2017 – Page 17 – Janet Ruth Heller

Review of Janet Ruth Heller’s Chapter Book The Passover Surprise in Hadassah Magazine in December 2016 by Gloria Goldreich

Post author:Janet Ruth Heller
Post published:January 22, 2017
Post category:Book Review Books Chapter Book Children's Literature Fiction Jewish Families Jewish Traditions Literature Multicultural Literature Reviews Sibling Rivalry

Novelist Gloria Goldreich reviewed Janet Ruth Heller’s middle-grade chapter book The Passover Surprise in Hadassah Magazine in December 2016 (page 69). Here is the review. In Janet Ruth Heller’s The Passover Surprise (illustrated by Ronald Kauffman; Fictive Press, 48 pp. $11), Jewish traditions, stamp collecting, sibling rivalry and familial affection are all part of the story of Lisa, who craves a “big blue stamp album” as a gift for finding the afikomen. Readers will root for Lisa and a happy holiday. Hadassah Magazine covers politics, news, social issues, and culture. It has a paid print circulation of over 250,000. The Passover Surprise is available for online purchase from Fictive Press at http://fictivepress.com/children-ya.htm#Passover

Review of the Movie Key to the City

Post author:Janet Ruth Heller
Post published:January 9, 2017
Post category:Movies and Videos Reviews

Key to the City (1950) is a black-and-white film that stars Clark Gable (Steve Fisk) and Loretta Young (Clarissa Standish) as small-town mayors who meet and fall in love while attending a convention of mayors in San Francisco. The director is George Sidney. Although longshoreman Steve Fisk originally planned to party with “atom dancer” Sheila (Marilyn Maxwell), he quickly succumbs to beautiful Clarissa Standish, the mayor of Wenonah, Maine, who is a no-nonsense lawyer with a degree from Harvard University. Her influence makes caddish Fisk take his job as mayor more seriously, and Fisk’s influence helps Standish to relax, party, and have more fun. The subplot concerns attempts by a crooked Puget City council member and political boss named Henshaw and his gang to undermine newly elected Mayor Fisk while he is out-of-town. Raymond Burr plays Les Taggart, Henshaw’s thuggish minion. Although Burr is better known for his role as Perry Mason on television, the actor does a good job portraying the obnoxious Taggart. Fisk has to return to Puget City to subdue the political…

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I love books by British writers P. D. James, Seamus Heaney, S. T. Coleridge, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, W. B. Yeats;

American writers Judy Blume, Edna St. Vincent Millay, T. S. Eliot, Maxine Kumin, Jim Daniels, Mong-Lan, Robert Hayden, Langston Hughes, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alberto Ríos, Gail B. Griffin, Jerry Spinelli, Jane Yolen, Kathryn Erskine, Gary D. Schmidt, Adrienne Rich, Judith Minty, Gwendolyn Brooks, Marge Piercy, Grace Paley, Alicia Ostriker, Jaimy Gordon; South African writer Athol Fugard;

Israeli writers Chaim Nachman Bialik, Yehudah Amichai, Rachel Bluwstein, Chaim Guri, S. Y. Agnon; and Hispanic writers Sor Juana, Federico García Lorca, Ruben Darío, Antonio Machado, Jorge Guillén, Pedro Salinas, and Dámaso Alonso.

I also love Japanese haiku, especially those by Matsuo Bashō.

My writing has been influenced by many other authors, including British writers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, W. B. Yeats;

American writers Edna St. Vincent Millay, T. S. Eliot, Maxine Kumin, Adrienne Rich, Judith Minty, Gwendolyn Brooks;

Israeli writers Chaim Nachman Bialik, Yehudah Amichai, Rachel Bluwstein, Chaim Guri, S. Y. Agnon, and Hispanic writers Sor Juana, Federico Garcia Lorca, Ruben Dario, Antonio Machado, Jorge Guillen, Pedro Salinas, and Damaso Alonso.