5 comments about An Englishman in the Court of the Tsar: The Spiritual Journey of Charles Syndney Gibbes.

1. Like most people who would be interested in this book, I was expecting some insight into the life of the last tsar and his family, as seen by someone close to the family. But, as the title implies, it's his SPIRITUAL journey the book chronicles, with a few well-known anecdotes on the imperial family thrown in. If your looking for a book on the Romanovs or Imperial Russian history, don't buy this book.



2. Although this book is one of many written about the tragic deaths of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, it is different than those which often appear explotive. Gibbes's relationship with the Tsar and his family provides us with a deeper insight into the family life, and the unshakable rich faith of this noble family. The book is one of a kind, and an "easy" read. As one who has read many books on the subject of Russian hsitory, I could not recommend it more highly.



3. I bought this book expecting its majority to discuss the life of Charles Sydney Gibbes, but it's more of an ill-researched portrait of history twisted to fit the author's opnions. Although the first and last few pages are devoted entirely to Gibbes, the rest is about this mass conspiracy that lead up to the revoultion that rarely mentions Gibbes at all (at least a hundred pages do not even relate to his journey or him in any way). I prefer a favorable picture of the imperial family, but even I cannot believe these "facts" presented, espcially since Ms. Benagh doesn't even to refute other opinions; moreover, she seems to say the starving peasants could have lingered on for a few more days. She uses a maximum of eight sources to support her book, all published and most are famous first-hand sources written in the 20s-40s that have been prooven to have some major falacies. Do not believe its claims to be using new resources from the collapse of the Soviet Union because unsolved mysteries in here have been solved and thoroughly explianed in many other books. This book does a decent job as presenting Gibbes as an affable person but is primarily conncerned on trying to rewrite history. If you decide to purchase this book, I want to forewarn you to read a good Romanov or Russian history book beforehand to be able to identify An Englishman in the Court of the Tsar's faults.



4. American author, Christine L. Benagh, has written a moving biographical and historical journey of an Englishman who went to Russia in 1901 to escape the disillusionment of his faith-shattering theological education. As Charles Sydney Gibbes' reputation as an English tutor in St. Petersburg grows, he comes to the attention of the royal family, whom he eventually serves for ten years until their tragic demise. Through Gibbes' letters and papers, we catch an intimate view of the Tsar, the Empress and their children in their home or on vacation, having tea, doing their studies, playing games and going to Russian Orthodox services. Their lives are placed into historical context with quotes from the biographies, letters and papers of people who knew them.

   Sadly, Gibbes is among the first to investigate the fateful Ipatiev house in Ekatarinburg, where the Romanovs and their entourage were murderously slaughtered by the Bolsheviks. Due to his intimate knowledge of the Romanovs, as well as his command of the Russian language, Gibbes continues working in Russia for a time for the British High Command. He eventually ends up in Manchuria, working for the Chinese Maritime Service, during which time he adopts a teenaged Russian orphan and studies firsthand various Eastern religions.

   At the age of 52, Gibbes decides to return to his Christian roots, but he is once more shattered by politics in the Anglican Church. After a much soul searching, he embraces the Orthodox Church, where, back in England, he is tonsured as a monk and then ordained into the priesthood.

   As Father Nicholas Gibbes, he spends the remaining years of life devoted to the Orthodox faith in England, and to preserving the memory of the Romanov family with the many artifacts and relics he personally collected.

   While this outstanding book is called a "spiritual journey," the spiritual journey is actually a pretty slender thread through these turbulent times until the last two chapters. It works as an interesting biography within this period of history, as an intimate portrait of the royal family, as a small slice of Russian (and English) history, and finally as a spiritual odyssey. I'd recommend this to those interested in the Romanovs, the Bolshevik Revolution, spiritual journeys or the Orthodox Church.




5. If you would like a good, honest, brief explination of the events leading to the fall of the Romanovs, this is a great source. Nicholas II is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented historical figures. Written from the perspective of Mr. Gibbes we have an insider's view of the events discribed. This book is well written, and presented in an interesting manner that keeps the reader turning the pages. Having read many books on the subject of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, I find this to be one of the better ones. Read this and Massie's "Nicholas and Alexandra" and you will have a good picture of what really happened. Thank you Chiristine for this excellent study!

1 comments about Matters of Conscience: Conversations With Sterling M. McMurrin on Philosophy, Education, and Religion.

1. This is a book of primarily local and regional interest. For those who are unaware, Sterling McMurrin was a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City during the 50's, 60's, 70' and 80's. Sterling was considered one of the most scholarly and capable professors at the University and held a variety of important academic positions. In fact, during the John F. Kennedy Presidential administration, Sterling was United States Commissioner of Education (the position that was the forerunner of the cabinet level post, Secretary of Education).

   Those who do not live in the Mormon culture in Utah may not be able to appreciate large segments of the book. Sterling describes his years teaching Mormon Seminary in the Church Educational System and his subsequent history in the church. The most fascinating part of the book for me was when Sterling ran afoul of church leaders Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee for honestly informing them he did not believe in the most basic Mormon teachings. The subsequent story of him *almost* being brought to trial in a church court and being excommunicated is very interesting and entertaining. Apparently, than church President David O McKay personally intervened and prevented this from occurring. McMurrin met personally with McKay and the details of their conversation are highly interesting. It also furnishes an important insight as to why the LDS Church failed to open the priesthood to African Americans until 1978. (McKay favored doing it, but many people underneath him did not)

   After finishing the book, I was proud. I am proud that the University of Utah had such a distinguished professor for so many years. I am proud that the Mormon culture of which I am a part is capable of producing free-thinkers and intellectuals like McMurrin. Sterling McMurrin died in 1996. However, he left behind a legacy of fearless intellectual freedom and inquiry that will long prevail at the University of Utah.

3 comments about Chasing Hellhounds: A Teacher Learns from His Students.

1. very well written. Favorite passages include the following.
   
   It is the unchanging school ballet - order and authority aligned against limit testing and restlessness. 18
   
   (on his in-class "library") Every year, a certain percentage of the collection walks out from under my porous record-keeping system, but I console myself with visions of these books on bedside tables or sharing valuable shelf space with Al Green and Boys II Men. 20
   
   For three years, I watched some wonderful word magicians ignite children's interest in language, instill in them the realization that words can be pleasurable, not the leaded mallets with which they had been bludgeoned into muteness in the previous classrooms. 42
   
   There was a second group of parents and kids who desperately needed the school and were determined to make it work. These were the misfits, kids unsuited for what passed for the normal teenage world. For them, the goal was not so much achievement as sheer survival, negotiating the treacherous straits of early adolescence en route to a less judgmental, more tolerant adulthood. 67
   
   The work of teachers arouses as little curiosity from the general public as that of garbagemen and mechanics. Perhaps the fact that all of us have spent at least twelve years in the thrall of one teacher or another is sufficient to convince us that we already know all we ever care to know about teaching. 81
   
   (the classic school desks) Is there an official name for those cursed objects with the fixed arm on which to rest your test paper or your binder? Strapped into this contraption, every man is alone, pitting his triumphs against those of his adversaries, never to reach out and join forces with them. 83
   
   Where does the teacher's desk go, and what does that tell us about the guy who operates in this space? Does he hold court from behind or does he just use it as a place to unload his papers? 83
   
   the whole thing on selecting books for the class year, pages 84-92
   
   As my lists of possibilities proliferates, I get excited over the prospect of introducing some of the books I love to an audience innocent of them. 84
   
   I'm partial to books that open out onto other vistas - literary, political, psychological. 85
   
   In general, I don't believe in textbooks for English students at any level. There are real books students can and should be reading regardless of age or ability. Textbooks will never produce literate adult readers. 85
   
   ...when it's clear that even at the early grade levels, the way to promote reading is by exposing kids to the plethora of good books capable of exciting them about reading. 86
   
   Students need to inhale great quantities of literature in their school years in order to get a reasonable sampling of the universe of inspired and inspiring writing they can choose from as independent adult readers. 86
   
   Providing a good education means attuning students to the fact that there are a richness and diversity of cultures, experiences, and styles that await... 88
   
   ... white students need to know of Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison as much as black students should experience Dickens and Edith Wharton... we have an obligation to stretch and extend students beyond the level on which they come to us. 89
   
   (on a downside of "young adult fiction") Once students are fed on the bouncing first-person colloquial... whose voices mesh seamlessly with those of their readers, they have little tolerance for an unfamiliar voice, an embellished vocabulary, an alien style. Students are all too often irritated by language different in any way from what washes around them every day. 89
   
   Although fantasy literature at its best can be imaginative and entertaining, it is short of characterization and detail and long on action. 89
   
   The net effect of the proliferation of juvenile and young adult fiction is to reduce students' tolerance for reading cloaked in unfamiliar styles, spun out in denser detail, or following unfamiliar characters. Children are the world's true conservatives. The want exactly what they've already had. Dickens and Shakespeare are weird. the Sound and the Fury and Death of a Salesman, although they're more contemporary, are also weird because of their nonlinear structure. ...but students are generally programmed to expect lockstep chronological writing. 90
   
   Good teaching is an odd mix of artistry, vulnerability, and technical prowess. We reach down into our own interests and experience to sketch our plans... 95
   
   (on helping one student edit her work) ...I tried to explain that all this melodrama wasn't necessary to make a good story. Smaller, more subtle things could happen. Characters could change in more interesting ways... 97
   
   I was awestruck. Kristen had made a literary discovery on her own that was beyond the reach of a lot of adult writers: the significance of voice and point of view in fiction and the ways in which the final product is shaped by the choice of who tells the story. 98-9
   
   (on standardized achievement tests) ... but one with potentially disastrous implications for education. First it defines the goals of teaching and education in an unacceptable narrow way (the content of the test is what should be taught). 100
   
   The important thing is that the kids got to see me in a role and context different from the one in which they encounter me every day. I think it's enormously important for everyone to be able to see the people in their lives acting in many different roles. One of the prime virtues of small-town life ...106
   
   Let's not forget that it's a two-way street, too. ... so often we see our kids only in their role as student and forget what a small part of their lives that is and how many other dimensions to their behavior we're not seeing. 107
   
   Fortunately, teaching is more similar to baseball than it is to the Olympics. When you have a bad day in baseball, you're right back in the ballpark the next day with a chance to make adjustments. An Olympic flop may be forever. 121
   
   Why do we read except to live symbolically all the lives we will never live, to feel compassion for characters who, although they are not us, share with us a common humanity? The empathy reflected in these student journals and in the class discussions that sprang from them confirms the need to put aside our timidity and risk introducing unheard voices to our classes. 134
   
   (upon being challenged by a parent that all the books were dark and gloomy) After playing back the reading lists... With very few exceptions, the books both young adult and adult, that appeared on my reading lists have been a dark lot - tales of mental illness, suicide, racial hatred, religious prejudice, sexual abuse, divorce, and death. But in spite of the depressing subject matter, the books are often uplifting testimonials to the power of the human spirit to survive adversity and even be ennobled by it. An encounter with social and religious prejudices leaves a character not crushed but strong, and clearer about who he or she is; a family wrestling with the suicide of a child is drawn closer by the bond of their common tragedy; a sexually abused child blossoms into a renowned writer. 141
   
   We have to keep in mind Tolstoy's famous dictum that happy families are all alike; the stuff of serious literature has always been tragic... Most vital fiction draws on the underside of human relationships and human emotions. The lives of the students who inhabit our classrooms are suffused with the same dark material that is the stuff of literature. 141
   
   (when a call home to a student's grandmother had a deeper effect than expected) During a year of journal writing and truncated conversations, the story of Arthur's amazement that I had cared enough to call home, that I was upset by his departure, emerged. This simple gesture was enough to draw him back to school. 205
   
   (in discussion with a student who liked popular novels, such as those by Grisham) It's taken some effort of both our parts for Monica to arrive at this formulation of the difference between escape reading and literature.... you'll see how hard it is to communicate what sets enduring art apart from airport books. 216



2. Teaching is one of the most difficult jobs. When you read Marvin Hoffman's beautifully written book, however, you realize that it is a noble profession and one where a dedicated, insightful teacher truly has a profound impact of the lives of young people. This book is inpirational. The depth of Mr. Hoffman's humanity comes through the vignettes. I work in a school and whenever I need a reminder of why I entered education, I pick up "Chasing Hellhounds..." It is outstanding!



3. Teaching is one of the most difficult jobs. When you read Marvin Hoffman's beautifully written book, however, you realize that it is a noble profession and one where a dedicated, insightful teacher truly has a profound impact of the lives of young people. This book is inpirational. The depth of Mr. Hoffman's humanity comes through the vignettes. I work in a school and whenever I need a reminder of why I entered education, I pick up "Chasing Hellhounds..." It is outstanding!

5 comments about A Separate Place: A Father's Reflection on Building a Home and Renewing a Family.

1. Brill is my hero. He hiked the Appalachian Trail (which I should have done after college--now a dream of retirement), dreamt of and built his get-a-way of seclusion, and wrote excellent books of both experiences. My dreams exactly! This is a very nice book detailing the problems and joys of fulfilling a dream. Who hasn't dreamt of a simpler life? We can all relate. Indifferent to another reviewer of this book, there are echoes of Thoreau's Walden Pond. Brill quit his high-stress job. He knew there was more to life. Thoreau, too, disagreed with the "modern" life style. He worked only enough to sustain life, and therefore had more time to enjoy the rest of life's experiences. Just thinking about a cabin in the woods brings a feeling of relaxation to me. Just thinking about hiking the A.T. (Brill's other book), with no deadlines, no clocks, carrying only what you need for shelter and food, soaking in the scenery, gives me something to look forward to. Sure there are problems to both; building a house creates many problems, hikers deal with many blisters, bad weather and aching muscles. However, it is these minor problems that make the good experiences even better. If you want to escape a little and live Brill's dreams, read his books. Also along the same lines, and very much recommended are: Jon Katz's book on finding his retreat in the woods, Running to the Mountain; Elizabeth Gilbert's, The Last American; and, Mark Phillips', My Father's Cabin. If you can think of any more, please inform me at john@delbridge.net.



2. David Brill's portrayal of his own divorce is why the divorce rate is 50% in America today. He is obviously a very self-centered and selfish man who is trying to trick the reader into believing that he has done everything imaginable to keep his 17 year marriage from ending. Was this book published to use as toilet tissue?



3. This book needs a sequel written by Susan Brill. One-sided divorce stories need to be categorized either as fiction or self-help which this author obviously needs.



4. David Brill portrays himself as THE MARTYR in an unhappy marriage. I seriously question this author's motives for having this book published. Any man who would abandon his wife (and 2 daughters) after 17 years by leaving a handwritten note needs his head examined!



5. David Brill's book manages to beautifully capture a sense of place with his vivid descriptions of the landscape and people of modern-day southern Appalachia. The natural world serves as a lush backdrop to Brill's painful, yet ultimately affirming story of the end days of his eighteen year marriage.

   Too many books about divorce offer only a laundry list of practical advice. David Brill lets us in on the truth of the matter, which is that each divorce is as unique as the marriage that precedes it. With a stark honesty that is never maudlin or exploitative, Brill offers readers a deeply personal glimpse into his own divorce journey.

   If the story were not compelling enough, Brill's deft and engaging writing is a pleasure to read in an age when a well-done literary memoir is a rare find.

   Highly recommended.

   Katie Allison Granju - Author of "Attachment Parenting" (Pocket Books/1999)

No comments about Butterfly Song -- A Woman's Journey Back Into Life.

4 comments about The Men in My Country: Sb (Sightline Books).

1. 
   I picked this up because I thought it was about teaching in Japan. Having taught abroad (China and Egypt), and having taught many Japanese students in the US, I thought it was a travel book about the teaching experience.
   
   It turned out to be something very different. It is common knowledge among expat teachers, that some US men teach abroad to meet women, who "unlike American women, know how to treat a guy". As I got beyond the introductory pages about sensing and "watching" Japan, I wondered if this book was about the reverse, liberated American women shattering a taboo and having sexual exploits in a foreign land.
   
   Further into the book, there is more insight. This is a highly sensitive person, looking for a place, affirmation, love, or maybe permanance in a world that hasn't offered it to her. Needs transcend her awareness of the wake she leaves behind. Despite her deep love (or is it need) for one man, she entertains two others. The man she loves wants her in some way, but is emotionally unavailable. Of the other two, one is married, and the other, as a worker in a noodle factory is not a serious suitor. I would expect that both have emotional scars from their relationship with the author. None of the three men speaks English well enough to have a normal, let alone nuanced, conversation with her.
   
   The book chronicles, after 7 years retrospect, her memories of the encounters, from her observation, along with a backdrop of the intrigue of a foreign adventure.
   
   I would recommend this to anyone going through a romantic breakup. Like a conversation with a fellow sufferer, it could offer a balm. The pain comes through the detail of obsession for the lost. The writing is very good, and I like the remembered conversations italicized and not quoted, since there is no way they can be exact. For those looking for a travel adventure, or insight into teaching English, this is not the book.
   
   The cover is great. The oragami figures in subtle colors clearly evoke Japan.



2. Abildskov perfectly portrays the heartbreak of loving more than one can be loved. In liquid prose, she both startles and cajols, rendering a painfully honest tale of heartbreak. I read this beautiful book in a single sitting.



3. This is a lovely work about a women's journey to find what love might mean- and no way is it trite. Ms. Abildskov is placed in a foreign country with new stimulations, finding for herself that love can show itself in a variety of forms and yet hasn't she maybe felt love before without recognizing its subtle ways? I hated to have this story end. I held myself back reading- trying to let each moment penetrate my feelings as they might have Ms. Abildskov. Her descriptions are as beautiful as they are heavy, letting me visualize and feel the weight of her emotions.
   A lyrical non-fiction memoir that left me feeling like I had been granted a gentle good-bye:
   "Are you sorry to go? I ask
   Kind of, one woman says
   In a way chimes the other. But it's time, you know what I mean? You can't stay forever. I mean this isn't real life." (page 115)
   Stay inside the real life Ms. Abildskov recreates and savor the moments. I for one was very sorry to go.



4. I could NOT put this book down. Ms. Abildskov has created a story of such difficult beauty and courage, such clear and striking insight, such sweetness and humor and fury, every page took my breath away. A journey, from the moment I opened the book to the wee hours of the morning. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

1 comments about Women in Higher Education: An Encyclopedia.

1. Compiled and edited by Ana M. Martinez Aleman (Assistant Professor of Education in the Higher Education Program at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College) and Kristen A. Renn (Assistant Professor in the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education Program at Michigan State University) , Women In Higher Education: An Encyclopedia is an impressive, 635-page social and historical survey women's colleges, female professors, demographic trends connected to race and gender in higher education, and much more. An exhaustively researched collection of essays by a wide variety of learned contributors, Women In Higher Education offers a solid baseline of information and facts from which to build a better future for women everywhere looking to pursue a degree. Organized into sections specifically addressing "Historical and Cultural Contexts"; "Gender Theory and the Academy"; "Feminism in the Academy"; "Women in Curriculum"; "Women and Higher Education Policy"; "Women Students"; "Women Faculty"; "Women Administrators"; and "Women Employees", Women In Higher Education is additionally enhanced with two appendices ("Women's Studies Research Resources" and "Colleges Identifying Themselves as Women's Colleges"); an extensive bibliography, and a comprehensive index. Women In Higher Education is an essential, seminal, indispensable contribution to both Education Studies and Women's Studies reference collections.

3 comments about My Path Leads to Tibet: The Inspiring Story of How One Young Blind Woman Brought Hope to the Blind Children of Tibet.

1. Sabriye Tenbergen is a young blind woman who has accomplished a great deal. Almost single-handedly, she developed a Braille script for Tibetan, then went to Tibet, where she traveled on horseback, looking for blind children to teach. Before then, blind children were hidden away or abandoned as cursed, with no future, but Sabriye was determined to give them one. So she founded a school where she taught blind children to read, as well as other life skills such as cane travel. She herself got around by cane by using landmarks in the city.

   This account is just one more example of how the best humanitarian work is often founded by determined individuals with a dream. Conversely, Sabriye was opposed at almost every turn by incompetent and apathetic bureaucrats in organizations both in her native Germany and in Tibet.

   She clearly loves the land and people, but is not "blind" to the reality either. The country is frightfully cold in winter as well as being prone to floods. And she noted many of the superstitions that harm the wellbeing of the people. But she noted the strengths as well, e.g. Tibetans designed houses to cope well with the cold, while the Chinese made concrete boxes that are hopeless. [Reminds me of the opposite in sub-tropical to tropical Queensland. The early settlers designed open-structured "Queenslanders" that caught the breezes very well, but later architects in New South Wales and Victoria designed houses that became convection ovens in Queensland]

   Sabriye has a way of writing that seems very visual, so sometimes it's easy to forget she's blind.




2. This book tells the story of a young woman with an impossible dream, and how she set about accomplishing it. Tenberken was born with vision problems that led to complete blindness by the time she was a teenager. Once while she was in middle school, she and her class visited a special museum exhibit about Tibet. From that point on, she was fascinated with Tibet, and when she started university, she decided to major in Asian languages with the goal of going to Tibet. Pursuing a major in Asian languages is quite difficult for any Westerner, but even more so for a blind Westerner, since Braille materials and computer software for language study in these languages are limited, if they exist at all. Indeed, Tenberken ended up creating her own Braille system for writing Tibetan script (which proved so useful in her studies that she was even able to use her class notes to tutor sighted students in her classes). Upon graduation from university, she set off for Tibet by herself to found a school for blind children and teach them how to read and write using her Tibetan Braille alphabet with the goal of allowing them to be integrated into regular schools once they became literate. The very thought of just picking up and moving to a country that happens to be occupied by a communist government and establishing an independent school for unschooled children, especially when you yourself do not have teaching experience, sounds positively ludicrous. Fortunately for the blind children of Tibet, Tenberken doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the phrase "you can't do that"- -perhaps a result of her upbringing, since her parents obviously supported her endeavors, or perhaps a simple character trait that drives her.

   In a few places in the book, Tenberken's style is a bit stilted, or she seems to gloss over details that beg to be explained. She carefully avoids any mention whatsoever of the political situation in Tibet, since any hint of criticism would no doubt result in the immediate closure of her school and the undoing of all of her efforts. In any case, she taught her students Tibetan language from the start, rather than only sticking to Chinese. The book is quite interesting for its story of how one determined person can have a tremendous impact on the lives of many, many others.




3. Sabriye Tenberken is a young woman from Germany who happens to be blind. She has written one of the most amazing and uplifting books I have read in years. MY PATH LEADS TO TIBET is an account, in her own words (translated from the original German), of how Sabriye fulfilled her dream of helping the blind children of Tibet achieve independence and attain a sense of dignity. She has done this by establishing a school for blind children in Lhasa against incredible odds -- all alone and before she reached her 30th birthday.

   There could be no better introduction than her own words: "Strange as it may seem, whenever I'm about to take a leap into the unknown, I always have the same dream. I'm standing at the top of a sand dune, looking down at the sea. The sky is clear and blue, the sea flat and dark. The sun is bright, the beach is filled with people. Then all of a sudden, on the horizon a huge towering wall of water is moving slowly toward us in total silence. Everyone is running in my direction. The wall of water, growing ever more menacing by the second, blots out most of the sky. Instead of running away, I walk toward it. And the wall of water crashes over me. To my surprise, however, instead of being crushed by its mass, I am in my dream left feeling tremendously light, filled with new energy. And I know that from now on nothing will be impossible." (pp.11-12)

   Sabriye was diagnosed with a serious eye disease in childhood and became completely blind at age 12. She uses a white cane when she walks and travels around the world without assistance. In a place where she has never been before, she relies on strangers to help her and trusts that they will. She is rarely disappointed. The faith she has in herself and in the best of human nature is extraordinary --- and extraordinarily rare to read about at a time when, more often than not, we are being bombarded with words of worldwide deceit and destruction.

   The book is written in a flowing, straightforward and easy-reading manner in first person, much like a journal. Yet Sabriye never forgets that we who are reading her book have never had the experience of being blind. She takes us into her world and shares with us her experiences in such a way that we gradually begin to realize what an extraordinary teacher she will be, when and if she is able to get her school started.

   On a previous trip to Nepal with her mother, Sabriye spent a brief time in Tibet and learned that blind people are viewed as having been cursed at birth and are treated very much like lepers, or worse. She developed a burning desire to teach Tibet's blind children that they can have full lives, that they do not need to be ashamed or handicapped and that they can live as Sabriye herself lives --- to the fullest.

   Tibet, now a part of the People's Republic of China, is famous for its exotic isolation. Yet she set off with only a few pieces of luggage, her white cane and a promise of a small amount of financial backing from sources in her native Germany. She had to apply for permission to the Chinese government and faced bureaucratic obstacles that must have seemed as insurmountable as the mountains themselves. She doesn't give up. She makes friends. She buys a horse that knows its way through the mountain passes.

   Not only does Sabriye have to get permission to build a school, she must also go out among the people --- some of who are nomadic tribes --- and find the blind children who will become her pupils. Because their parents are ashamed of them, these children are often hidden away. Thus she travels on horseback and tells us of her travels, the hardships, the joys and the people she meets along the way. Even though you know she will achieve what she has set out to do, the fact that she was able to do it is so remarkable that you will read with your heart in your throat much of the time.

   The publisher has included a selection of color photographs that, for us sighted folks, add much to the book.

   Reading MY PATH LEADS TO TIBET is an unforgettable experience. Sabriye Tenberken has done us all a kindness by taking us with her on her incredible mission.

   --- Reviewed by Ava Dianne Day

No comments about Tales Out of School.

No comments about Dude Be Buggin Mr. D: A vocational teachers journey.