The best books for sharing aloud with children too young to read are charged with therapeutic value for readers and listeners alike. Sean Sheehan It is not about building vocabulary, trying to accelerate the child’s developmental pace and prime the posture of their mind in order to give […]
Book reviews
Live, live, live
“Live; live; live”, the latest novel from Jonathan Buckley, plays eloquent witness to a liminal space, the boundary between the limits of rational thinking and the beginnings of occult mystification. Sean Sheehan It’s an intriguing borderland, one which does not make complete sense, lying as it does is […]
We need to talk about the Red Army Faction
In the movie “We need to talk about Kevin”, the motivation behind the murderous behaviour of the eponymous character remain mysterious, locked away in a private and poisonous pathology. His mother struggles to understand but does not turn her back on what took place. Sean Sheehan Coming to […]
Fables with a punch
Fables tend to convey a moral, often anodyne, sometimes downright objectionable. Enlightened writers have seen that children need fables with a ring of social truth, not sanctimonious ones that avoid confronting unpleasant realities. Sean Sheehan The libertarian William Godwin (1756-1836) took to writing under an assumed name because of […]
Ordinary heroism
Maria Fouillette, daughter of a butcher in a French town close to the border with Switzerland, was the mother of two children. Her husband Roger became leader of an anti-Nazi resistance group until he was arrested in 1943. Sean Sheehan Roger was brought, shackled and bruised, to his […]