Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters
Author: Nancy Pelosi
“Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters and our granddaughters today we have broken the marble ceiling. For our daughters and our granddaughters now the sky is the limit.” —Nancy Pelosi, after being sworn in as Speaker of the House
When Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House, she made history. She gavelled the House to order that day on behalf of all of America’s children and said, “We have made history, now let us make progress.” Now she continues to inspire women everywhere in this thought-provoking collection of wise words—her own and those of the important people who played pivotal roles in her journey.
In these pages, she encourages mothers and grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters to never lose faith, to speak out and make their voices heard, to focus on what matters most and follow their dreams wherever they may lead. Perhaps the Speaker says it best herself in the Preface: “I find it humbling and deeply moving when women and girls approach me, looking for insight and advice. If women can learn from me, in the same way I learned from the women who came before me, it will make the honor of being Speaker of the House even more meaningful.”
This is a truly special book to share with all the women you know. It is a keepsake to turn to again and again, whenever you need to be reminded that anything is possible when you know your power.
Publishers Weekly
Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House, offers her words of wisdom mixed with those from women who helped make her journey possible. Geared toward women both young and old, Pelosi's message is one of possibility and promise and her encouraging advice comes across clearly in her own inspired reading. With plenty of experience in public speaking, Pelosi displays a slightly different side of her personality and performance ability here, offering an extremely personal and relatable reading that draws listeners in with its honesty and earnestness. The final result is sure to inspire scores of young listeners, and reaffirm what many older listeners have known for a very long time: possibility is not limited to members of a particular sex, age or social class. A Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, June 2).(Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Table of Contents:
Pt. 1 Roots and Wings
1 Never Lose Faith 5
2 Declarations of Independence 9
3 An Open House 21
4 Love Happens 31
5 Be Open to the New 45
Pt. 2 Kitchen to Congress
6 Recognize Opportunity 61
7 Organize, Don't Agonize 69
8 A Voice That Will Be Heard 87
9 "Age Quod Agis": Do What You Are Doing 99
10 Think Outside the Beltway 109
Pt. 3 Know Your Power
11 A Seat at the Table 123
12 There Is No Secret Sauce 131
13 Remember When You Used to Cook? 141
14 The Qualities You Need 147
15 The Speaker and the President 155
16 What Matters Most 165
Index 175
The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future
Author: Mark Bauerlein
This shocking, lively exposure of the intellectual vacuity of today's under thirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a nation of know-nothings.
Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up?
For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. At the dawn of the digital age, many believed they saw a hopeful answer: The Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms "information superhighway" and "knowledge economy" entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.
That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn't happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its consequences for American culture and democracy.
Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and socialanalysis, Mark Bauerline presents an uncompromisingly realistic portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.
Publishers Weekly
From the title forward, Emory University English professor Bauerlein's curmudgeonly screed lets the generalizations run wild. Dismissing the under-30 crowd as "drowning in their own ignorance and aliteracy," Bauerlein repeatedly laments how "teens and 20-year olds love their blogs and games, and they carry the iPod around like a security blanket." Rather than descend into a "maelstrom of youth amusements" (i.e., "rapping comments into a blog"), Bauerlein would have youngsters delve into the great books. (Nip ignorance in the bud, he reasons, because once adulthood sets in, "It's too late to read Dante and Milton.") Bauerlein's considerable research is obvious, but has he ever read a well-edited blog or interviewed an intellectually curious and tech-savvy student? Instead, he writes in a black-and-white myopia that comes close to self-parody; indeed, if it's true that "Twixters 22-to-30-year-olds don't read, tour museums, travel, follow politics, or listen to any music but pop and rap, much less...lay out a personal reading list," one can't help but wonder why Bauerlein, as an educator, doesn't take some responsibility.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Ellen Gilbert - Library Journal
These two thoughtful, well-written books both decry the sorry state of literacy in this country and its myriad implications. Bauerlein (English, Emory Univ.), former director of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, is no stranger to the evidence of the decline of reading in America and its cultural consequences in our society. He focuses on the "new attitude, this brazen disregard of...books and reading" among young people. Journalist Jackson is more inclusive in her devastating account of how all of us-not just students-have lost the capacity to pay sustained attention to anything longer than a PowerPoint presentation, claiming that she sees "stunning similarities between past dark ages and our own era." Much of Bauerlein's book is reminiscent of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, and readers will probably take similar issue with some of Bauerlein's elitist pretensions (e.g., that kids read Harry Potter because other kids read it, not because they like it). These are well-informed and well-argued books, however, and both are highly recommended for all libraries.
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