No comments about The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury.

5 comments about Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures.

1. I picked up this book hoping that I might find some similar experiences. Like this author I immigrated to the US when Iwas 20 and have been in the US for more than 20 years and living in two cultures: Korean and American.
   
   I didn't mind reading the author's comparisons about two cultures, saying "in Japan....but in Midwest ..." But her voice is getting too much negative and so angry then it becomes that she sounds arrogant: no personal warmth from the author.



2. As a half-Japanese raised in the Midwest by an old-fashioned Japanese mother born and raised near Tokyo, I could really relate to much of this book. Mori's personal story and her eye-opening revelations of traditional Japanese culture vs general American culture are fascinating, however she did lose me a bit in her comparisons with the Midwest which I did not fully buy into. Others may argue that Mori discloses the "old" Japan, but there are plenty of books out there trying to teach Americans how to negotiate the Japanese social terrain which is extremely complex and still quite traditional and conservative. Mori is an unusually independent and practical woman, so much so that she discovers marriage even to a good man who gives her space is too constricting. It seems her own childhood experiences have thrust her into the extreme. I hope she finds happiness.



3. I loved this book. I am not surprised that there are bad reviews. Some Japanese and japanophile readers could be offended by the revelations about Japanese culture. But, Kyoko is giving the reader tremendous insight into the social structure of Japan. She points out quite a few similarities to American Midwest culture. Best of all, her stories draw the reader in and keep reader wanting more.



4. I really enjoyed reading this book. Mori, as befits a writing instructor, writes beautifully. Her essays have a wonderful flow about them and are peppered with interesting details. I think they would serve as great instructional pieces on writing personal essays.
   
   However, I found some un-evenness in the actual content of what Dr. Mori had to say. Her observations about what it's like to be a person caught between or maybe with one foot in each of two very different cultures struck me as very true and perceptive, as this is also my life story.
   
   The problem is when Dr. Mori talks about Japan. She is one of a fairly typical group of adult-immigrants to the US, who moved here because they disliked their life in their home country. And since she has been here for 20 years and has been very successful and lived a full life, all her stories about Japan are going to have a goal of saying 'I am so glad I left Japan.' In addition, as the other reviewers have said, Dr. Mori had an extremely unhappy childhod in Japan, which probably colors all of her perceptions of that country. I found her descriptions of her feelings in flying closer to Japan on a rare visit there very revealing -- to her, Japan is not a home, not even a happy place, but instead a place full of terrible memories that she is only too happy to have escaped from.
   
   Nonetheless, I think this book is worth reading both for its writing and its observations about being a person who is bicultural by choice.



5. Having lived in Japan 4 separate times, I loved returning because things worked somehow and at the same time confused me as to how they worked. Mori by sharing her personal experiences -- through her mother's suicide, her stepmother's evil intent, her transition to life in Green Bay, her divorce to her husband, and more -- offers a lot of insight into the thinking that makes Japan's culture such a magnetic source of confusion for me. Although this represents more the author's insights from her personal experiences more than whatever "average" there may be to Japanese life, the reader can still learn from her unique experience of being "Japanese."
   
   Also, coming from the Chicago area, I learn from Mori's comparison of her understanding of Midwestern Green Bay culture and Kansai Japanese culture. It's a comparison that other sociological books and more quantative readings fail at. In terms of writing quality, maybe I'd give it 3 stars, but the way Kyoko Mori shares so much personally, this open honestness encouraged me to give it 4 stars. This book might also be useful for couples with a Japanese or Japanese-American partner.

4 comments about To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann.

1. The writer simply cannot write prose. Her attempt at metaphors are terribly jarring. I have never come across a published writer who was so bad.
   
   Terribly disappointing as I love Frieda Fromm-Reichmann and have read her work with fascination and joy.



2. I found this book way too depressing. The author seemed to make a point that Dr. Frieda was not the saint she apeared to be in the famous book from Greenburg. In every sentence, it was reaking with some pessimistic streak, even in the depictions of the many photos I found fascinated by. I love Greenburg's book dearly, and to just know such a person as Dr. Fried existed was enough to give light to this world. I think the author of this book should have mentioned more of the fact that Friada did accomplish an enourmous amount... It was awful how the author refrained Frieda's untimely death over and over and over again, as if her life had a sad fate, despite all that she strived for. Even her work with the real Johanna Greenburg is underminded, immediately followed by a whole chapter about a patient she was unsuccessful to reach out.
   Not recommended, although it is the only existing book I know about her, and I rushed to the library to get it as soon as I knew it was out. Too bad.



3. the author gave insight into the politics of the mental health field, from the philosopy of running private and public institutions to the competition between psychoanalysts, and competition beween the differant professions. From Reichman's story is written in the context of world history and the history and development of mental health treatment in the U.S.. All this plus the Freida Fromm-Reichman's philosopy and approach to analysis. The author provides a rich portrait embracing both the strengths and weaknesses of Fromm-Reichmann



4. This is a fascinating, well-written, well-researched biography of the psychotherapist who cured Deborah Blau, the patient in the best selling novel, I Never Promised you a Rose Garden (c1977). Even recent reviews of "Rose Garden" indicate confusion about Hannah Green (a pseudonym) and Joanne Greenberg (the author of this autobiographically-based novel). This book straightens it all out while exploring the fascinating life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann.

2 comments about I Don't Want to Be Inside Me Anymore: Messages from Autistic Mind.

1. I would take the previous review with more than a "grain of salt". It seems as though the reviewer has some strong emotions relating to the subject matter that bleed into the analysis of the book. This amazing work is up there with "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" by Oliver Sacks in terms of redefining the range of what makes us human. To be so suspicious of methods used to obtain Sellin's inner dialog and reflections seems questionable itself. Should we also question the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby because he had "locked in" syndrome? No, overcoming this great communication obstacle should be viewed as an immense achievement.



2. The opening of this book really irritated me. The very statements that people on the autism/Asperger's (a/A) spectrum don't relate to others and that nothing registers are not only illogical, but are harmful fallacies. People with autism, which is a neurobiological condition have difficulty communicating and responding to stimuli based on the severity of the condition. Suggesting that nothing registers with people who have autism is a crock.
   
   I also didn't like the way people with autism were compared to Rain Man. Seriously, I wish that 1988 movie had never been made because I am really sick of the savant stereotype being dumped on the autistic population! The term "Rain Man" has become a slur in many a/A circles for this very reason. The irony of it all is that savantism only affects less than 10% of people with autism! I also wish I had an umbrella with the Autism Puzzle design, with the logo "Rain Man Busters" to ward off these tired misstatements. Saying one knows about autism based on one fictitious character is tantamount to saying that one has been to Paris when they've only been to Charles De Gaulle Airport!
   
   Tired, disproved myths about autism such as refusal to speak due to trauma and having no desire to communicate were rampant throughout this book. Bull manure! The desire to communicate is inherent in all people regardless of neurobiology and autism affects that part of people's lives. The irony of it all is that Dr. Asperger, the man who first described this form of autism in 1944 wrote many works IN GERMAN about it as well as its spectrum partner, autism. When Birger was born in 1973, the ironic claim that "little about autism was known in Germany" at the time is all the more reason to question the veracity of this book. Niko and Elisabeth Tinbergen's writings are cited and they, too have touted questionable claims. They support the asinine and disproved "refrigerator parent" theory and claim that forcing people with autism to endure hugs against their will is a sure-fire cure, which it most emphatically is not. If such were the case, then "curing" autism would have a 100% success rate!
   
   Many parts of this book really bothered me. The "facilitated communication" technique is praised throughout the book as the key to Birger Sellin, an individual with severe autism. Sellin is nonverbal and has allegedly been able to communicate via poetry through this method.
   
   There are too many unanswered questions about facilitated communication. This book fails to mention that in the majority of cases, the facilitator's hand is typing the messages and that it is the facilitator's thoughts that are being expressed, not those of the person with autism. In 99% of the controlled studies performed on this method of communication have shown this to be the case. In many instances, the facilitator forcibly holds the person with autism's hand down on the keys to make it appear that the the person with autism is doing the typing.
   
   Small wonder Sellin's meltdowns and extreme frustration appear to be exacerbated since the advent of facilitated communication in his life. One wonders if Sellin is actually doing the typing. At no time are these questions addressed in this book.
   
   Don't just take this with a grain of salt. Take it with a whole BOX of salt!

2 comments about Albert Einstein/Mileva Maric: The Love Letters.

1. There can be no doubt about it .Mileva Maric(Marity)was a collaborator with Albert Einstein on one or more of the 4 1905 papers published by Max Planck in his German language journal.Her main contribution probably was in explaining to Albert the 1887 Michelson -Morley light refraction-reflection experimental results demonstrating that the speed of light had to be a constant.This would mean that there was no "ether" medium in which light would travel .Understanding these results are a necessary,but not sufficient, prerequisite to building a special or general theory of Relativity.Albert Einstein deliberately left out any reference to these results because he knew that it was Mileva who had helped him master this area of research.He wanted to pretend that he had reached his conclusions without resort to these extremely important empirical- experimental findings or any other empirical work.Albert Einstein was ,of course,the main author of the papers.His refusal to acknowledge her partial contribution means that Albert was a glory grabber in the same sense that Otto Hahn was in refusing to acknowledge the great aid of Lise Meitner in the discovery of nuclear fission.



2. This a nice collection of love letters between Albert Einstein and his first wife, Mileva Maric. If you don't know the rest of the tragic story (for her, anyway), it's just as well. It's enough to make you reflect on the amount of pain that love turn to hate can engender.
   
   They cover the period when he is getting his PhD, his first job at the patent office (which he was happy to get, by the way) in Zurich, and the birth of their first, but illegitimate child, a daughter named Lieserl, whose eventual whereabouts became a mystery (see the excellent Einstein's Daughter by Michele Zackheim for an exhaustive search for Lieserl).
   
   What is most intriguing about these letters is the number of times Einstein refers to "our" in his scientific work. He has never acknowledged Mileva's help, but I don't know how anyone can avoid the conclusion that she was a collaborator during the critical period leading up to 1905. Consider the following, in Einstein's own words: " . . . our work on relative motion . . . "(p. 39); "Don't [Mileva] forget to check on the extent to which glass conforms to the Dulong-Petit law." (p. 40); " . . .our theory of molecular forces . . ."(p. 45); " . . . enough empirical material for our investigation . . . "(p. 47); and "I gave him our paper" (p. 52). There are other references.
   
   Mileva has had her defenders in the last ten or fifteen years, but for the most part those who want to keep the Einstein myth alive that whatever he did, he did without any help have relegated her to the role of some sort of amanuensis and helpmeet. If the word "our" means what I think it means, she was a whole more than that.

No comments about Trickster in Tweed: The Quest for Quality in a Faculty Life (Writing Lives).

2 comments about By Force of Thought: Irregular Memoirs of an Intellectual Journey.

1. A serious and personal look at economics from the other side of the coin of our own system (socialist) -- and a great way in modern times to look at one person's evolution and critical thinking. It is easy to read books that you agree with ; easy to dismiss those that take positions you don't. Rarest of all to read the evolution of a person's view that moves across the chasm of such divergent views, from Marxism and then away from it, and does so in such difficult, honest terms. This is a story of ideas, and the influence they have on multiple levels.



2. Highly recommended for those interested in the study of economics and ethics. Also for all those who may be interested in how one very bright person made a significant difference in the dark years between the Nazis and the fall of the Berlin Wall, while living under a political regime (Hungary) inspired by Karl Marx.
   
   This is not a warm personal history, but a strict look back on a serious life's work. Dr. Kornai is a person I had never heard of prior to reading his book--- but one whom I now greatly respect.

5 comments about Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Language of Mathematics.

1. This book doesn't really say whether the scientists discussed were Einstein's heroes, but it does a superb job of detailing the life and work of three scientists: Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell. Focusing mainly on Faraday and Maxwell, the author shows how the relationship between these two very different men produced one of the most important contributions in the history of physics: the theory of electromagnetism and electromagnetic waves.
   
   The two men couldn't have been more different, Faraday, the self-taught, working class experimenter, and Faraday, the intuitive mathematical genius and theoretician. However, the author is quite correct in pointing out how important Maxwell thought Faraday's own theoretical ideas were, such as the idea of varying density of lines of force with distance. In fact (and the author doesn't mention this), late in life Maxwell was once asked what his most important discovery was, and he said, "Michael Faraday."
   
   One interesting theme that the author uses to good effect in the book is to show the power of mathematics as a creative language to express concepts that would be otherwise impossible. In this ability Maxwell was probably the greatest of his age, and Arianrhod points out that Maxwell, although not always the fastest with arithmetic talents, knew that mathematics at the highest level wasn't just simple arithmetic and bean-counting; it was a different language and a profound way of thinking about reality that could be used to discover the universe's otherwise hidden secrets.
   
   Maxwell understood how difficult it would be to mathematically formalize Faraday's ideas, even though he suspected Faraday was right. Their two contributions created the greatest achievement of 19th century physics, and one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. Part biography and part popular science writing, Arianrhod's achievement recall's the great John Casti's earlier book, The One True, Platonic Heaven in it's lively blend of biography and science writing.



2. Despite its title, this book's central themes are: the work of James Clerk Maxwell and the expression of scientific principles in the language of mathematics. In discussing Maxwell's life and work, the author allows a few excursions mainly into the work of Newton and Faraday - work related to that of Maxwell. In addition, the book contains a few digressions on some extremely basic mathematical principles, e.g., basic geometry, basic algebra, elementary graphs, etc. - material that is likely covered at the junior high school level if not earlier. Other material is presented on more advanced concepts such as vectors and vector spaces. The explanations are so clear, basic and painless that this book should be very popular among those who are mathematically challenged but who would like to know more about important scientific developments that have a mathematical flavor. As stated, the prose is quite clear, friendly and engaging. Science buffs that are better versed in mathematics should also enjoy this book because of its fascinating historical and biographical information.



3. full of information, history and math. great anedoctes about Maxwell and a demonstration of scientific collaboration. I read this book very quickly for a book about science.



4. The earlier reviews of this book give a good idea of its contents, but I would add that the author's larger point is that the greammer of mathematics can lead scientists to come to conclusions that would be by no means obvious. For example, James Clerk Maxwell did not expect his mathematical formulation of Faraday's idea of electrical and magnetic fields to indicate that these fields propagate at the speed of light. This result lead Maxwell to hypothesize that light was electromagnetic radiation, and that it should come in forms other than familiar, visible light.



5. This book gave a valuable overview of the influences of Newton, Faraday, and Maxwell, and how their discoveries led from Newton's inverse square law of gravitation, Faraday's electric and magnetic fields, and to Maxwell's work that mathematically described electromagnetic waves are the same as light waves. The book contains a few equations, but those do not need to be understood to appreciate the discoveries and contributions of the scientists who contributed to our current knowledge.
   
   I will further my knowledge by digging deeper into the mathematics of these scientist to further my knowledge, but this book was a great start for me.

5 comments about The Other American : The Life of Michael Harrington.

1. This is a well-honed biography of a man and his persistence in an idea, and the trials of that venture through thick and thin, against all odds. Harrington is a unique witness to the tribulations of real social change, and the living question, what is the fate of the capitalist circumstance? A persistent critic of the Bolshevik episode, his question endures. He is suddenly revealed here both in his quiet heroism, and as slighly skewed or 'out of phase' with respect to the sudden upsurge of the sixties left, yet his endurance and vision remain at the end as a permanent challenge to a system of overwhelming force, against which easy change is forever substracted. It is this factor in the account that stands out, the studied contrast of the political background, as a prism revealing the reality of liberal politics as it is.



2. Anyone familiar with the tortured history of American socialism can appreciate this fine and pensive biography of one of its leading 20th century luminaries, fabled socialist and humanist author Michael Harrington. Noted historian Maurice Isserman ("America Divided"-see my review) delivers a wonderful account that passionately and comprehensively covers the long and eventful arc of Harrington's amazingly productive and prolific writing and academic careers as well as his exhaustive involvements in socialist politics and social activism. A stream of notables ranging from folksingers Peter, Paul and Mary, SDS's Tom Hayden, intellectuals like Irving Howe, and political figures like George Meany rub shoulders with Harrington, and we come to see his personal intellectual and political journey toward a better and fairer America as one with which we can each take common cause.

   Educated in Massachusetts at Holy Cross, Harrington adopted the Jesuit perspective of enlightened social engagement early, and soon found himself rejecting his own comfortable middle class background to work among the urban poor. According to Isserman, it was inevitable for Harrington to act on his own antipathy to the gross materialism that surrounded him, and to extend this distaste for those living in luxury amid the squalor that surrounded them to his own philosophy and politics. Indeed, his own intellectual and philosophical journey provides the reader with a splendid portrait of the nature of American socialism in the middle of this century, and we find ourselves delving into remote nooks and crannies of the movement as Harrington makes his philosophical odyssey toward his own mature view of an open and democratically based contemporary socialism.

   Along the way we learn a lot of important details about socialism as well as about how politics works in America. One at times becomes a bit winded at Harrington's sheer level of energy and capacity for work, for he sometimes seems to be everywhere doing everything at once. And it is this frenetic pace and sheer level of productive energy that one comes to admire in Harrington. In this day of self-satisfied torpor and delirium tremors from over-consumption, it is interesting to read about a man whose life was centered so energetically and so passionately around moral imperatives and ideas. Whether discussing his failure to successfully meld his old-style moral socialism with the new-left politics of young mavericks like Tom Hayden or his failure to actively engage the American Socialist Party in the debate over the war in Vietnam, Isserman brings Harrington and his times to vibrant life in these pages.

   Of course, it was the publication of his overwhelmingly successful and influential book, "The Other America" that made Harrington a permanent fixture on the American scene, and everyone from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton have made reference to the importance of the book in forming their own perspectives regarding poverty in America. My recommendation is to first read "The Other America", because it is such a historical book both in terms of its content as well as in its effect on social policy for the last half of the 20th century. Then read this wonderful biography to understand the complex and troubling life of its author, one of the 20th century's most misunderstood and yet ultimately influential intellectuals. Enjoy!




3. The Other American is required reading for any activist on the left with an interest in how the recent past affects movements of today. Maurice Isserman, one of the leading chroniclers of the recent American left, has given us not only a highly engaging portrait of the outstanding American socialist of the last half of the 20th century, but also a narrative of the left politics of the 1950s through 1960s that makes the often complicated political twists and turns of that period both comprehendible and interesting.

   Isserman's thorough and well-researched portrait of Harrington's early years illustrate how his Jesuit training in high school and at college at Holy Cross informed his ideas and actions long after he rejected the Church itself. Not only did these institutions instill a "moral gravity" and lessons in commitment. "Catholic social teachings were from the beginning antipathetic to the assumptions of a capitalist world," Isserman writes. "Disciples of Thomas Aquinas knew from their master's teaching that `it is impossible for happiness, which is the last end of man, to consist in wealth.'"

   Given this background, it is not difficult to understand how this young man from a comfortable, middle-class background sought to put his ideals to practical experience by ministering to those less-fortunate souls who sought out the Catholic Worker. Among those drawn to the Worker, it was, Harrington would say, a "perfectly rational and legitimate thing to say that one's ambition in life was to become a saint" - even as he eagerly experienced the bohemian nightlife of 1950s Manhattan during his free time.

   Less understandable - apparently to Isserman as well - was that when Harrington left the pious cocoon of the Catholic Worker, he jumped directly into the sectarian squabbles of socialist politics. Isserman does show that during his two years at the Worker, Harrington was becoming increasingly convinced that the human ills he saw in the Bowery could not be fully addressed though acts of charity, but required political solutions. Nevertheless, "it all seemed very unlike Michael," writes Isserman, to step directly into the faction fights of the Socialist Party, becoming co-founder of the Young Socialist League, a sectarian group with a Trotskyist twist. Isserman offers a variety of factors: the unfortunate influence of Socialist factionalist extraordinaire Max Schactman; the influence of Jesuit doctrines of discipline and commitment; his friendship with experienced faction-fighter - and later DSA co-founder - Bogdan Denitch. Whichever the case, none of the explanations is fully convincing.

   It took some two decades of socialist activism to complete Harrington's evolution from sectarian infighter to proponent of an open, inclusive, non-sectarian democratic socialism. His disastrous collision with Tom Hayden and Students for a Democratic Society at Port Huron may have torpedoed hopes for an alliance between the old and new lefts in the 1960s that could have given the social energies of that decade a stronger ideological grounding. Harrington spent years apologizing for his intemperate criticisms of the Port Huron Statement and its authors and, as Isserman demonstrates, he learned painful lessons from this mistake. Harrington them mostly spun his organizational wheels for the remainder of the decade, as the Socialist Party's infighting and its failure to oppose the war in Vietnam made it largely irrelevant to most activists. In 1972 he finally broke with his old mentor Schactman - who was leading the SP hard to the right in an effort to curry favor with cold-warrior George Meany and his AFL-CIO - to lead the formation of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC).

   Nevertheless, during the 1960s Harrington built his own public presence, largely of the strength of his first and most popular book, The Other America: Poverty in the United States, published in 1962. It was a case of writing the right book at the right time: Many journalists and policymakers were only then coming to realize that the postwar prosperity had not benefited everyone. Harrington, despite his experience at the Catholic Worker, had never considered himself an expert on poverty. Nevertheless, the book made Harrington "the man who discovered poverty" and brought him a measure of public fame and affluence that clashed with his self-image as a socialist warrior.

   While Isserman thoroughly covers Harrington's life and politics up to the early 1970s, he gives his last two decades - including the entire history of DSOC and its successor, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), during Harrington's time - relatively short shrift. He devotes a 45-page chapter largely to the writing and influence of The Other America, while he devotes only some 60 pages to the last two decades of Harrington's life - a time in which his political ideas flowered into maturity. Even as Harrington urged the left "to put aside the quarrels of the 1960s and to unite all who could be brought together into the democratic socialist movement," Isserman seems to regard this period of Harrington's life as largely a failure. While his effort to make democratic socialism the left wing of the Democratic Party collapsed with Reagan's victory in 1980, Harrington kept DSA together and - through his own hard work, his credibility and his notoriety as "America's Socialist" - visible and active in a difficult political environment. Isserman also scarcely touches on Harrington's other books, which may be his most valuable legacy. In particular, Socialism and Socialism: Past and Future, while hardly bestsellers, are likely to inspire future generations of left thinkers and activists.

   Nevertheless, The Other American rewards the reader with its insights into the man and the movement. And it ends on a note of melancholy - not only on Harrington's premature death from cancer, but also on what his demise meant to the socialist movement. Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington represented the face of socialism to many Americans. "No claimant has emerged to pick of the mantle of Debs and Thomas and Harrington," Isserman writes. Will it take another Harrington-like leader to revive American socialism?




4. Mr. Isserman's biography is neither sentimental (but it is written with plenty of sentiment) nor uncritical in its appraisal of the late Michael Harrington. This book is not intended to answer the question, 'What is socialism?'; however, because of the amazing amount of details concerning the socialists (obviously, especially Harrington), their ideas, party dissolutions and rebirths, one will be quite prepared for further study of Harrington and socialism. Isserman has an uncanny ability to use narative to reflect the pace of events -- especially when desciribing how quickly the 'war on poverty' was started and lost by the duplicity of Democrats and Republicans -- he picks up the pace of his words he needs to and uses more reflective words when he needs to. If one is not interested in learning about Micahel Harrington, Isserman is a good story teller who's book can be read for the narrative alone.



5. Maurice Isserman has written several books focused on the American left, principally the Communist Party. In this book, he focuses on the late Michael Harrington, "America's foremost democratic socialist." The book is highly successful in giving us a look at Harrington the man, although anyone interested in a history of the democratic socialist movement may be somewhat disappointed. Isserman fills many gaps in Harringon's two semi-autobiographical books. While not completely impartial (Isserman was a member of Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, and clearly likes his subject), the author neither fawns nor engages in iconography. Taken together with Robert Gorman's book, and Harrington's own work, Isserman's biography is as comprehensive a picture of Harrington as I suspect we're likely to get anytime soon. Highly recommended.

4 comments about Return to Dresden.

1. One way of dealing with events that bring one to a daily struggle is to tell a story, and Maria Ritter has told a fascinating story, captivating at every turn, and elucidating a period in her life that helps us all in overcoming the struggles of our own pasts. This book is one of several appearing in these days about the world of the writer's childhood. We have heard it from those who suffered through the holocaust, we have heard it from the point of view of Europe coming out of the destruction of World War II, but here is another account of one who was a child, severely wounded in the bombing of Dresden, seeking to find her past, and either forgive it to redeem it in the light of all that history has shown about the power and abuse of Hitler in Nazi Germany.
   I recommend highly this journey along with its therapeutic methods to those who would follow in this journey or understand better the children of World War II.



2. This book touched me on many levels. First, it was eye opening to learn more about the effect of WWII from the prospective of a child in Germany. To learn not only about the raw experience of war itself, but the struggles and shame after the war. Issues that are complex for anyone, let alone a child who was given no explanation for what had happened. Second, it is a story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit. Third, it discusses the importance of coming to terms with the struggles of the past and learning to be at peace with them.



3. Maria Ritter returns to Germany as an adult, and through the recollections of her early childhood, recalls the horrors and devastation brought to her homeland through the Hitler regime and the post WWII years under the communists.
   With her father fighting in the German Army, her family becomes refugees from both the Russians in the east, and Allied bombs from the sky. Making numerous moves to try and ensure their safety, they go to Dresden and become victims of the firebombing in February, 1945. Dealing with the reality that her father may never return to them, her brave mother takes the initiative to escape to the west, leaving behind loved ones in the east during the post war years...and the resulting story of their escape and subsequent life is one of inspiration and encouragement. Coming to terms with much of the heartbreaking events she suffered as a young child, makes this read a heart rending and touching memorial to all the innocents who have had nothing whatsoever to do with politics and war.



4. Maria Ritter returns to Germany as an adult, and through the recollections of her early childhood, recalls the horrors and devastation brought to her homeland through the Hitler regime and the post WWII years under the communists.
   With her father fighting in the German Army, her family becomes refugees from both the Russians in the east, and Allied bombs from the sky. Making numerous moves to try and ensure their safety, they go to Dresden and become victims of the firebombing in February, 1945. Dealing with the reality that her father may never return to them, her brave mother takes the initiative to escape to the west, leaving behind loved ones in the east during the post war years...and the resulting story of their escape and subsequent life is one of inspiration and encouragement. Coming to terms with much of the heartbreaking events she suffered as a young child, makes this read a heart rending and touching memorial to all the innocents who have had nothing whatsoever to do with politics and war.