Clap Books

Mr Styron's theatre play is set in 1943 in a urological ward of a Navy hospital. There are several soldiers all of whom suffer from various venereal diseases, their presence being "a sign of the moral breakdown the war has brought about". Schwartz, a solemn Jew, a South-born black called Lorenzo Clark and a syphilis patient, Wally Magruder. The latter has to wear a special bathrobe marked with a yellow "S" and he has to use a washbasin reserved for patients suffering from the same disease.
Among the staff, there is Dr Glanz, well known for "always wanting people to be sick" and the homosexual male nurse Lineweaver who naturally delights in examining the patients in the ward.
A tragic and at the same time comic play about the way patients can be manipulated and mislead by the medical profession, the competence of which is clearly to be mistrusted according to Mr Styron.

The Long March: A novella set in a Marine training area during the Korean War. An officer sets his battalion on a forced march over 36 miles to complement his swaggering self-image. Soldiers drop out by the truckload in the sweltering heat, and one is driven to insubordination by his conflicting senses of self and duty.

In the Clap Shack: A play in which a young Marine tested positive for syphilis is taken advantage of by an egotistical doctor. Styron witholds little in his depiction of the unpleasantries to be found in a World War II Naval Hospital urological ward: "short arm inspections," racism, doctors' lack of compassion. Despite this, a grim humor can be found in several scenes.

William Styron (himself a Marine) gives us believable characters facing an environment that seeks to depersonalize them and shows how the military's command structure can leave little room for individuality.

i bought this for my daughter for chrismtas, and she still hasn't used it - she's tried looking through it several times, but it's hard to follow and the rhymes aren't that fun (kind of strange, actually.)

I ordered this book over the holidays for a friend with three little ones thinking it would be a fun activity for them. When I received it I looked through it and thought my goodness how can anyone figure out how these are suppose to sound. I found it would take a few hours to figure it out and so knowing my friend is a busy Mom as it is would not appreciate receiving something of this nature. The print is very small and I think it would be better in a spiral binding, larger print and a CD along with it to give an example of how the clap is suppose to sound. I have a masters in music and if I found this confusing, good luck for everyone else.

This book is filled with fun verses that are new to me and some that I played when I was a kid. Now I can play them with my kids. Very fun!

Written by twelve year old Sarah Bernstein, this fun book has all your favorite childhood "Hand Clap" games in it, from "Miss Mary Mack" to "Say, Say Oh Playmate". Bernstein researched and collected Hand Clap games from all over the country to gather over 40 "Hand Clap" games, including many I've never heard of, but all that I remember. Interestingly, the "Miss Lucy had a Steamboat" Hand Clap listed in the book, is not the scatological version I'd learned as a child, but rather a "clean" version you'd be happier to share with your children.

The book is laid out in a clever manner with the lyrics, the musical notes, as well as visual cues as to the hand movements. The last part of the book has a section for writing your own "Hand Clap" games with your children or friends. This book is sure to be a hit for your kids and their friends!

The drawings are too small to see what you need to do. I know these hand claps and the songs and I don't think a school-age child could figure this out very easily.

The book says you can amaze your baby by singing along with the CD, but I don't think the music is in a sing-along style at all! I would have to listen to a song several times before I would know when to repeat certain lines or when to say "whoa-oa-oa!" The book itself is nice, but when it comes to the music itself, anything from Wee Sing is a better bet than this. With this type of product, I am looking for music that is simple, easy to understand (the words), and easy to sing along with. This product doesn't fit the bill for me.

This book and CD are pretty good, but the music is very pop feeling. It was a little too pop for my taste. I would have preferred more of an acoustic folk-music type version of these baby songs. This is kind of like Spice Girls and Boy Band versions of kids songs. They are good versions of the songs if you are into that type of pop genre.

Even for young children (2-4 yrs.), this book needs some VOOOOM! It's a story that says, A cutesy, 'See all the things God does.' Page after page of this gets pretty tiresome.