The Bonesetter's Daughter

Tan, Amy. The Bonesetter’s Daughter. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001. The Bonesetter’s Daughter follows the strained relationship of Ruth Young, a Chinese American ghostwriter, and her immigrant mother, LuLing Liu Young. Beginning to show signs of dementia and fearing the loss of her family’s history, LuLing chronicles the life that has been kept secret from Ruth, revealing her own complicated mother-daughter relationship. This is a tale revealing the love that unites daughter and mother, and manifests the strength and character that can come from personal tragedy.

Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School

Copeland, Matt. Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School. Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2005. Matt Copeland, an English educator and executive board member of the Kansas Association of Teachers of English, offers a succinct and poignant look at Socratic circles and their use in the classroom. Using Copeland’s model, students themselves direct a Socratic circle’s overall focus of inquiry within a selected work or topic, while the educator acts as facilitator (rather than as an arbiter of ‘truth’). Both teacher and student also examine the effectiveness of each Socratic circle, providing feedback and constructive criticism to a class in a timely fashion. Applied to develop students’ critical thinking and communication skills, Socratic circles offer a creative way to explore texts and ideas.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet: a Novel

Rushdie, Salman. The Ground Beneath Her Feet: a Novel. New York: Picador, 1999. Beginning in Bombay, 1937, this story follows the lives, music, and mythic love of Ormus Cama—a hip-swiveling, Indian lady’s man that conjures up images of Elvis—and Vina Apsara—an outspoken, capricious girl with the rich, powerful voice of a demigod. Modeled after the legend of Orpheus and taking us to the end of the 20th century, Rushdie’s novel is a bewitching, postmodern transmogrification of the classic Greek myth. Painting vivid pictures of the culture and music that has shaken our world, this is a tale that blurs the lines between fact and fiction, the virtual and the real. The Ground Beneath Her Feet is a homage to the chaos that surrounds, confounds, and shapes our lives, reminding us that stability is a tenuous (yet necessary) illusion.