Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Coles, Robert - Neil Postman (review date 19 January 1986)

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Neil Postman (review date 19 January 1986)

SOURCE: "A Singer of Their Tales," in New York Times Book Review, January 19, 1986, pp. 1, 28.

[In the following review of The Moral Life of Children and The Political Life of Children, Postman demontrates how Coles goes beyond theory and facts to reveal the truth of his subjects.]

When I was in grade school, Christmas time was a problem. We were always made to sing those mysterious carols, and although "Jingle Bells" was a piece of cake, most of the canon was fraught with danger for a Jewish boy. Harold Goldstein and I figured out a way to defend ourselves. We turned the line "Deck the halls with boughs of holly" into "Deck the halls with rows of cholly," this last word being our rhymed distortion of "challah," the delicious Jewish bread served on the Sabbath. No one actually heard us do this. We believed Christian ears would not suffer our defiance lightly, and so we silently...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Melvin J. Friedman (review date Fall 1982)
   2. Neil Postman (review date 19 January 1986)
   3. Katherine Paterson (review date 2 February 1986)
   4. Jonathan Kellerman (review date 9 February 1986)
   5. New Yorker (review date 10 February 1986)
   6. John Leo (review date 17 March 1986)
   7. Kenneth L. Woodward (review date 6 September 1987)
   8. Jeff Dietrich (review date 13 September 1987)
   9. Fitzhugh Mullan (review date 8 May 1988)
   10. Helen Bevington (review date 26 February 1989)
   11. Francis X. Rocca (review date March 1989)
   12. Iain Bamforth (review date 7-13 July 1989)
   13. Sanford Pinsker (essay date Summer 1989)
   14. Herbert Mitgang (review date 21 November 1990)
   15. Laura Sessions Stepp (review date 23 December 1990)
   16. The New Yorker (review date 7 January 1991)
   17. Virginia C. Hoch (review date 26 August-2 September 1992)
   18. A. J. S. (review date 1993)
   19. Michelle Huneven (essay date 3 October 1993)
   20. Robert A. Sirico (review date 15 November 1993)
   21. Gail Russell Chaddock (review date 9 December 1993)
   22. Ed Walraven (essay date 1994)
   23. Paulina F. Kernberg (review date October 1994)
   24. Richard Bernstein (review date 27 January 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright