Library Journal Review, review in November 15th issue: “Highly
recommended for both public and academic libraries, this novel would make
a thought-provoking book club choice.”
With Speed
and Violence, Fred Pearce, March 2007, $24.95, 0-8070-8576-6
(10), 978-0-8070-8576-9 (13)
Booklist, starred review in December 1st issue: “No subject
is more urgent or more in need of clear scientific explication than global
warming, and [this] book provides invaluable information and insights.”
Shout, Sister,
Shout!, Gayle F. Wald, cloth, February 2007, $25.95, 0-8070-0984-9 (10),
978-0-8070-0984-0 (13)
Library Journal, review in the November 15th issue: “Wald digs
deeply into sensitive personal, cultural, and artistic issues to capture the
essence of both the individual and the performer while deftly examining a
variety of elements that impacted Tharpe's life and work-from the challenges
of being an African American woman to the strictures of the religious environment
that gave rise to her gospel sound. This candid and thorough biography will
certainly appeal to those familiar with this accomplished performer and will
inspire others to seek out her recordings.”
Publishers Weekly, review in the November 13th issue: “With
the publication of this entertaining and enlightening biography, Tharpe—who
reputedly played her electric guitar "like a man," withstood failed
marriages, racial and sexual discrimination plus economic hardships—should
receive the recognition she deserves.”
Without a
Map, Meredith Hall, cloth, April 2007, $24.95, 978-0-8070-7273-8
“This is an unusually elegant memoir that feels as though its been
carved straight out of Meredith Hall’s capacious heart. The story is
riveting, the words perfect. It is rare to read a work that manages to be
at once artful and compelling, which for me best describes Meredith Hall’s
debut work. She is an author who deserves to be widely read. Few people write
like this. Fewer still have the courage to live like this—without the
comfort of any cliché.” —Lauren Slater, author of Opening
Skinner’s Box, Prozac Diary, and Welcome to My Country
"Without a Map tells an important and perceptive story about
loss, about aloneness and isolation in a time of great need, about a life
slowly coming back into focus and the calm that finally emerges. Meredith
Hall is a brave new writer who earns our attention." —Annie Dillard,
author of For the Time Being
Not in Our
Classrooms, Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch, paperback original,
October 2006, $14.00, 0-8070-3278-6
Teacher Magazine, review in the December 1st issue: “…we
are in the midst of a struggle to preserve sound science education…It
is crucial to resist such pressure, whether it comes from parents, community
groups, administrators, or school board members. Reading this book is a good
start.”
Widening
the Circle, Mara Sapon-Shevin, paperback original, March 2007, $14.00,
0-8070-3280-8 (10), 978-0-8070-3280-0 (13)
“Widening the Circle is an ambitious, impassioned argument for
inclusive schools powered by a vision that goes far beyond the mutilated version
of 'mainstreaming’ common in American schools today. To Sapon-Shevin
the current state of affairs is a caricature of inclusive education, reductive
and impoverished, a place where every student is defined by a putative deficit,
imprisoned in a label. Her goal—breathtaking in its sweep—is to
break through the walls of the prison, and to set us all free. She shows us
that huge questions of democracy and freedom can be discovered in a simple
game of musical chairs, that our deepest values are enacted in our everyday
classroom practice. A dazzling manifesto and call to arms.” —William
Ayers, author of Teaching toward Freedom and To Teach
“Widening the Circle is packed with sharply observed challenges
to conventional ways of thinking. It digs beneath classroom strategies to
find larger truths about difference, exposing the moral implications of segregation
in the process. One by one, Sapon-Shevin skewers the philosophical and practical
objections to inclusion. Her book should be read by all educators, not just
those in the field of special education.” —Alfie Kohn, author of
The Schools Our Children Deserve and What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?
“I love the spirit that infuses the book and the constant reference
to the connection between school values and larger democratic values, as well
as its attention to the nitty-gritty of classroom life. A book both practical
and thoughtful.” —Deborah Meier, author of The Power of Their
Ideas
"With a profound vision and a gift for storytelling, Sapon-Shevin leads
educators to think of social justice in terms of classrooms that are truly
inclusive, and in the process, challenges and broadens the very ways that
we think about inclusion: of whom, in what ways, for what purposes. Essential
reading for all educators." —Kevin K. Kumashiro, Director, Center
for Anti-Oppressive Education
Beacon Press is a department of the