Reggie Reads: August 2014

Illinois State is proud to be able to acknowledge the work of graduates who are successful authors.

If you’ve written a book that has been released by a publishing house within the past decade, submit it for review by Professor Emerita of English JoAnna Stephens Mink ’73, M.S. ’75, D.A. ’85.

All books authored by alums will be added to a collection of work by other graduates on display in the Alumni Center. Autographed copies are especially appreciated.

Please send your book to Illinois State editor Susan Blystone at Illinois State Alumni Center, 1101 N. Main Street, Normal, IL 61790. Inquiries can be sent to sjblyst@IllinoisState.edu.

When Others Shuddered: Eight Women Who Refused to Give Up

By Jamie Janosz. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014. 208pp.

Summary: In 19th-century America, the Christian evangelical movement became “the dominant form of spiritual expression. What above all else characterized this evangelicalism was its dynamism, the pervasive sense of activist energy it released,” claims Donald Scott of Queens College, New York. This movement is labeled the Second Great Awakening. In the years after the Civil War, Dwight L. Moody, a hugely popular evangelical preacher on both sides of the Atlantic, started a church in Chicago that became the Moody Bible Institute.

The eight women whom Jamie Janosz eulogizes in When Others Shuddered went beyond their ordinary lives to make a difference in the lives of thousands of Chicagoans at the turn of the last century. Janosz explains in her Introduction that we recognize too few female Christian heroes, not because they were timid or uncourageous, but because, as women at a time when they could not control their own property after marriage or vote, they worked behind the scenes and did not seek the spotlight.

“Moreover, their acts of service reached into areas of society where others did not want to tread and, maybe, preferred not to talk about,” she asserts. But these women were in tawdry saloons, in brothels, at the Chicago Fire. They spoke out against the Ku Klux Klan, they confronted gangsters, and they “were gutsy women who acted an awful lot like Jesus—giving their lives to serve a sinful and broken world.” When Others Shuddered brings to our attention eight of these brave women, incorporating their own words into short biographies.

Virginia Asher (1869-1937), for example, evangelized by speaking to women at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. She and a few other women stood in the shadow of the great Ferris Wheel, which debuted on the Midway and was the fair’s most popular attraction. Born in Chicago, Virginia had attended meetings at the Moody church, where she met her husband. She was brave. For example, newly married, young and attractive, Virginia entered a beautiful room filled with ferns, plush carpets, velvet drapes, and gilded pictures—the opulent parlor of the Everleigh Club, Chicago’s infamous brothel. The “fallen women” and madams of Chicago’s houses of prostitution loved Virginia as an “angel of mercy” who befriended women society had rejected.

Evangeline Booth (1865-1950) grew up in London, participating in her parents’ ministry and was commissioned as a sergeant in the Salvation Army at age 15. After her mother’s death in 1906, Eva and her sister went to San Francisco to aid the thousands left homeless by the great earthquake. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Eva, now head of operations of the Salvation Army, sent volunteers to Europe to provide aid to the soldiers. She bravely made the controversial decision to send women volunteers to the war front. After the war, she went to New York and organized food provisions for the poor. By 1930, she was renowned throughout the United States and in 1932, gave the invocation at the Chicago Democratic Convention.

These are only two of the amazing heroic women whom Janosz honors in When Others Shuddered. Geared for the general reader, each of the short biographies is placed in historical context. The book includes photos of her subjects, as well as documentation which can aid the reader who wants to explore the topic further.

About the author: Jamie L. Janosz ’89 is associate professor of communications at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where she studied theology. She has written monthly devotionals for Today in the Word and published nonfiction essays in newspapers and online magazines. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and daughter.

The Challenge of Democracy: American Government in Global Politics

By Kenneth Janda, et al. 12th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2014. 704pp.

Summary: Now in its 12th edition, The Challenge of Democracy is a textbook designed for university courses in global politics. The format should enable the student effectively to use this hefty tome. The book is divided into six parts for a total of 19 chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of today’s global political arena. The main divisions are: Dilemmas of democracy, Foundations of American government, Linking people with government, Institutions of government, Civil liberties and civil rights, and Making public policy.

Each chapter contains Boxed Features, for example The Arab Spring, The Global Rise of Citizen Journalists, and Wiretapping in the Digital Age. The 12th edition of this textbook incorporates several updated sections, such as coverage of Obama’s historical presidency, and coverage and analysis of the 2012 presidential primary campaign and election. The end matter includes the U.S. Constitution, a 10-page glossary, extensive notes for each chapter, and a detailed index. The text itself is attractively laid out with wide margins, colored sub-headings, charts and graphs, and photographs. There is even a cartoon or two.

The Challenge of Democracy should prove a useful tool for both political science instructors and their students.

About the author: Kenneth Janda ’57, is professor emeritus of political science from Northwestern University. He has published extensively in the areas of political science, research methodology, and the use of computer technology in political science. In 2000 he won the Samuel Eldersveld Lifetime Achievement Award from the Political Organizations and Parties Section of the American Political Science Association. In 2009 he received the APSA’s Frank J. Goodnow Award for distinguished service to the profession and the association. He and his wife live in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The Case of the Missing Cobras

By Kathy Kate. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010. 452pp.

Summary: The Case of the Missing Cobras is Kathy Kaye’s first novel, and a provocative eco-thriller it is. This novel focuses on two Fish and Wildlife law enforcement agents who must track down the cause of Thailand’s disappearing king cobra population. Not surprisingly, they are not in much of a hurry, nor are they excited to participate in what they are certain is a wild goose chase because they believe the case is the familiar story of rogue poachers. However, because the U.S. Secretary of State is due to visit Thailand in two weeks, their mandate is to have the case of the missing cobras closed quickly. It soon becomes clear that there’s a lot more at stake than a few missing snakes.

The case described in Kaye’s self-published mystery is based on true events from the 1950s. Apparently the theft of king cobras continues in Thailand. More than 80 were discovered missing from a Bangkok Red Cross facility in January 2005, according to an Associated Press story from the Hong Kong Reptile & Amphibian Society.

Kaye’s writing style in The Case of the Missing Cobras has been described as edgy and evocative, which is why readers have found it a compelling mystery. The plot is developed primarily by dialogue, so it moves quickly. Ophidiophobes may approach this novel with trepidation. Disclaimer: Your Reggie Reads reviewer definitely falls into this category, a phobia which apparently is shared with almost one-third of adults. Readers interested in ecological issues and the consequences of cornering the market on the world’s exotic species will find this an interesting addition to the mystery genre.

About the author: Kathleen A. Kaye ’71 is a medical writer and former managing editor at the American Medical Association. She also was a contributing writer to the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. Kaye has been associated for many years with Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, both on staff and in her own business, Kaye Communications. Her sequel The Case of the Missing Eagles will be published in 2014. She lives in Shoreline, Washington.

Humpty Dumpty and the Great Fall

By Mike Lockett. Normal, IL: Heritage Schoolhouse Press, 2013. 60pp.

Summary: Mike Lockett’s children’s books will be familiar to many. Indeed, The Magic Eyes of Little Crab was previously reviewed by Reggie Reads. His most recent book retells the story of Humpty Dumpty.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Isn’t that straightforward enough? No, says Lockett, that is what people THINK happened. Here’s the story according to Lockett. When little Humpty was sitting on a wall, first his mother and then his father, like parents from time immemorial, reminded him to get down or he would hurt himself. But little Humpty couldn’t hear them because of the barking dog and the meowing cat, so he stayed on the wall.

And this pattern continues through his grandmother, his older brother, and his younger sister all warning him that he will be injured if he stays on the wall. But stay on the wall does our Humpty until…he falls and smashes to pieces. What finally puts Humpty together again? Not the king’s horses and men but the love of all his family members, including the dog. Love heals all wounds.

Anyone who wants to read this story in a different format can just flip over the book and, as is the case with other of Lockett’s children’s books, visualize the story in Mandarin. Or one can listen to the story, in English or Mandarin, by means of the enclosed CD. Wonderfully illustrated by Chung Yi-Ru, Humpty Dumpty and the Great Fall is an interesting perspective on the well-known nursery rhyme.

About the author: Mike Lockett, ’72, M.S. ’75, Ed.D. ’92, is in demand as a storyteller, workshop leader, and keynote speaker, presenting programs in the USA and Eastern Asia as “The Normal Storyteller.” For more than 30 years, he taught elementary school and served as a high school principal and central office administrator. He lives in Normal.