Ann Donegan Johnson

This title is obviously hilarious (it's from a series of "ValueTales," which are not as far as I can tell intended to instil Christian values but only "good' ones, but the fact that I wondered I think tells us something interesting about Christian ownership of the term "values" in our society). And as a kid who took out the Rocket Richard hockey bio from my elementary school library (wish I could remember what it was called) about umpty-billion times, I can confirm that the his exploits and show more history can be riveting to kids if told right. Unfortunately, this book replaces most of those facts with repetitive, goofy sloganeering "You did it, Maurice ... because you had ... TENACITY." "You're right! I showed them all, because of my amazing surplus of ... TENACITY!" One presumes all the other players didn't have enough tenacity or they also would have scored 50 goals in 50 games, or that Clarence Campbell didn't show tenacity when he banned the Rocket for the season and stuck to it through all the vegetables and teargas and crypto-nationalist rioting. Also, Maurice has a talking hockey stick buddy called "Slapper" who's just begging to be revealed as a kind of demonic thrall doing the filthy, insinuating work of a Lord of the Pit who feeds and gains strength off each of Rocket Richard's goals and assists. show less

This is a series of books I read as a child in the 70s. They introduced me to historical figures that were not mentioned in my grade school textbooks and awakened my love of history. Reading these books in my Catholic school classrooms felt like an easy way for medicine to go down the throat. Catholic education spends a decent amount of the school day, year, instructional instances on investing in the development of conscience. In all the ways these principles can be expressed, the show more Valuetales were interesting and had a light hand. Example, here is a good person, you can be like them. This was preferred to, this is a bad thing, if a piano falls on you and you have not made it to confession, you will be dead and find yourself in hell. I recommend this book series, especially if you find yourself in Catholic school wanting some ideas on how to get white spots on your soul instead of hearing all day about dark marks on your soul. show less

Perhaps it's not the best book about Harriet Tubman, but as part of the Values series, it was a pretty great installment.

Some people like to deride Eleanor Roosevelt as a commie or socialist or whatever, but you can't deny that she did a lot of good work, and taught a valuable lesson in the work she did for helping the poor.