Also noted - Front Row - Bibliography

Ebony, Oct, 2003

ORDINARY GIRL: THE JOURNEY (Villard Books, $24.95), by Donna Summer with Marc Eliot, provides a candid look at the popular singer's triumph over adversity in her journey from singing in a Boston church to her reign as the Disco Queen of the 1970s. The book not only reveals Donna Summer's rise to fame, but also her flirtation with suicide at her peak, leading ultimately to her spiritual awakening.

KNEE-DEEP IN WONDER (Metroplitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, $23) is the first novel by April Reynolds, who teaches literature and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and, before it was even completed, it already had won an award--the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation award for work-in-progress. The story of three generations of unforgettable Black women is as lush as its Southern setting, with rich narrative that causes readers to feel the sultry Southern heat fusing the past and present of one Black family.

IN THE ESSENTIAL CONVERSATION: WHAT PARENTS AND TEACHERS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER (Random House, $24.95), Harvard Education Professor and MacArthur Prize winner Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot provides a penetrating analysis of the parent-teacher conference to provide critical insights into a dynamic dialogue that can help shape a child's future.