"Did you know that a colossal squid's eyeball is bigger than a basketball, or that your sneeze shoots out faster than a hurricane? 'How big is big? How far is far? All around me' moves through the world to find creative ways of explaining size, distance, weight, and speed to help introduce measurements to young children."--Back cover.
In April 1861, Dick and Tally Simpson, sons of South Carolina Congressman Richard F. Simpson, enlisted in Company A of the Third South Carolina Volunteers of the Confederate army. Their letters home--published here for the first time--read like a historical novel, complete with plot, romance, character, suspense, and tragedy. In their last year of college when the war broke out, Dick and Tally were hastily handed their diplomas so they could volunteer for military duty. Dick was twenty; Tally was twenty-two. Well educated, intelligent, and thoughtful young men, Dick and Tally cared deeply for their country, their family, and their comrades-in-arms and wrote frequently to their loved ones in Pendleton, South Carolina, offering firsthand accounts of dramatic events from the battle of First Manassas in July 1861 to the battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. Their letters provide a picture of war as it was actually experienced at the time, not as it was remembered some twenty or thirty years later. It is a picture that neither glorifies war nor condemns it, but simply "tells it like it is." Written to a number of different people, the boys' letters home dealt with a number of different subjects. Letters to "Pa" went into great detail about military matters in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia--troop movements, casualties, and how well particular units had fought; letters to "Ma" and sisters Anna and Mary were about camp life and family friends in the army and usually included requests for much-needed food and clothing; letters to Aunt Caroline and her daughter Carrie usually concerned affairs of the heart, for Aunt Caroline continued to be Dick and Tally's trusted confidante, even when they were "far, far from home." The value of these letters lies not so much in the detailed information they provide as in the overall picture they convey--a picture of how one Southern family, for better or for worse, at home and at the front--coped with the experience of war. These are not wartime reminiscences, but wartime letters, written from the camp, the battlefield, the hospital bed, the picket line--wherever the boys happened to be when they found time to write home. It is a poignant picture of war as it was actually experienced in the South as the Civil War unfolded.
Emerging from a troubled childhood and turbulent adolescence, John Denby returns in the Far, Far the Mountain Peak series as an adult; still finding his place in the world as he continues to hide his sexuality and embarks on his career as a teacher.
A FAR FAR LAND by Rhea Russo A tale of Time. A tale of Adventure. A tale of Romance. A motherless young woman goes on a routine vacation to the beach with her father. While he is off fishing everyday, she is alone to enjoy her sun and sand and sea! On the last day there, she pushes the limits of her own courage, and a dangerous freedom, and enters another realm.
It has been a difficult week in many ways for me. Things just didn't go smoothly on different operational fronts. Still, compared to the students, our lives are a breeze. Last week, one of our students was in his wedding procession when a gunman opened fire and killed his cousin standing nearby.Upon his arrival in Baghdad, Wes Trueblood was faced with the unenviable task of finding a 'daily routine' in the heart of a war zone. As an English instructor for the Department of Defense, Trueblood was charged with teaching Iraqi pilots the English language so they could receive further peacekeeping training. In this unique position, Trueblood found himself intertwined with the lives of American servicemen, NATO allies, and Iraqi soldiers. Over a nine-month deployment in Iraq and a six-month deployment in Afghanistan, Trueblood gathered insights into the dedication and personal sacrifices of American military personal. He observed the lives and culture of the Islamic people, finding truths about how ordinary Muslims view the United States. He found reasons to laugh and reasons to cry; he recorded them and returned these messages of success, tribulation, and hope home, in the form of weekly correspondences to his wife, family, and friends.A Land Far, Far Awayis the story of Trueblood's time at the front, told through the letters he wrote home. From his time sleeping in tents, to his struggle to stay cool in the summer sun, to the ever-changing demands of a fluid mission at the front, Trueblood's story sheds light on the lives of people living in chaos.
Following on from Arthur’s first novel, Far, Far the Mountain Peak, this next novel follows John Denby into adolescence. As he begins to explore his sexuality, he begins to realise that he is not attracted to females. As he struggles to come to terms with his homosexuality, John is faced with decisions that affect his relationships. As he tries desperately to be accepted in school and amongst his friends, he turns to the wider community and to his religion for help and guidance. But will those that he hopes can help him understand this development in his life have his best interests at heart? Praise for the first book: ‘This is a very moving first novel and is well worth reading” That’s Books and Entertainment “A most welcome return to the ‘kitchen sink’ drama type of novel that was prevalent in the 1950s/60s… Most enjoyable!” Books Monthly
