2008 Summer Book Reviews at Reveille
“His fingerprints are everywhere. I just slowed down to stop and stare, opened my eyes and man I swear. I saw God today.”
            - country music singer George Strait, "I Saw God Today"
 
In the reflection of fresh rainwater pooled on the sidewalk to the comfortable clasp of a friend’s hand. In the slamming of a screen door to the sinking of barefeet into freshly cut summer grass. In the gentle flow of a sparkling stream to the expansive berth of a mighty river. God is here. God is everywhere.
 
This summer we invite you to join us rediscover the serenity, beauty and purpose of God’s natural world, surprisingly revealed within the pages of the three wonderful books we will review this year. From an instructive book on the need to re-engage our children, and even ourselves, with nature; to a timeless novel set in the summertime that speaks to our hearts and our memories; to a fantastic work of history, focusing on Richmond’s great resource, the James River, and its remarkable place in the birth of our country, we feel sure you will come away with an enhanced desire to commune with nature, and perhaps in so doing find yourself in commune with God. 
 
In June, Anne Regn will review Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.  Reveille is pleased to welcome a distinguished author, Carrie Brown, to review her novel The Rope Walk in July. In August, Reveille member Anne Poarch will engage The River Where America Began: A Journey Along the James by Bob Deans. 
----The Reveille Library Committee
 
June Summer Book Review
 
Wednesday, June 25, Ann Regn, Director of the Virginia Office of Environmental Education, will review the National Bestseller, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by author Richard Louv. This must read for grandparents and parents of young children has inspired a grass-roots movement to get children outside and in-touch with nature everyday. In the words of Richard Louv, “The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable.” For more information, visit www.lastchildinthewoods.com.

 
 
July Summer Book Review
 
Wednesday, July 23, Reveille welcomes Virginia author Carrie Brown as she reviews her latest novel, The Rope Walk.  The Rope Walk brings us the dazzling story of a pivotal summer in the life of Alice, a redheaded tomboy and motherless girl who is beloved and protected by her five older brothers and her widower father, a professor of Shakespeare. On her tenth birthday party, Alice meets two people unlike any she’s known before. Theo is a mixed-race New York City boy visiting his white grandparents for the summer. Kenneth is a cosmopolitan artist who has come home to convalesce with his middle-aged sister. Alice and Theo form an instant bond and, almost as quickly, find themselves drawn into the orbit of the magisterial Kenneth. When the children begin a daily routine of reading aloud to the artist, who is losing his eyesight, they discover the journals of Lewis and Clark and decide to embark on their own wilderness adventure: they plan and secretly build a “rope walk” through the woods for Kenneth and in the process learn the first of many hard truths about the way adults see the world, no matter that they are often wrong. One of those luminous, timeless novels The Rope Walk continues to haunt long after you’ve finished the last page. An award-winning novelist, Carrie Brown won the 2004 Library of Virginia Literary Award for her novel Confinement. The Rope Walk, her sixth novel, was published by Pantheon Books in Spring 2007 and came out in paperback this year. Carrie Brown teaches English at Sweet Briar College.
 
 
 
August Summer Book Review
 
 
Wednesday, August 27, Reveille member Anne Poarch reviews The River Where America Began: A Journey Along the James by Richmond native Bob Deans. Deans, a masterful storyteller, leads the reader on an engaging journey along the James River, explaining its essential role in the shaping of modern America and helping us understand how much of who we are as a nation is rooted along its shores. The River Where America Began takes readers on a journey along the James from the earliest days of civilization nearly 15,000 years ago through the English settlement at Jamestown and finishing with Lincoln's tour of the defeated capital of Richmond in 1865. Deans traces the historical course of a river whose contributions to American life are both immeasurable and unique. As he guides readers through this exciting historical narrative, Deans gives life to a dynamic cast of characters including the familiar Powhatan, John Smith, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Benedict Arnold and Robert E. Lee. The story is ugly in places. Seldom is it fully just or fair. It is, though, a fully American story, the story of the river where America began. This book was published by Rowman & Littlefield in Spring 2007, in time for the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown. Take a closer look online at http://www.theriverwhereamericabegan.com/Site/Book.html 
 
 
Summer book reviews are held in the fellowship hall at 11am.  Refreshments are served at 10:30am.  Child care is provided.
 

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