Kirjahaku

Scheherazade, the storyteller of 1001 Arabian Nights, recounts stories literally to save her people, and in Scheherazade’s Daughters, Barbara Bennett explores how contemporary female authors attempt to save their own world by telling compelling stories that disseminate ideas of justice and equality for all living things, a philosophy called ecofeminism. Bennett examines how ecofeminism works in works by Margaret Atwood (Surfacing, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Oryx & Crake), Barbara Kingsolver (Animal Dreams, The Poisonwood Bible, and Prodigal Summer), and Ruth Ozeki (My Year of Meats and All over Creation). Bennett also analyzes ecofeminism in autobiography and memoir in Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge, Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, and Sandra Steingraber’s Living Downstream. Lastly through Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits, Ana Castillo’s So Far from God, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Bennett investigates how magical realism can spread the positive ideas of ecofeminism. This groundbreaking book dissects the power of literature to convert minds and hearts in a direction that has the potential, like Scheherazade’s stories, to change our world for the better.

Understanding Jill McCorkle introduces readers to the novels and short story collections of Jill McCorkle's growing canon. Since 1984 McCorkle has written five novels and two books of short stories, entering the publishing world, as one reviewer noted, ""with the literary equivalent of a rebel yell"". Filling the gap of critical study on McCorkle, Barbara Bennett analyzes the widely read and admired output of this prolific southern woman writer. Bennett identifies and discusses the diverse characters, thematic concerns and keen sense of language that distinguish McCorkle's work. Bennett offers a brief overview of McCorkle's life, traces the influence on her work, and places her decisively in the ""third generation"" of 20th-century southern writers. While noting McCorkle's links to such prominent southern women writers as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor, Bennett explains how McCorkle's characterizations, attitude of affirmation and references to popular culture distance her from her predecessors. Bennett devotes individual chapters to each of McCorkle's novels and story collections. She discusses the themes that unify these diverse works, including the tension between independence and dependence, the imbuing presence of strength in femininity, the direct conflict between the nurturing of others and the preservation of self, and the opposition of purity and virginity to sexual freedom and expression. Bennett explores McCorkle's development of characters ranging from a young white girl approaching womanhood to a troubled middle-aged man reviewing his life's choices, from an elderly black woman on the verge of retirement to a yound minister struggling with his career path. She finds that in such rich and varied voices, McCorkle crafts stories of a region no longer burdened by the past but now grappling with ordinary family problems.

A case study and dramatic retelling of young girls on trial for arson at a reform schoolIn 1931 sixteen poor, white girls—all teenaged inmates at Samarcand Manor, officially named the State Home and Industrial School for Girls, in Samarcand, North Carolina—were accused of burning down two campus buildings in protest against living conditions. Barbara Bennett not only offers a dramatic retelling of this historic case in Smoke Signals from Samarcand, but also reveals a case study of the misguided social-engineering schemes—fraught with racism, classism, and sexual stereotypes—that churned through North Carolina and other Southern states during this time.The girls, who became known as the “Samarcand Sixteen,” were described by administrators and the media as incorrigible and troublesome. Bennett reveals their grim backgrounds and details the harsh disciplinary methods, including savage whippings, that were dispensed at Samarcand and other reform schools in the early twentieth century. Arson was a capital offense in North Carolina at the time, and the girls were put on trial for their lives.The sensational trial took place in the midst of a strong eugenics movement that was sweeping the state and the South. The girls’ newly minted lawyer, Nell Battle Lewis, argued that the treatment the girls endured at Samarcand had forced them to take drastic action and therefore should result in lenient sentences. Instead the state of North Carolina used bogus “scientific” theories—such as “bad blood genetics”—to create legal policy and criminal justice practices that were heavily prejudiced against powerless people, particularly girls and women.In the end the girls received sentences of eighteen months to five years in the state penitentiary, although the trial and its publicity did lead to improvements in the physical conditions and disciplinary methods at Samarcand and other juvenile facilities in North Carolina.

Lion is very proud of his magnificent crown. But when Lioness tells him that the world is full of more precious things, the animals embark on a quest to find a gift even more special than Lion's crown. A gorgeous paperback edition of a classic picture book, which celebrates the joy of family life. Filled with beautiful and colourful illustrations from award-winning illustrator Amanda Hall (Babushka, Aesop's Fables), toddlers will love this fabulous animal story.

Lion is very proud of his magnificent crown. But when Lioness tells him that the world is full of more precious things, he declares that whoever should find such a precious gift will receive his crown as a prize. News spreads from the shivering south to the freezing north as Eagle, Polar Bear and Tiger take up the challenge. However, back home, Lioness has a gift that surpasses them all...