The prose is sweet and gentle and clever and lovely, but what really makes this book is the artwork--surreal, truly beautiful pictures of the circus clown playing his violin to put a baby elephant to sleep, and the little bear peering out his bedroom window at the moon, and the night musicians wandering through the meadow, and the deer in the mist. Buy it for yourself, lend it to your kids.

By JONATHAN KIRSCH, Special to The LA Times "...An illuminating and entertaining survey of films and television programs in which Latino actors, settings or themes figure prominently, "Hispanics in Hollywood" is full of such surprises. Anthony Quinn, perhaps best known as Zorba the Greek, is only one of many actors whose Mexican origins were once concealed, and there are many others whose Latino roots have only recently come to public attention, ranging from Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Cansino) to John Gavin (born John Anthony Golenar) to Raquel Welch (born Raquel Tejada). And it was a young Emilio Estevez who boldly reclaimed his own Latino family history and thus revealed to the world that the real name of his father, Charlie Sheen, is Ramon More often Latino actors found themselves in an awkward dilemma in Hollywood, as the authors of "Hispanics in Hollywood" point out--if their Latino identities were not concealed, they were put to use in depicting stereotyped Latino characters: "maids, slum dwellers, drug addicts and gang members," co-author Luis Reyes reminds us, or "cruel dictators, mustachioed bandits and beautiful señoritas." Only in the last couple of decades have Latino actors and directors enjoyed the opportunity to tell stories about their own heritage in a more open, honest and affirming voice in movies such as "Zoot Suit," "La Bamba," "Stand and Deliver," "Selena" and "A Walk in the Clouds." Reyes, a movie publicist who is also a chronicler of Hollywood's Latin American heritage, describes the book as "an attempt to show the way Hollywood has depicted Hispanic Americans and Latin America, while also pointing out the contributions to Hollywood movies and television made by unsung Hispanic Americans as well as those more famous." Thus, his book can be approached as a serious effort to ponder the issues of race and ethnicity in American pop culture and, at the same time, as one of those useful reference works that can be pulled down from the shelf when puzzling over some old and obscure movie on cable.

Plunkitt was a king in a world that needed benevolent despots. In a place like turn of the century of New York before Keynesian economics and the Welfare State, Tammany was the only relief the poor knew. Plunkitt reveals with refreshing honesty the seemingly rough and coarse manner with which one needed to play the game of politics in his town. However, one must look at it in context. This was a different time from our own, and the reader must imagine whether a person of Plunkitt's demeanor can last in the information age political world. Then again, the book also illustrates how many of the problems Tammany had still exist today.

I originally read this book in undergraduate school as Political Science major, and had to go back and find a copy because of the profound affect it had on my psyche. George Washington Plunkitt was a "stereotypical" politician. You know, the one who says what he needs to say to get elected; but once there does what's necessary for his party.

Comparing his comments to the actions of present day politicians, I don't think there are many differences. Everyone does a little grafting and civil servants are still "civil servants." Understood?

As with any politician, Plunkitt "seen (his) opportunities and (he) took 'em." This is a must for anyone interested in any realm of politics.

I first read this highly informative, often hilarious book for Intro to Political Science back in college. In this short tome are pearls of wisdom about politics and human nature still relevant 100 years later. Plunkitt, high atop his regular boot-black stand in NYC, declaims to his biographer, Riordan, a life spent in the political machine known as Tammany Hall, with such disarming honesty that is nearly non-existent today. Plunkitt's diatribes on "honest graft vs. dishonest graft," "Brooklynites Natural-Born Hayseeds," and the evils of civil service exams are outright hilarious. I highly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in politics.

Peopled with carefully constructed and multi-layered individuals, the history of each life is inserted with the introduction of every new character, although diverse in background, social pretensions and aspirations. The subtle nuance of class-consciousness ripples near the surface of even the most polite dialog. There is a constant jockeying of rationalization, from the hypocritical "do-goodism" of the wealthy to the racial obsessions of those who discover themselves straddling the lowest rung of the societal ladder. The skillful presentation of pervasive class distinctions is one of the major accomplishments of Quinn's ambitious novel.

The possibility of great wealth ignites an already raging blaze of fundamental competition for financial independence in an era of manifest destiny. Classism is clearly rooted in ancestral experience and identity, alongside a Darwinian struggle for survival. The old guard financiers are surrounded by a ragtag mob of enthusiastic young men seeking entrance to the halls of privilege, men willing to speculate their way to success. The imperative of that success is inevitable, a rising tide that washes ashore on a wave of progress and opportunity. This relentless pursuit of success, coupled with a looming fear of ruin, drives Quinn's characters, allowing them more humanity, albeit with questionable morals. Indeed, their failings are tempered by the exigent circumstances of birth.

The streets are teeming with bustling crowds, either headed uptown to the financial and business district or downtown toward the docks, where shabby streets are lined with garbage and taverns, gambling halls and brothels. From this morass of opportunity, deals are struck. Wall Street investors, flushed with success, are perfect targets for hustlers, one scam or another created to relieve the mark of his money. Add to this the uncertainties of war with a mandated draft, and emotions run rampant through crowds of immigrants disappointed by the actual brutality of life in America in 1863 New York, the great melting pot of hope and ambition. Agitated by the summer heat, new conscription laws and the tension of the politics of war, Quinn's numerous characters finally swirl in the confusion of their particular agendas.

Halfway through the novel I lost interest, burdened with too much information about the history of every character, an oddity that seriously confused the direction of the novel. But I picked the book up again, curious to see Quinn's treatment of the Draft Riots portrayed so vividly in Kevin Baker's Paradise Alley. Quinn simply pours too much into these pages, often drowning the thread of the story and I frequently skipped pages. After all this effort, the Draft Riots are all but lost amid Quinn's superfluous detail. Ultimately, this lack of focus exhausted me and rendered The Banished Children of Eve less than rewarding.

For generations historians studied the lives of elite white men in order to compile a record of the past. Starting in the 1950's, historians began using the "bottoms up" approach to history wherein they looked at the lives of individual persons at the lower end of the tradional social order. Traditionally historians considered the center of the society - kings, leaders, rulers - as the controlling force. More recent historians argue that the periphery, that is the persons of what was usually called the fringes of the society, controls the center.

Peter Quinn ably uses this approach in his novel BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE. In considering life in mid 19th century New York City, he explains the prejudice that existed between the Irish and the Black community on an economic level which makes it understandable. While not justifying the acts of violence, the reader comes to see the blight of the underclass. The reader comes to identify with the overworked housemaid, petty criminal, homeless orphan and free black. One sees the corruption in the society. The upper clas is not romanticized but shown as the oppressors.

The Civil War affected major changes in the lives of most Americans. Quinn shows the changes in the lives of the major characters in the book. Through the eyes of these characters the reader sees the emergence of the middle class, which was one of the major impacts of the War. There are Horatio Alger stories in the book but not in the tradtional sense. The reader also sees the brutality of life in 19th Century society. Death and separation from parents and realtives were a common experience. The use of alcohol was common and one can see why the Temperance Movement became so important by the end of the century. And prostitution is shown as the only way out for many women. But some women do get out of it.

Students read about the brutality of slavery and as a African American and a student of African American history I am in no way trying to diminish the horrors of America's "peculiar institution." Slaves lacked all rights and had no freecom to lave their masters. Family members were sold and never seen again. But when you look at the lives of the working poor in New York during much of the 19th Century, there are many parallels. The horros of the middle passage are unspeakable but the horrors of many immigrant ships were terrible also.

Historian Nell Painter argues a theory of "Soul Murder." She aruges that the effects of slavery were so damaging to all of American Society, both black and white, that we are still feeling it today. She argues that the dysfunctional families of today are the result of the violence experiences of both black and while children during the 19th century. Her argument is interesting, but in it she fails to consider the effects on white society of such events as orphan children shipped West, the abandoned family as a result of immigration, alcoholism and death. Surely these events have long range consequences in contemporary society. Quinn includes all of these in his marvelous book.

By way of criticism I thought the book was a tad long. The story of the priest did not seem to add anything to the story and in my humble opinion could have been left out. Some of the sub plots got a little wordy. The point was made and the author could have moved on. I assume that Stephen Foster is used as an example of someone that falls from the upper class to the lower class whereas Bedford is a person that moves up. I'm not sure that Quinn does such a good job of wrapping up the story. In a sense the novel is kind of a look at a period of time in the lives of the characters. The reader is left to speculate as to the rest of their lives.

I first heard about this book when Quinn was interviewed on Public Radio. I bought it and started it and then left it on the shelf for a year or so until I saw in a recommended section in my local book store. That caused me to start it again. Once you get about 50 pages into the book it really kicks in and is a fascinating read. I high recommend BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE to the student of American History and those interested in the study of Irish immigration.

I grew up in New York and walked many of the same streets Peter Quinn writes about in Banished Children of Eve. They're still there. If you look down at the pavement in some of the older neighborhoods, the same slate and stone sidewalks might still be in place that were there in 1863. Even if the remnants of that old city were plowed under by the wrecking ball, even before the terrorist came with his commandeered passenger jets, other remnants remained. And Gettysburg is not the only place where one feels the presence of ghosts.

Quinn's novel is imperfect. It's overly long and one could almost say the writing is florid, the style at points too meandering. But we are modernists or postmodernists, we are in a damned hurry and we want our plots laid out before us rapid-fire. Quinn slows us down. He draws us into the nexus of an old city beneath the city we know, a place of ugliness that makes even the ugliness of today's New York seem bucolic: today's racism and poverty are as nothing compared to what we find in Civil War New York.

Here people are still able to reinvent themselves and shapeshift. The daughter of a former stockbroker ruined in the 1857 Panic reinvents herself as the Trumpeter Swan, ultra-whore of a concert saloon and chief attraction of a peepshow for masturbating Union officers. A financier comes from nowhere, builds his fortune on a lie born of pre-computer identity-theft, brutally kills (of course in New Jersey!) to preserve his money, disappears, resurfaces as someone else and proves you can get away with murder. A safecracker becomes a hero in spite of himself and becomes the grandfather of a Jesuit Rector of Fordham University. A half-black woman masquerades as a Cuban actress.

Through it all runs the sense of tragedy, of a city burying its own past. Midian Wells disappears from Staten Island to Troy, graveyards are overturned for new building sites, the grave of a department store magnate is robbed for his grave desecrations, and ultimately the characters with whom we identify by novel's end are forgotten two generations later, plowed under by the present as Potter's Field is covered over by layers of new dead. What survives? Ironically, the monument of a decrepit Archbishop--St. Patrick's Cathedral--and the songs of a hopeless alcoholic, Stephen Foster, whose periodic appearances in the novel are perhaps its most gratuitous as well as ghastly element, a sense of living death hauled into view when real death, the slaughter of innocent and guilty alike, looms through the Draft Riots of July 1863, hanging over the novel like the diseases that swept through New York with the irregularity of sawteeth, and just as viciously.

The book is a hard read for people who want it easy. It's not linear, it's not always fun, and it's calculated at moments to make you turn your head away. I dread the idea that someone might wish to make a movie of Banished Children of Eve and "straighten it out." Its disconnectedness is its flaw and virtue together: you need to work at it, and the rewards outweigh the demands.