Reference Reviews

Reference for Students

Literary Themes for Students: Examining Diverse Literature to Understand and Compare Universal Themes: The American Dream. Edited by Anne Marie Hacht. Detroit, Mich.: Gale, 2007. 2 vols. 654 p. $190.00. ISBN 10: 1-144-0433-6; 13: 978-1-4144-0433-2.

The overview to this volume traces the life and perhaps imminent death of the American Dream as we know it, and it would be good assigned reading in most high school courses. Was it an "Impossible Dream?" and is it dying? The reasons the pilgrims came here and the promise of the Mayflower Compact and our Declaration of Independence set the stage for the American Dream with some groups denied access, and it has been revolutionized and redefined. All of this is found in the literature of our greatest writers, works by Cabeza de Vaca, Cather, Colbert, Dos Passos, Dreiser, Emerson, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Franklin, Frost, Hawthorne, Hughes, James, Jefferson, Kennedy, Kerouac, Lee, Lewis, McPherson, McMurtry, Miller, Momaday, Myers, Neihardt, Paine, Rivera, Roth, Steinbeck, Toomer, Twain, Updike, Whitman, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Thornton Wilder, and Winthrop. The foreword includes a three-page literary chronology beginning with the birth of Cabeza de Vaca in 1485 and 2006 when Colbert gave his speech at a dinner. Individual entries begin with the title of the work, the author, and the year of publication. This is followed by an introduction (a brief overview, the plot summery, themes, historical and cultural context, critical overview, criticism, and sources. The author’s biography is a sidebar as are media adaptations. The text includes a few black and white illustrations and photographs of the author or other. Because this includes Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House books, you might wish to share this with your elementary librarians. The essays found in the appendixes are particularly important: The American Dream in the Nineteenth Century; …The Twentieth Century; … Today; The African American Dream; The American Dream Abroad; The American Feminist Dream; The American Political Dream; The Asian American Dream; The Colonial American Dream; The Frontier American Dream; The Hispanic Dream; The Immigrant American Dream; The Native American Dream; and The Southern American Dream and could be used with compare and contrast assignments or to see if additional research would confirm or reject some of the thoughts found here. Other appendixes include "What Do I Read Next?", "Media Adaptations," "Glossary of Literary Terms," "Author/Title Index," and "Nationality/Ethnicity Index." A must purchase.