Reviews "How Porcupines Make Love II," the sequel on teaching a response-centered literature curriculum. Finds it to be a lively, engaging, provocative text, one that includes workable hints for classroom practice. (MG)

Discusses William Beatty Warner's "Reading Clarissa: The Struggles of Interpretation," a study of Samuel Richardson's role as eighteenth-century critic and interpreter of his own novels. Examines the treatment of character by both Richardson and Warner, focusing on Richardson's humanist interpretation and Warner's anti-humanist…

Explores the effects of Toni Morrison's novel, "Beloved," on readers. Explains that it maps a new direction for the African-American apocalyptic tradition because Morrison relocated the arena of racial battle from the streets to the African-American psyche where memories of the atrocities of the past have been buried. (JS)

Reviews the growing body of work that examines reading as a process occurring within a social context and having social consequences. Three categories within this literature are examined: studies of literacy and its sociocultural role; the history of the book; and the meaning of reading as an activity. Notes and a bibliography is appended. (15…

The three books reviewed in this article represent the continuous effort to make visible the significant bridge between theory and practice in the fields of literacy and children's literature. While the authors maintain distinct purposes for their creations, the texts each speak to a strong theoretical support for the practices they describe. The…