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BOOKNEWS AND REVIEWS

TWO BOOKS DESIGNED TO INCREASE GIFTED CHILDREN'S CREATIVITY AND LEARNING:

Paul Torrance, the Grand Gentleman of Creative Learning and Teaching, and Tammy Safter, Professor of Education at the University of Georgia, have designed a comprehensive resource for developing creativity in the classroom. This book contains detailed steps for expanding the creative process, including chapters on Teaching By Using The Incubation Model, Finding The Problem, Originality, and The Great Teacher-Challengers. By Combining rational and suprarational methods of creative problem-solving, the authors have produced one of the best resources available on creativity. Other chapters contain many practical exercises in creative thinking for grades 5 through 12, quotations about "Incubation" and the "Aha" phenomenon, and a detailed list of references. See the Master of Creativity at work by reading this book! We highly recommend it for teachers and parents.

Dr. Wenger has summarized his 30 years of research and writing on accelerated learning in this attractive book of easy-to-use perceptual and cognitive enhancement lessons. He has included all of his powerful techniques for increasing problem-solving abilities and creativity, e.g., Easy Ways to Build Specific and Overall Learning, High Leverage Methods of Learning and Teaching, and Toolbuildering. All of these methods are described in great detail and include specific examples. Wenger's approach to accelerated learning stresses the development of heightened perceptual awareness coordinated with extensive verbal descriptions of the topic being studied. Gifted children and their teachers will benefit from studying and applying these lessons developed by one of the few remaining "Renaissance Men" of American education. He is the "Guru" of accelerated learning in the United States.

SHAKESPEARE BOOKS DISTRIBUTED BY THE WRITING COMPANY (10200 JEFFERSON BLVD, ROOM K0; P.O. BOX 802; CULVER CITY, CA 90232-0802; TELEPHONE -- 800-421-4246):

This educational book distributor has one of the most fascinating and extensive collections of books, videos, posters and other resources on William Shakespeare in the world. Write them for a copy of their attractive catalog which is a pleasure to read. Two examples of outstanding books that you can order are:

Shakespeare A To Z: The Essential Reference To His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More by Charles Boyce. Dell Publishing -- Laurel, 1990.

Both of these book would be of great interest to gifted students with literary and dramatic arts concerns. They provide a stimulating description of all aspects of his life and times, thus improving one's understanding of this creative genius and Elizabethan culture. The graphic displays and artistic presentations of Shakespeareana in Norrie Epstein's volume are very attractive, while Charles Boyce's work provides the gifted reader with complete descriptions of Shakespeare's characters and scene-by-scene analyses of his major plays, such as Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. These books would make wonderful gifts for the gifted Shakespearean at the upper elementary and secondary levels.

THE WRITING COMPANY also distributes two books about Shakespeare written specifically for teachers of the gifted and their students: Teaching Shakespeare To Gifted Students, Grades Six Through Twelve: An Examination of the Sensibility of Genius by Michael E. Walters; and Warp Zone Shakespeare! Active Learning Lessons for the Gifted, Grades Six Through Twelve by Betty Eidenier. Both of these books are published by GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS. »»»»» »»»»»»

STEPHEN SCHROEDER-DAVIS, Coordinator of Gifted Services, Elk River, MN has just published an extraordinary book with GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS. The title is: A Bibliotherapeutic Approach To Gifted Advocacy -- Coercive Egalitarianism In Fact And Fiction: Dealing With Peer Resentment Through Literature (1993); Cost = $13.00 + $1.30 P&H. This book of essays and stories teaches gifted children and their teachers about the resentment which exists against individuals with exceptional abilities, and what can be done to reduce it. Copies of Schroeder-Davis' original article on Coercive Egalitarianism can be ordered from GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY (same address as GEP). Just ask for the Winter 1993 Issue of GEPQ and enclose a check for $3.50.

ATTENTION TEACHERS AND PARENTS! Don't miss the Spring 1993 Issue of GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY! It contains a very important article by SUSAN WINEBRENNER AND BARBARA DEVLIN on how regular classroom teachers can effectively teach gifted students through Cluster Grouping. To receive this article and others on teaching the gifted, order a subscription at the bargain rate of $8.00 for ONE and $15.00 for TWO YEARS!

DR. MARY MEEKER, PRESIDENT, STRUCTURE OF INTELLECT SYSTEMS will send interested parents and teachers an Intellectual Readinesss Checklist entitled, "Are Your Children Ready For School?" Please write her at: 45755 Goodpasture Road; P.O. Box D; Vida, OR 97488; Telephone -- 503-896-3936.

JOHN HERSEY, GIFTED REPORTER FOR HUMANITY (1914-1993) BY MICHAEL E. WALTERS

This author's life and work took in the full panorama of the 20th Century. He was born in China of Christian missionary parents, and spoke Chinese even before he could speak English. After graduating from Yale and then attending Cambridge, he spent the summer as secretary to Sinclair Lewis, the Nobel Prize author. During the 1940's, he was a staff reporter for TIME, LIFE and THE NEW YORKER. For TIME and LIFE, he covered World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. In the battle of Guadalcanal, he participated in the epic struggle of a platoon of U.S. Marines who were ambushed in a jungle valley. One of the most realistic accounts of warfare ever written came out of that experience, Into The Valley (1943). He described both the courage and inhumanity of war in this book. He was given an entire issue of THE NEW YORKER to describe his experiences of being one of the first witnesses to the nuclear age when he reported the aftermath of the atomic blast on Hiroshima (1946). He wrote one of the best accounts of the Holocaust, The Wall (1950), based upon the diaries of one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis. John Hersey discovered that for humanity, the demarcation between fiction and nonfiction was irrelevant. Rather, he was concerned with human responses to catastrophe. Hersey also wrote a book of especially intense concern to educators of the gifted, The Child Buyer (1960), which depicted a society that sought to exploit the gifted as a natural resource like oil or timber. The Chicago News said this book was "...the most prophetically alarming work since Orwell's 1984." He was truly a great American author who should be read by all gifted students.

*******Maurice D. Fisher, Publisher, Copyright © by Gifted Education Press, April-May 1993*******