Susan Shreve

Dream Me Home Safely: Writers on Growing Up in America Susan Shreve

Brief Description: In the title essay of this extraordinary keepsake of childhood in America, John Edgar Wideman pays fierce tribute to a complex mother who "used to dream me home safely by sitting up and waiting for me to stumble in." The young writer Bich Minh Nguyen remembers arriving in Michigan from Vietnam in 1975 and a classmate who said, "Your house smells funny," and Michael Parker recalls a sister's vivid -- and hilarious -- act of defiance on a particular North Carolina evening in 1971. These and many more intensely intimate memories make Dream Me Home Safely a collection as diverse and powerful as all of American letters. Review Quotes: "This collection constitutes a memorable portrait of coming-of-age in America." Booklist, ALATable of Contents: CONTENTS MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN Foreword ix JULIA ALVAREZ Ars Politica 1 TINA McELROY ANSA The Center of the Universe 3 ROBERT BAUSCH My Father's Dance 8 BEBE MOORE CAMPBELL from Sweet Summer 15 ALAN CHEUSE Rowing in Amboy 20 STUART DYBEK Thread 25 PATRICIA ELAM Parenthood: A Life Sentence 32 CAROLYN FERRELL A Child's Garden of Verse 39 MERRILL JOAN GERBER from The Kingdom of Brooklyn 57 NIKKI GIOVANNI Saturday Days 65 STEPHEN GOODWIN Transgressions 68 PATRICIA GRIFFITH The Spiral Staircase 73 ANTHONY GROOMS Christmas, Alabama, 1962 82 JEANNE WAKATSUKI HOUSTON Ba-chan's Superstition 96 CHANG-RAE LEE Mute in an English-Only World 104 BEVERLY LOWRY Memphis Years 108 MICHAEL PATRICK MacDONALD Spitting Image 112 MARY MORRIS The Bluff 123 BICH MINH NGUYEN Toadstools 129 HOWARD NORMAN Birds at Night 133 JOYCE CAROL OATES The Gravedigger's Daughter 143 LISA PAGE Psychedelic Shack 150 MICHAEL PARKER Movie Where You Don't See the Monster Until the End 154 ALEXS PATE Innocence Found 159 ANNA QUINDLEN Summer Coming 168 NINA REVOYR Foreigner in Marsh.eld 172 FAITH RINGGOLD The Boy Nobody Knew 179 NTOZAKE SHANGE Growing Up in St. Louis 182 SUSAN RICHARDS SHREVE Three Women and Me 186 SUSAN STRAIGHT Crick 192 ELIZABETH STROUT The Swimming Pool 197 ALICE WALKER Childhood 202 JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN Sitting 206 LOIS-ANN YAMANAKA JohnJohn's World 216 Marc Notes: A Mariner original.; Various authors recount their childhood years in the United States. Review Citations:

Booklist 10/15/2003 pg. 380 (EAN 9780618379026, Paperback)

Library Journal 11/01/2003 pg. 82 (EAN 9780618379026, Paperback)

Publishers Weekly 09/01/2003 pg. 77 (EAN 9780618379026, Paperback)

Kliatt 03/01/2004 pg. 31 (EAN 9780618379026, Paperback) - *Starred Review

Contributor Bio:  Shreve, Susan Susan Shreve is the author of highly acclaimed books for young adults and children, including the Joshua T. Bates books and, most recently for Knopf, "Goodbye, Amanda the Good," "From the Hardcover edition."Contributor Bio:  Edelman, Marian Wright Marian Wright Edelman is the founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours, and eight other books. She is the winner of many awards for her work, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, a Heinz Award, and a Niebuhr Award. In 2000, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings. Edelman is a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School. She and her husband live in Washington, D. C., and have three children and four grandchildren.