New Releases by Gary D. Schmidt

Turner Buckminster is purely miserable. Not only is he the son of the new minister in a small Maine town, but he is shunned for playing baseball differently from the local boys.

In a literary environment dominated by men, the first American to earn a living as a writer and to establish a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic was, miraculously, a woman. Hannah Adams dared to enter--and in some ways was forced to enter--a sphere of literature that had, in eighteenth-century America, been solely a male province. Driven by poverty and necessity, and aided by an extraordinarily adept mind and keen sense of business, Adams authored works on New England history, sectarian history, and Jewish history, using and citing the most recent scholarly works being published in Great Britain and America. As a female writer, she would always remain something of an outsider, but her accomplishments did not by any means go unrecognized: embraced by the Boston intelligentsia and highly regarded throughout New England, Adams came to epitomize the possibility in a democratic society that anyone could rise to a circle of intellectual elites. In A Passionate Usefulness, the first book-length biography of this remarkable figure, Gary Schmidt focuses primarily on the intimate connection between Adams''s reading and her own literary work. Hers is the story of incipient scholarship in the new nation, the story of a dependence that evolved into intellectual independence. Schmidt sets Adams''s works in the context of her early poverty and desperate family situation, her decade-long feud with one of New England''s most powerful Calvinist ministers, her alliance with the budding Unitarian movement in Boston, and her work establishing the first evangelical mission to Palestine (a task she accomplished virtually single-handedly). Today Adams still holds a place not only as a female writer who made her way economically in the book business before any other woman--or male writer--could do so, but also as a key figure in the transitional generation between the American Revolution and the Renaissance upon whose groundwork much of the country''s later literature would build.

Edging the Boundaries is a genre-based children''s literature sourcebook that emphasizes issues in thinking and writing about the literary qualities of children''s literature.This book examines the field by defining and discussing literature genres and their qualities. This book includes information and issues about literary genres, writing/thinking opportunities, teaching pointers for classroom use, and examples of the best authors and illustrators in each genre.For elementary school educators, or anyone interested in the genre of children''s literature.

This beautiful book weaves together faith and wonder, miracles and mystery, to tell the little-known story of Saint Ciaran of Ireland.

After Cole''s mother dies, he and his father go to live with his mother''s parents in tiny Albion, New Hampshire. The Emersons make it easier for Cole to cope -- but he is helpless in the face of his father''s depression. So Cole turns to Albion itself, and its history. Can the old stories help him handle the present?

"Katherine Paterson is the consummate storyteller, a crafter of tales in which characters must deal with the most elemental hopes and fears in settings - be it a Chesapeake Bay island or the mountains of China - that are alternately blissful and beatific, terrifying and desperate. In a sensitive analysis of the novels and stories of this award-winning children''s author, Gary D. Schmidt finds that Paterson is, in a subtle way, a didactic writer, informed by her hopeful and ethical vision of the future." "Here is a writer, Schmidt argues, who does not shy away from horrendous topics - unwanted foster children, the death of a schoolchild''s best friend, rape, murder, political intrigue, religious mania, and war. He finds that Paterson''s books - among them the National Book Award-winning Master Puppeteer (1976) and The Great Gilly Hopkins (1978) and the Newberry Award-winning Bridge to Terabithia (1977) and Jacob Have I Loved (1980) - are successful when the reader journeys with the author through distressing situations and then arrives, in a moment of grace, at a place of spiritual enlightenment." "Paterson''s characters, Schmidt argues, search for fathers, for families, for love and acceptance, for themselves, they recall the characters of Flannery O''Connor, who also find themselves caught in moments of distress and then find, like Paterson''s characters, moments of grace. As Schmidt shows, that moment may come in the building of a bridge or in coming to understand the implications of a carol or poem or in resolving to live a life of burdens shared." "Schmidt begins this study with a biographical essay about Paterson''s life, drawn from her own essays as well as from an interview with her he conducted at her home in Barre, Vermont. In the balance of the book he addresses her copious work, beginning with her early historical fiction and proceeding on to the novels that explore her major themes - of the plight of prodigal children and the search for true family. Later chapters examine Paterson''s more recent historical fiction and her retelling of folk tales." "Throughout his discussion Schmidt focuses on the stories'' elements of hope, for, as Paterson has said in a National Book Award acceptance speech, she wants to be "a spy for hope." Schmidt''s lucid study brings readers a closer understanding of this remarkable "spy.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved