Sarah Phillips allows readers to gain insight into the black middle class, and the rituals and contradictions that the exposure to an integrated society can create. Considering the time frame in which the story is set, it is, at times, disturbing.

The bad news is: Sarah Phillips was ahead of its time when it was published in 1984, and beyond the literary critics who praised Andrea Lee's elegantly unvarnished look at the upper reaches of black society, it did not receive much attention. The good news is: with the post-Waiting-To-Exhale realization by the white publishing world that there is no one black way of life, and that the way of life that appeared in Phillips' luminous book very much exists, Sarah Phillips may now get the attention it deserves.

Far from a catalogue of I-gots that exemplifies some of the newer fiction by African Americans who are glibly portraying a non-ghetto way of life (see--I'm upper class! I have a Rolex! A Mercedes! I wear [designer of your choice here]), Lee's novel goes back to the incestuous world of interconnected black families from the Eastern Seaboard, parts of the South and Midwest, whose hallowed folkways reflect both racial pride and the ironic need to ape their white counterparts a parallel societal world. And whose foibles are as avidly watched and relayed, sotto voce, as any characters' in a nighttime soap opera.

Sarah Phillips explores what happens when post-Civil Rights progeny--children who had to be Ten Times Better Than the whites against whom they compete (and by whom they are judged, usually more harshly) to a wider world where race is noted, but does not serve as the invisible force-field it did for their parents. Sarah, with the confidence of her family history, is able to be both detached from her background and amused by it, even as she keeps it in reserve, if necessary, to shield herself from the glib snobbism of the Europeans among whom she's chosen to live.

Lee does not sugar coat Sarah's wish to be the Only One--the only black person--during her sojurn in Europe. But she makes Sarah three-dimensional enough that the reader understands well enough the urge behind the odd wish to be exotique in a foreign setting.

Readers who are revolted by the current urge of some black writers to trumpet their socially important connections will be refreshed by Lee's chronicle of this snippy, edgy young woman.
This is very much the real thing.

I cannot understand why it is that this brilliant piece of work is virtually unheard of. Andrea Lee's collection of stories about one central figure, Sarah Phillips, is masterful and universal in its exploration of the journey from girlhood to womanhood. These stories approach adolescence with a rare grace and subtlety that deserves a wide audience, one of all races and ages. Please read this book!

Love One Another caught me by surprise. I was expecting something totally different like how we should love one another, love your enemies, etc., but this comic book hit on some hard, cold emotions!

Clean comic book. I especially liked the real life stories. My children are able to relate to this better.

I read all books I intend to give to my children before giving it to them. I read this comic book and realized that the author reminded me that love can sometimes be smothered by jealousy, hate, and other negative feelings. I enjoyed this comic book and will provide copies for my children and church family.

This comic book was the bomb. My little sister laugh to.

I am glad to see Christian comic books on the market. I have seen a view, but not like this one. I enjoyed the reading very much.

Enjoyed the issue. Are there back issues that I may purchase for my daughter? Thank you.

Having now finished Sarah Smith's Vanished Child Trilogy, I can conclude that the sequel is rarely ever as good as the original.

While Vanished Child thrilled, and Knowledge of Water disappointed, A Citizen of the Country strives to bring readers once again into the dark clouds that hang over Alexander Von Reisden since he was recognized and proven to be the missing Richard Knight, who vanished at the age of 8 on the night his grandfather was murdered; himself being the killer.

But this time around, Reisden and wife Perdita are parents to a happy, healthy boy. However, Reisden and Perdita are far from happy themselves. Reisden mistrusts his nearly blind wife to care properly for their son; Perdita strives to understand why Reisden has distanced himself from Gilbert Knight, a surviving Uncle of Richard's, who can end the financial woes of Jouvet, the psychiatric facility that Reisden owns, nearly destroyed in the Paris flood described in The Knowledge of Water.

Enter Maurice Cyron, who holds the key to delivering a Government contract to Jouvet that will ensure its financial well-being for years to come. Cyron charges Reisden to complete a task begun long ago at Jouvet, to help put to rest the demons of his adopted son, Andre, a friend of Reisden's youth.

Andre, the unbalanced host of alter-ego Necrosar, writes dark, murderous plays for a 'Theater of Horror' in Paris. Being shut in with his dead parents for days when just a young boy seems to have permanently unhinged Andre, though he has married a beautiful young woman, Sabine, who obsesses with bearing a child for Necrosar, whom she worships, herself a witch.

Andre and Cyron bring Reisden and company to Montfort, Andre's ancestral home, to film a treatment of Macbeth, a la Necrosar, complete with the beheading of the heroine, played by Sabine, by guillotine, as the culmination of the film. But amidst all the make-believe death and gore, real bodies begin to turn up, and a mystery unfolds. Reisden and his friend Jules are blackmailed to uncover the 'secret of Montfort'...Jules' sister Ruthie uncovers Sabine's secret, and a witch's poison, which nearly claims her life. Tunnels below Montfort itself are found to be far more than just a challenging labyrinth, and Reisden is forced to overcome his owns demons about committing murder in order to help solve the mystery surrounding the death of one of the principal characters, lest an innocent person suffer the same fate.

Sound good? Technically it is...Smith delivers dark, gloomy prose, of the same ilk as Vanished Child. Citizen is far superior to Knowledge of Water, in the respect that, like Vanished Child, there was a central plot that the other sub-plots fed from, and that affected them all. The 'secret of Montfort', while not quite as exciting as I had hoped, feeds into all other plot-lines, like a body of water feeding tributaries. Many demons are laid to rest by the end of the story, which is one of its strengths, a 'satisfying' conclusion for several of the story threads.

But where the novel fails to live up to the original is a lack of excitement when the 'secret' is finally revealed. The so-called 'secret' of Montfort is lackluster at best, and really not enough to keep perpetuating its mention time and again as a plot line. Further, Smith shoots herself in the foot by foreshadowing the death of one of the principals in the story, so that when the event takes place, it is expected, and therefore not much of a shock. While the first novel held my interest until the end to find out 'the truth', this novel does not deliver the same satisfaction. A contrived 'resolution' (from the characters of the novel) does not really answer one of the major questions of the story; the identity of the person who commits the 'shocking' murder. It seems as though Smith, in the hopes of a resolution for all the characters involved, left out a resolution for the reader.

That said, I do recommend reading this book if you have already read the other two. Without having them as a background, many things here will not make much sense to a reader, and although the story can be read autonomously, a foundation of the first two parts of this trilogy only adds to the overall read.

I sincerely hope that Smith will revisit the characters, and expand this trilogy into something larger. She is a capable writer, with a talent for creating a hazy, gloomy setting, and painting equally despairing characters to populate that setting.

A Citizen of the Country succeeded where The Knowledge of Water failed, in that it was truly worthy of being called a sequel to the tremendous opening book, The Vanished Child. While typically complex, the mystery plot here was at least understandable. But, as always, the key to these novels is the human plot introduced in the Vanished Child, and the denouement of that plot here was just fantastic; it was truly a payoff for people who have read all the books in the trilogy. Hopefully, the author will reconsider her decision to make this only a trilogy, and write one more episode set during World War One. The ending of this book certainly sets up the possibility of such a sequel. All in all, this was a great read, and anyone who may have been slightly turned off of this series by The Knowledge of Water should definitely give this book a try.

A true sequel to the marvelous Vanished Child. Though I enjoyed Knowledge of Water perhaps more than some of the other readers writing here, this third volume is much, much better. Don't stop here whatever you do, Sarah -- when can I expect a fourth volume?

I fondly remember reading Caps for Sale as a little girl. The suggestion made in A Guide for Using Caps for Sale in the Classroom allowed me as a teacher to see the learning potentials this book can offer my students. (And parents could use this guide with their kids at home, too.)

A Guide for Using Caps for Sale in the Classroom is a good starting point for teachers on HOW to integrate this classic piece of children's literature in all the content areas. The guide has many reproducibles, is loaded with extention ideas, features a minibook about monkeys for students to put together, and makes reference to other books and comercially produced games that can be used with Caps for Sale (also available at amazon.com). Of particular interest is the guide's suggestions for anger management, as it relates to the peddler's reaction to the monkeys who steal his caps.

I've stated that this guide is a "good starting point" because many of the activity sheets included in the guide get you thinking about the many hands-on activities that could be done with students. The activity sheets could them be a means of evaluating what the students have learned.

Purchasers should be aware that the language arts activities are more suited for 1st or 2nd grade; social studies ideas are good for K to 2nd; math activities are good for K to 1st, and could easily be increased in difficulty for 2nd graders. Likewise, the science--learning about monkeys--can be geared to fit any grade level.

This book was very enlightening and insightful on the practice of law in the 40's, 50's and 60's. It brought to life an era of controversy and injustice within an evolving America. It helps to explain these disruptive years of anti-communism and racial injustice amid the political struggles of a partisan society.

The Vanished Child was beautiful, engrossing, and extremely well written. It is definitely one of my favorite books. The Knowledge of Water however, is neither interesting nor well-written. It is a mess of words with very little plot to hold it all together. I don't understand why Ms. Smith didn't simply leave The Vanished Child alone instead of trying to write a nearly incoherent sequel. Ms. Smith not only completely disappointed me with this book but also managed to lower my opinion of The Vanished Child in the process. If Susan Smith writes anything else I will read it. But I don't recommend this book to anyone. DO read The Vanished Child however--it was magnificent.

I found The Knowledge of Water to be an absorbing blend of mystery, period history and romance; but before you write it off as a bodice-ripper, let me add that the characters are well developed and believable, and the thorny women's issues are thought-provoking and timely. The result is good, entertaining brain food.
My only regret is that I read this volume before the first one in the series, The Vanished Child. Although I plan to go back and read it now, I fear Knowledge of Water gives away too many of the surprises from the first novel.

This book was excellent. I loved the images of turn-of-the-century Paris and its suburbs. I also loved the usage of the French language. The mystery was involving and kept the reader guessing until the resolution. I am now reading it for the second time and it is just as good. I intend to read the prequel to this (The Vanished Child) sometime very soon. Sarah Smith has a very unique way of words and describes scenes while leaving some to the imagination.

To draw the most from this new book, you need to know already quite a bit about occupied France. The authors trace in detail academic perceptions of Vichy since 1945. Regime apologists tried to maintain in the 1950s that Petain had played a clever game in seeming to collaborate whilst plotting to maintain French independence. We now understand this was nonsense: Petain and Laval may have been interested in collaboration, but Hitler's only concern was booty. But equally in error was the Gaullist position that forty million Frenchmen supported the Resistance against a tiny number of traitors. The editors demonstrate that more recent research has shown how fragmented both the pro and anti Vichy groups were. For example, it was possible to be faithful to Petain whilst being anti nazi. Many ordinary French people, both in the cities and in the countryside, adopted an eclectic attitude according to "how the wind was blowing" in their area. The book suggests new lines for research on Vichy, especially a comparative approach with what was happening in other occupied countries such as Bulgaria and Hungary. The book is largely a tribute to Robert Paxton who wrote a ground breaking study of wartime France in the 1970s. This reviewer found the continuous adulation of Paxton, however merited, somewhat repetitive. You will enjoy this new volume if you really want to explore in depth the meaning of Vichy over the past sixty years. Given that France was still prosecuting men for war crimes in the late 1990s, Petain's regime is still a hotly debated topic in that country's academic establishment.

This book is an essential text for anyone interested in the history of of France during the Vichy regime. It offers a superlative compilation of the latest scholarship in the field, contributed by some of its most important writers, people like Michael Marrus, Jean-Pierre Azema, Henri Rousso, Stanley Hoffmann, Philippe Burrin, etc. etc. The introduction by Fishman and Smith is a thorough map of the entire contents of the book which, again, provides a rich collection of articles destined perhaps not for the general reader without any background on the subject, although the book itself is reader friendly....

We recently used this book in a dental hygiene program and found it very frustrating. The self instructional format was fairly well plotted out, and the intentions of the book as a program of study were admirable. However, as a class, we found many errors and contradictions in the text. My personal advice would be to wait for a next edition when more through editing has been accomplished.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone wishing an introduction to the topic of dental anatomy. I think any first year dental student would find this especially helpful. The text is divided up into modules, and then into frames, with the answers to questions within the frames located in the margin. The book is very good about reinforcing terms that may not be familiar to the beginning student of dentistry or to the layman. However, I do not recommend this book for someone who has had a course in dental anatomy. I initially bought the book as a study aid for part one of the dental national boards. Having had dental anatomy coursework, as well as other courses which used the same information as a foundation, I found the reinforcement of terms I already knew to be rather tedious. I think that if I had found it before starting dental school though, it would have been much more valuable to me.

Nice images of interior design as presented and rendered by designers from around the world. Some of the interior work was a little over the top and therefore not suitable to everyday living.