A well-intentioned but mediocre collection.
A procession of well-known people recall a teacher who recognized their worth.
“This is not so much a book as it is a love letter to teachers from those who cherish them,” writes ABC News journalist Roberts in the afterword. Almost all the pieces say about the same thing—that specific, targeted praise from a teacher, what we now call “feeling seen,” can be life-changing. There are a few essays that have a slightly different story, often where a teacher's harshness or apparent cruelty had a positive result. Some of the material was constructed from interviews, so that even those attributed to writers like Ann Patchett and Brit Bennett are not particularly well written, and some are very slight indeed. Oprah's comment —“I bow at and to the altar of great teachers. Because without them I would not be the who of who I am”—is an indicator of the general rhetorical level. (Though she does name a few teachers, Oprah claims her eponymous show as her “greatest teacher.”) Perhaps the most intriguing element of the book is the impact of a teacher's appearance on young minds: “Mrs. Dee was a no-nonsense, curvy white woman who favored pants over skirts and dresses”; “She was always well dressed in a suit or a dress, never pants. Her face was powdered, and she always wore lipstick”; “She was a strong, dark-skinned, regal Black woman with a natural, tight afro who was always draped in a flowing African garment.” The many teachers who will doubtless receive this book as a gift will appreciate it, particularly after the pandemic left them “beleaguered and demoralized.” Some of the other contributors include Spike Lee, Brooke Shields, Lucy Liu, Anna Quindlen, Al Roker, Sunny Hostin, Rachael Ray, and Vanessa Williams. The author offers multiple tributes.
A well-intentioned but mediocre collection.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781368095051
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Andscape/Disney
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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