A worthy, wise, and clearheaded guide for anyone considering higher education.
A comprehensive guide to making the most out of the college experience.
Chiara Bacigalupa, Shelly Albaum, Antonia Bacigalupa Albaum, and Gianna Albaum collectively bring to this project over 60 years of combined experience in higher education, make their position clear in the introduction: “We believe that almost everyone can benefit from a college education...But only if you know how to go to college.” The book begins by straightforwardly tackling the question: Why to go to college? The authors question the wisdom of this widely accepted educational move. But the authors also argue that going to college can boost your self-esteem and lead to a longer, emotionally richer life. What follows is detailed advice for the prospective student (or perhaps their parents) on how to select the right college: “Employers themselves have stated very clearly the skills they are looking for: teamwork, communication, resilience, empathy, self-awareness...You can pick up the key skills in any major, and you’re more likely to pick them up if you are excited about what you are studying.” From this big-picture perspective, the authors then narrow their focus to practical advice on topics like attending online classes and attendance-optional courses, dealing with homesickness, and how to successfully interact with other students and faculty members. They also teach readers how to handle the expected workload of college courses, set priorities, and avoid over-programming. To keep things lively, digitally animated characters give playful running commentary in the margins (e.g., a wizened owl giving tips and guiding prospective students). These characters take on distinctive personalities over the course of the book and help differentiate this book from similar guides. Each chapter ends with a few key takeaways (e.g., “Meet deadlines, even when they seem arbitrary”). While some of the more general later sections—with topics on how to read, think, write, and learn—are not necessarily specific to the needs of prospective university students, their inclusion could prove beneficial for any collegiate reader. For those interested in further reading on the topic, there is also a useful suggested reading list included at the end.
A worthy, wise, and clearheaded guide for anyone considering higher education.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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