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Beyond The Dance: A Ballerina's Life |
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| Author: |
Chan Hon Goh |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0887765963 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up-This highly readable autobiography introduces a prima ballerina with the National Ballet of Canada. Goh was born in Beijing but raised in Vancouver by her dancer parents. She discusses the events in her homeland that led her family to emigrate, their adjustment to life in Vancouver, and her parents' struggles to build the Goh Ballet Company. She had amazing successes at international ballet competitions, earned a place with the American Ballet Theatre, but instead decided to accept a position with the National Ballet of Canada, where she quickly rose in the ranks. The tone of the book is overwhelmingly positive, but Goh does discuss some disappointments and hardships. The impression is that she has led somewhat of a charmed life, though it couldn't really have been as easy as it seems. The book is... |
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The Fortress of Kaspar Snit |
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| Author: |
Cary Fagan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
088776665X |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6–Eleven-year-old Eleanor Blande wants to fly just like her mother, but her parents have decided that they want their children to grow up as normal kids. Eleanor's father is a world expert on fountains, and when the famous ones in Rome begin to disappear and the Blandes' front-yard fountain gets hauled away by black helicopters, the family members decide to take matters into their own hands. Eleanor has surreptitiously discovered the amulet her mother uses to fly and now it's OK for the family to use it to travel to the fortress of the evil Kaspar Snit. It's fine for fantasy to have improbable plot elements as long as there is an inner consistency for the way the rules work. This book lacks that consistency, and Fagan hasn't created, among other things, a credible explanation for how Snit was... |
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Market Wedding |
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| Author: |
Cary Fagan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0887764924 |
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From School Library Journal
Gr 2-5-Minnie, who sells hats from a cart, and Morris, who owns a fish stall across the street, fall in love. He convinces her that they should spend all of their savings on a fancy wedding, hoping this will encourage their guests to buy them the finest of gifts. Their friends, however, afraid that their clothes and gifts might not be fine enough, decide not to attend the event. All ends well when, returning from the nearly empty reception hall, bride and groom invite their intended guests to join them in their empty flat, and the friends provide an impromptu party and hand-me-down furnishings. "Nothing was new or fancy or fit for a movie star, but all of it was precious to them." Fagan's tale, set in Toronto's Kensington Market, is based on a turn-of-the-century story for adults by noted Jewish author... |
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Animals Waltz |
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| Author: |
Cary Fagan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0312310730 |
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From Publishers Weekly
In this remarkably assured first novel, which won the 1994 Jewish Book Award for fiction, Toronto Globe and Mail poetry critic Fagan (author of two story collections) proves himself a wonderful writer with a rare comic gift. At age 31, college dropout Sheila Hersh leads a schizoid existence. By day, as advertising copywriter in her father's Toronto store, Hersh's House of Mattresses, she is the dutiful Jewish daughter. At night, she frequents a trendy club-hopping scene; she has even acted nude in an avant-garde film, though she now wants to halt its premiere. Sheila has other worries as well: the store is losing money, her father has irrational, violent outbursts and his new lady friend may be a gold digger. Then Sheila becomes obsessed with one of her deceased mother's possessions-a book of poems by one... |
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Daughter of the Great Zandini |
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| Author: |
Cary Fagan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0887765343 |
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Gogol's Coat |
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| Author: |
Cary Fagan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0887764290 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 1-5-According to the author's note, Nikolai Gogol's classic short story, "The Overcoat," is the inspiration for this revisionist retelling in picture-book format. Instead of being the nondescript middle-aged civil servant of Gogol's tale, Fagan's main character is a jovial boy who is well liked by his coworkers. This transformation dramatically alters the power of Gogol's plot and theme. Instead of the protagonist dying and haunting the people who stole his overcoat and persecuted him in life, Fagan's version has the main character regaining his garment with the help of his dog and his friends. So what readers get with this picture book is not a taste of Gogol's powerful tale of the human condition, but a maudlin little story about a boy, a dog, and a fancy coat. Ricci's full-page oil paintings are... |
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Sleeping Weather |
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| Author: |
Cary Fagan |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0889841888 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
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