Boys Books

I love all of these Mercer Mayer books! No words-not necessary with all the expressions he uses.

I loved these books growing up. Each time I opened the book I could make new stories and discover new details I hadn't seen the time before. This book, as well as other wordless children's books, have been great tools in assisting our autistic son to use correct usage of speech. It enables him to learn discriptive words and sequence of events while he tells us the story from his perspective. In addition the illustrator uses excellent skill in portraying emotion in the animals and child. This also helps my child learn about cause and effect that create certain emotions. I think this illustrated book is the benchmark for other picture books to follow.

This is a wordless picture book that involves an adventure of a frog and a boy. Mercer Mayer has several wordless picture books in this series and my favorite is Frog Goes to Dinner. I particularily like these for use in a writing station. I am a second grade teacher and I have relunctant writers and using wordless picture books allows me to get them to write. Students can start out short and then expand on their stories by adding adjectives and adverbs. It also helps me to assess vocabulary of my students. I use these books to have students "read" to me so they can understand and practice fluency. Delightful books!

The story of Frog's adventures and mis-adventures in the park are told with subtle and humorous illustrations. Toddlers, pre-schoolers and even beginning readers will smile and laugh at the encounters between Frog and other park visitors.

This book will always be in demand. I feel the publisher should not take advantage of that fact by issuing the book only in hardbound.

My 2 year old loves this book because she can "read" it. You can surmize the story based on the illustrations. The book does not have any words, but that's the beauty of it. My daughter can look at the pictures and tell the story on her own. It makes her feel like she's really reading.

Great for my work with children that have language deficits or delays.

I buy the book for linguistic purposes, but as a reader I enjoyed it very much, it is not colored as Mercer Mayer's new series on Little Critters however it warms your heart and make you smile. An excellent example of story telling without any words.

Each and every story captivates you with it's little quirks that you may or may not be able to relate to. And even if you can't, you can almost feel it happen to yourself as you read through it.

An honest piece of work put together by many of today's great writers. Definitely a recommended read.

This is a terrific book. Each story is different, but there is unity in how the men experienced childhood from a distinctively gay perspective.

The authors included in here will astound. Very well conceived and produced. Each story is just short enough to keep you reading until you've realized the book is over. Joe Jervis is extremly talented and just happens to be my friend for over 20yrs. I'm proud to know him. I hope he is grateful to his muse Terrence.

Thomas, David, Sean, Marc, Dexter, Johnny, Alex, Brian. I can remember their names and recite them like a roll call of saints and demons; the boys who, largely unbeknownst to them, drew me out of myself and let me to myself all at once in those years between the kindergarten-era dawning of my nascent queerdom to the high-noon of becoming a full fledged 'mo. Some teased, some taunted, and some were tender. But we never, ever touched.

I thought I'd nearly forgotten them, but they're still with me. This book, with its highly readable essays, brought them back to me. But more than that, with every essay it brought back to me parts of the the boy that I was, introduced him to the man became, and let us finally finally embrace each other. Back then he wanted to know that everything would be turn out alright, like the boys in this book. Now I can assure him that it did.

The the rare book that can take you back to a time that wasn't necessarily a happy one when you lived through it, and not only make you want to go there but also make you want to linger. This is one of those rare books.

this is a great book. mansbach used to to publish a journal called elementary, and so i thought i'd check out genius b-boy cynics. i started reading it on the train and couldn't put it down until i finished the enire thing.

There's some terrific stuff in here. Playfulness, inventiveness, nonstop supercharged language. Mansbach is as talented with words as any writer. The book will give your intelligence a workout. And it's FUNNY-- without ever undermining its serious intentions. Very impressive. Shackling Water was no accident.

And I should add: for poetry with such an aggressive intelligence, there's a lot of heart in it, some moments of sublime tenderness-- "Black Marbles," "Sin Titulo." Really quite amazing.

Even if you don't usually like poetry, you'll like this. Mansbach's poems are like nothing else out there: funny, sharp and hard-hitting. He flows from topic to topic with ease, and his rhythm and wordplay are off the hook. This has none of the pretensions usually associated with poetry; it's like reading the lyrics of some incredibly well-read, clever and reflective rapper. Highly recommended.

Adam Mansbach's debut poetry collection, genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights, gives us a glimpse at what overused terms like "hip hop poetry" should, but seldom do, refer to.

Hip hop is only occasionally the subject matter of Mansbach's poetry -- alongside topics like race, family, consumerism, academia, love, jazz, popular culture and religion -- but a hip hop sensibility infuses his work. He collages words and ideas like the best DJs, samples voices, rhythms and ideas with a skill and wit worthy of the RZA or DJ Premier, twists and invigorates and layers language with up-to-the-minute wit.

And yet, Mansbach is more in the tradition of T.S. Eliot than he is in keeping with the contemporary poetry scene. His best pieces, like Eliot's, are long, winding narratives which shift from topic to topic, their structures revealing themselves cagily. Poems like "It's Your World Tour," "Black Marbles," and "Sticknmove" are searingly insightful, strikingly personal, and often hilarious attempts to grapple with the complexities of life. As with Eliot, the uninitiated may have to grab a reference book to properly understand all of Mansbach's allusions, but in this case the privileged insiders are more likely to be genius b-boy cynics than scholars.

Mansbach's scope of reference is so wide, though -- as Michael Eric Dyson, author of Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, has written, he is "equally comfortable with high cultural classicism and vernacular vibrations" -- that his work is challenging to almost any reader. In a single piece, it is not unusual for Mansbach to cite cultural markers as diverse as Phil Ochs, Eryka Badu, Wallace Stevens, George Wallace, Grand Wizard Theodore, Phase 2, Tennessee Williams, and Shaharazad Ali, to name just a few of those who crop up in the first few pages of the expansive "It's Your World Tour."

In shorter pieces, Mansbach is often more pointed. In "Frontlines," he discusses the gradual process by which academics lose touch with reality: "late at night you gaze/at the titles on your university housing pinewood bookshelf/and beg james baldwin's forgiveness/because the fire this time stopped burning after two degrees/leavin you strong enough for a man/but ph.d balanced against outrage/like the scales of justice." In "Gotta Be," the tongue-in-cheek subject is his own obsession with Nikes, and in "Veen" he envisions a world in which "God plays time" like drummer Elvin Jones. "Knight in Shining Karma" explores fear and vulnerability in love relationships, drawing on kung fu movies and cold war terminology to do so, while "A Visit With My Brother David" is a poignant, straightforward narrative about a trip to prison.

The only thing longer than the title of genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights is the talent of its author. Adam Mansbach's poetry is dense with music, with insight, and with honesty. His is that rarest of poetry collections: one destined to become dogeared.

The Best. Start here before moving on to lesser--but worthy--talents like Pynchon and Denis Johnson. Line-for-line, the best, most confounding American novel ever written.

Barry Hannah is the most successful graduate of the English Department at Mississippi College, however, you will be hard-pressed to find his name mentioned there today. The main reason is this book. This book is largely an autobiography of Hannah, and who knows how much of it is true? The college in the book is Mississippi College, and Hannah's criticisms are honest and embellishing, as are the other observations that he makes in this journey of a book. Geronimo Rex is strangely compelling, and Hannah pulled me right into his head as he tells this story of growing up in the world. Good book, and a must read for anyone from Mississippi College.

This is Barry Hannah's coming of age novel and it is quite fine. The prose is more straigtforward, more traditional than most of his other stuff. It was his first novel and should not be missed by anyone who loves his work.

I am not a student of fiction (though I am an avid reader), but I have rarely enjoyed a book so much as Hannah's Geronimo Rex. His ability for phrasing is unbelieveable (limp, like a wet shoelace draped over a fence) and his ability to mesmerize you with his characters' thoughts made this book one of the best I've ever picked up.

The story of Emmett Till is one that everyone needs to hear. It is a little-known story of a black boy from Chicago that is murdered in Mississippi on 1955 for whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi. He was fourteen years old and unfamiliar with the Jim Crow Laws of the South. Chris Crowe is able to put together an eye-opening book about Emmett and the facts of his murder, the trial, and the events of the Civil Rights Movement that soon follow. This book may take readers out of their safe comfort zone of the current times, but tells a true story of a young boy that died at the hands of adults because of the color of his skin.

This book received the IRA's children Book Award and was a Jane Addams Honor Book.

In the classroom this book could be used to teach research, how to find reliable sources, and how pull research together, as well as to introduce the Civil Rights movement into a unit of study.

Chris Crowe is an English professor of young adult literature at Brigham Young University. He became interested in Emmett Till when writing a book about Mildred D. Taylor. She had written about Emmett in one of her essays. He followed up on Emmett and was able to tell his story.

I am not really big on non-fiction. Most of it feels like reading a text book. However, I decided to read Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case by Chris Crowe because of a book talk my Young Adult Literature Teacher gave on it and because one of my requirements for this class was to read a non fiction young adult book. I was pleasantly surprised. It gives a window into the Southern Culture and Racism of the 1950's without feeling like a textbook. If there is any question if racism actually existed, it is proved in this book.
I thought it is very well written for young adults because of things it contains that make the story real and personal. First, the author uses interviews and court records to tell what happened, so the reader can enjoy a lot of first hand accounts of the events that took place. The book is also filled with many pictures of Emmett, his mother, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant (the men who killed Emmett), and pictures of places where different events happened. These pictures of actual people and places help the reader realize that these were actual events, not just stories. The author also shows how the event of the murder of Emmett Till related to the civil rights movement. This adds more significance to the events, and also imparts more knowledge to the reader who may not know a lot about this time period. I think it is a great read for teens of all ages, and adults too. Anyone who would like to learn more about what segregation and racism was about, or are just interested in the civil rights era, will enjoy this book. I definitely plan on sharing this book with my children!

This book is a very good buy and very interesting read. This book follows a young boy named Emmett Till. This book is based on real facts and was considered the cause of the beggnining of the civil rights movement. This read will not only give you real facts and info, but will bring a tear to your eye and really think about what life was like during this time period.

I do recommend this book because there is still racism in the United States of America today and many people need to stop because nobody wants to be insulted because of there race. The books plot was how people were treated back in the 1940's and 50's and gave me many reasons why not to be a racist. I would not like to read another book by Chris Crowe again because this book was extremely sad. This book is perfect for people that are trying to improve themselves and are trying to put themselves in someone else's shoes way back when.

Having just finished reading this I can honestly say I don't know if I've ever laughed this much reading a book. When Nancy and Frank are in the cave with her belted pads on their heads, I roared with laughter, and this was moments after I'd gotten in a conflict with someone at my job and I had a migraine at the time. Just the image of Cherry about to get electroshock treatment while still wearing her nursing cap- I'm chuckling just thinking of the image! And what must've happened to the party after they had the "vitamins" in the punch!! Take it from another Friend of the Insane, this book is a classic! Golly, I couldn't put it down and was wont to display ungentlemanly fits of unrestrained laughter!

This hoot of a book works wonders--it's been known to cure migraines, lift depressions, and spur readers on to culinary triumphs like Salisbury Steak. The formula: 1 part Nancy Drew, 1 part Women's Barracks, and a sly dash of ever-so-gay humor. Maney's spot-on recreation of the original series' diction is half the fun. In-jokes abound: butch-femme couple Midge and Velma are my favorites, although Uncle Nelly Hardly is a close second. Maney is a genius, and these books are destined to hold pride of place in every gay and lesbian book collection.

Even though you have to endure Bret Easton Ellis reminiscent descriptions of clothing and scenery, this book is a pure delight for anyone who has ever read Nancy Drew mysteries or just loves a great parody with charming lesbian references. Mabel Maney gives us something we can laugh our heads off about and you'll find it relaxing to see that almost every woman in this world is a lesbian. Lots of fun, definitely check into it!

Handsome, young detectives Frank and Joe Hardly travel home to Lake Merrimen, Illinois to find that their parents, world-reknowned detective Fennel Hardly and his loving wife, Mrs. Hardly, have been kidnapped and rumors are spreading about Mr. Hardly's being a Russian spy.

Meanwhile, Nancy Clue, girl detective and snappy dresser, ventures with her friends to the Lake Merrimen Auditorium to view the annual dog show. But something's amiss as she and her friends follow a scream only to discover that all the toy poodles have been dognapped!

Could the two incidents have anything in common? What is the terrible secret that Fennel Hardly keeps locked in his closet? Will Nancy ever win back her true love -- Cherry Aimless, Registered Nurse -- from the handsome, streetwise San Francisco girl detective Jackie Johnson?

Join Nancy and her friends as they dive into this hilarious, gay/lesbian spoof of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries. Mabel Maney has constructed a fabulous world full of sharp characters -- each with a very keen fashion sense -- and thrown in many a surprising twist that kept me enthralled with the events of the mystery. Her style is very descriptive and conjures up the 1950s mindset. I could not help but smile as I was reading. A great read for everyone!

I bought this book because my son attended the Martin's Creativity Camp this past summer...and I found out the Camp leader also wrote a few novels.

I've heard that Shade of the Maple is his best, but I wanted to read GIFTED first. So I gave it a shot. I admit I'm biased because of how much Mr. Martin helped my son, but this is a great story! It moves quickly, the characters are interesting and the plot has plenty of twists and turns. I like how it all wraps up together at the end. I laughed a little and cried a little. All in all, it makes for an enjoyable weekend of reading.

I picked this book up because the author wrote a book for parents called "Celebrate! ADHD" that has helped my son enormously. And I thought it rather intriguing that Mr. Martin had written both a novel and a non-fiction book as well. I hadn't read any of his other novels before.

Well, what a pleasant surprise! The first thing I noticed was that I really, really liked the characters he has created. I can hear them and see them so clearly, and they are intriguing to me. Each of them has his struggles, but also an inner yearning to aspire to the better angels of his nature.

And the story moves along quickly with enough twists and turns to keep you turning the pages. A really great book. I look forward to reading his other novels now!

I can't get my 17-year-old son to read anything. Okay, except maybe car magazines. But when I told him it was about a teenage boy with ADHD, it piqued his interest.

He picked it up and didn't put it down all weekend. I was so intrigued by the book that I started reading it Sunday evening. A day after quickly turning the pages, I finished GIFTED.

What a great story! It is so rare to see kids with ADHD portrayed with sensitivity and in a positive manner--kudos to Kirk Martin for his great insight and a truly compelling novel.

Also highly recommend "Celebrate! ADHD" for parents of kids with ADHD or any learning differences. Truly refreshing.

I read this over a year ago, when Martin first released it, and I think it's great that he has offered it on Amazon in conjunction with his ADHD nonfiction book. Gifted is his most well written novel, with developed characters who seem like real people and a fast paced story.

I liked the relationship between Abraham and Devan (the differences and similarities between young and old people never cease to intrigue me). I liked the development of the characters, the way he made their lives exist beyond words on a page... I could feel (and have always had a soft spot for) the troubled teens, and I appreciated how he said that they had something to say... those people were my friends in high school, and I related in many ways.


The over-the-top cruelty of the teacher and principal (who in this case was certainly not your 'pal') put me in mind of a tv movie. Martin has said something about writing a screenplay to this book, and I want to hold him to it... maybe cast Peter Coyote as the misdirected dad, Sela Ward as the clueless mom, someone like Bob Gunton or Jeffrey Jones as principal, Helen Mirron as teacher... Morgan Freeman or William Cobbs as Abraham... Mandy Moore and that kid who played Eli on Once and Again - because they had such good chemistry in Walk To Remember - could be Grace and Devan.

I must admit... even though I knew what was coming between some of the characters at the end (and you'll have to read it to find out!) I felt the lump in my throat anyway. The prose here is hynotic. The Q & A with Kirk at the end shines a little light on the genesis of this story.

Congratulations on this novel, Kirk, and let us hope for many more!

I've often wondered why someone as talented as Cooper never explored another genre. I was curious how his stripped-down writing style would feel in a world not brimming with violence, murder and sex. "God Jr." answers all of those questions.

"God Jr." is about soul-crushing grief and loss, and about how a father builds a tangible monument to his son to compensate for feelings he probably never had. The son died in a car accident while driving with his under-the-influence father. His parents find drawings of an odd structure and in homage to their dead son begin to build it -- at great expense -- in their backyard. Turns out the son didn't even draw it and that it is, in fact, just something he picked up from a videogame. Later in the story the father "enters" this videogame to try to discover who his son was. The son kept the main videogame character in a spot so long that the animals of the game became self-aware and began asking questions. They want to know who they are and why they're here. Because the son brought about this enlightenment, they assume he's God.

The most amazing thing about this book, for me, is Cooper's prose. He's reduced his writing to the absolute bare minimum. There is not a single wasted word here. He has sharpened and sharpened his meticulous prose with a razor and the result is simple yet stunning.

This book -- really a novella -- is a good companion piece to Kathryn Harrison's "Envy." It's interesting to see how two very different but equally capable writers handle similar subject matter so contrastingly.

"Dennis Cooper's modem=cardiac starts the murder game in the frozen eye of a drug fetus. His writing plays the nucleus brain of cold-blooded disease animals." - Kenji Siratori, author of Blood Electric

I'm a dennis cooper fan. I've always respected his choice to use "out there" subject matter. But that's not why i like his books. The draw for me is the writing itself. What is made of the subject. Period is my favorite still. But this one now takes second place. The fantastical dialogue reminds me a bit of Kurt Vonnegut. With this book (devoid of any trace of gore, pedophelia, homosexuality, mayhem, heroin, etc) all of the fainter-hearted readers out there will have a chance to enjoy the genius of Dennis Cooper.

Reexamining violence, trauma, and death from an untried perspective, God Jr. may be Dennis Cooper's strongest novel yet.

"I wanted Tommy's death to last forever. That's all." (44) So says Jim, narrating God Jr. This is the issue at the center of the text, a grieving father's search for meaning and healing in the wake of his son's accidental death. This is still a Dennis Cooper novel, however, and so a subject too frequently rendered in the pastels and sepias of greeting card sentimentality is incisively and honestly explored. The result is not a comforting, feel good story but rather a harrowing look into mourning, generational difference, and emotional trauma.

Cooper's prose has always been carefully disciplined, which cast a particular detached - almost clinical - view on what would otherwise have been gratuitous scenes of sex and violence. At the core of his project is a strong emotional resonance which is the counterpoint to the physical realities in his texts.

In God Jr. Cooper continues to discover death (as he did in My Loose Thread, the novel which followed the conclusion of the George Miles Cycle), yet the focus is not physical but mental, emotional. Death renders Cooper's characters "abstract." The dead are removed from the living immediately, but reserved at an unresolvable distance; the living know the dead in a form greater than in memory yet less than in physicality. They can communicate, but "apparently, dead people can't enunciate." (131) So says the "psychic" brought in by Tommy's mother, Bette, to help her know her son in her loss. Jim seizes upon a different course.

"The Childish Scrawl," the third section of God Jr. and the most emotionally powerful, is an allegorical and too-stoned walk through of Tommy's favorite video game. As Jim takes on the role of the Bear, the game's hero, his interaction with the other characters reveals his raw emotional state at believing himself to be his son's killer. Here the parallels and ideas explode: between father and son, Father and Son, Father and children, hero and supporting cast, and citizen and excommunicated individual. What we are immediately aware of, and what remains with us long after the end of the novel, is that a significant change in perspective is required to come to terms with the ideas Cooper has set forth.

God Jr. is thoroughly the work of Dennis Cooper. But it is not a Cooper that we recognize from the George Miles Cycle. Our author has matured in myriad ways. With this new direction comes a need to move beyond the traditional examinations of his work and begin exploring the emotional and spiritual questions and ideas with which Cooper is grappling.

This is a concisely written and thoughtful book that expertly conveys the story of a boy and his youthful journey as part of a dysfunctional family. The book is written with such an honesty that the reader is transported into the story and time and fully able to feel the range of emotions that the main character Cay feels -- from fear and depression, to anger and even the unexpected humor at the absurdity of it all. I strongly recommend this book.

I just finished this book and thoroughly enjoyed it! It is a rare book that I pick up and actually get past the first few pages. This story captured me and had me enthralled to the last page.

I enjoyed the title's reference to Tolkien's character Bilbo Baggins. Remember Bilbo told the tale of his adventures in his story, "There and Back Again". Now I am anxious to reread "The Hobbit". (If only I had a copy as I vacation in Trinidad!)

I am elated Mr. Fuqua penned this story and hope for more to come on Caley's journey through life. I would be sad indeed if this is the end of the line. Cay, although he didn't realize it, is a tough kid. I'd like to see how he grows up.

In this story, the life, troubles and fears of Caley can touch everyone. This is one of those literary gems which cross generational and ideological divides by dealing with a character with which we can all relate on many levels.

Eleven-year-old Caley has every reason to keep to himself. After his parents' divorce, he and his two siblings keep moving every couple of months. His father is an unpredictable, emotionally abusive alcoholic. His mother is paralyzed by depression to the point of negligence. He doesn't get along with either of his stepparents. And when he finally makes a friend, it's one whose problems are even worse than his own.

But things are even worse inside his own head, where severe depression has taken hold. Every time his family moves, Caley's mental state deteriorates.

While this book is intense and so heavy in some places that it's hard to read, that only goes to show how effective Jonathon Scott Fuqua is at capturing Caley's depression. He also works a bit of black humor in to keep the story from getting too melodramatic, and he never overstates things.

Also, the language is at times beautiful. Lines such as, "The gray clouds appeared stuck like gray cement on a board," provide some lovely description devoid of cliché, as do observations such as Caley's about his mother: "She'd changed after the divorce. It was like her goodness and affectionateness seemed to be hibernating or were gone."

I would recommend GONE AND BACK AGAIN to mature teenagers who don't mind a book with heavy subject matter.

Reviewed by: Katie Hayes

Growing up is hard enough: Add divorce, an alcoholic father, a mother seemingly paralyzed as a parent by her depression and two verbally abusive step-parents and then you have story that can be truly bleak at times. Jonathon Scott Fuqua's Gone and Back Again is a painful and honest story written from the perspective of Caley, the middle child. A few times I had to stop reading to wipe the tears off my face because of the sheer sadness I felt, not only for Caley but for his entire family. But moments later, I was reading again! This was one of those books that I could not put down until I had reached the end. I highly recommend it.

Jennifer Thie, author of And Then Came Arthur