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A view with appreciation
A good historian does much more than discover and reiterate facts accurately. Granted, that is vital. But a good historian lives with his materials so that over time he gains familiarity with the people and places and events, so that he gains the insights necessary to show them to us with words that make them live. So that after reading, we not only learn history but SEE it and to a limited extent experience it.

In his brief essay, David McCullough does just that. I've heard it said that some of our poorest neighborhoods in the USA live better than kings did in previous centuries. Well, you probably can't prove that. But for sure we have comforts, medical care, nutrition, luxuries far beyond what they had during the Revolutionary War. And those who suffered and died so that we might experience freedom in our miraculous country, suffered to an extent we find hard to understand today.

David McCullough writes about Revolutionary soldiers with admiration and compels us to kindle our appreciation for what they gave.

Word Pictures
David McCullough brings to light a point I for one have never thought about. In many cases we don't know what the very people who won our freedom looked like. It wasn't until the Civil War that we could attach a face to a famous name.

The author in a very adept way seeks to attach a face to the soldiers of the Revolution with word pictures. My minds eye can now visualize John Daby as a "long hump-shouldered fellow," and Thomas Williams with "film" in his left eye, or George Washington with smallpox scars, something his portraits didn't reveal. If you ever wondered like I have why most subjects in the old paintings never smiled, it's most likely due to the fact they had bad teeth or no teeth at all.

"Faces" is an illuminating read for anyone. I recommend it highly.FUG 10

Cool essay
A very nice essay by Mr. McCullough which actually gave me more of an insight into the author than the time. As a fan of history I always had the curious habit (I thought so) of looking first at the pictures in the book of what the people looked like before I started reading and referring often to those pictures during the reading; mostly to help me visualize.
I'm glad to find out I'm not the only one.

FACES BY DAVID MCCULLOUGH
An official Library Weekly book review.

EXCERPT:
How can we know what they looked like? The answers are in what they themselves said in pocket diaries...

RATING:
5 of 5

REVIEW:
When looking back at the founding of our nation, we find ourselves at a lost to what men and women looked
like when they marched into the heat of battle. We have no audio broadcast of what happened, there's no
video that you can download off YouTube. But despite those challenges, historians and writers have been
able to find out who these men were, a true understanding of their inner thoughts through their diaries,
letters, and books. Faces by David McCullough is timeless, an effective reflection of the past, and how
we get to know them.

Thought provoking
This writing focuses on the physical aspects and reality in which the people in history, especially the Revolution, lived. We have very little that guides our minds when trying to associate faces with a person we are reading about, and McCullough brings about some poignant ideas about their lives, demeanors and appearance that we often overlook. This is worth a quick read.

Loved it!
I loved every moment of this book! I purchased this book to give me a better idea of the people and orphans of Ethiopia. I wanted to better understand their culture and have an understanding of who they are. The book illustrates how one Ethiopian woman builds a safe haven for orphaned children and shows the circumstances of each child brought to her home. It informs the reader about the aids epidemic and other diseases that have plagued this beautiful country. For anyone interested in adopting children from Ethiopia, it presents real-life stories and how adoption made a difference for them. The stories and photos are real and the author personally involved. I started to read it more slowly at the end so I wouldn't finish it, I loved it so much!

Best Glimpse into Ethiopian Adoption Culture
I'm writing this as the mother of an adopted Ethiopian child- I bought this book after a random search and it has been the most valuable book of our whole adoption journey. It's loaded with helpful background info on the AIDS & Orphan crises in Ethiopia, history of Ethiopia, insight into the cultural perceptions of adoption (especially by affluent, white Westerners!) and the very moving perspectives of the orphans themselves, and their Ethiopian caretakers. The heroine of this story is very real, and her character development was deep and insightful. I laid the book down several times to have a good laugh (or cry!) but could hardly keep from turning the pages. Whether you are adopting yourself, supporting someone who is, or just interested in learning more about Ethiopia and this heroine's story, I know you will come away inspired.

An Uplifting Page-Turner
Author Melissa Fay Greene, who is the adoptive mother of two Ethiopian children, relates the story of Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian mother who becomes the foster mother for a multitude of AIDS orphans during the height of the pandemic. Greene truthfully tells the tale without painting Teferra as a "modern day Mother Teresa," but rather as a very real and human woman who is asked by clerics to take in one abandoned orphan after another. A grieving mother whose adult daughter died from AIDS, Teferra discovers that helping the children provides her with a means of overcoming her grief. The individual stories of these "lost children" who arrive on Teferra's doorstep are riveting, as is Greene's account of the assimilation of her adoptive children into her family. Accompanying photos show children shortly after they arrived in very bad shape at Treferra's compound and then later with adoptive American families.
Greene spares no one as she rails against the pharmaceutical companies that withheld AIDS medications from third-world countries at the height of the pandemic, causing the loss of a whole generation of parents. Despite having no drugs to help the children, hit-or-miss medical care, and scarce food for all, Teferra does her best to feed, clothe, house, and educate the orphans put in her care. Although one might think that this book is a "downer," it is a very uplifting page-turner that relates the indominable spirit of one Ethiopian woman and her many foster children.

Life changing book
Melissa Faye Green is an excellent writer. She is a true artist painting a vivid picture of scenes, and weaving historical, political and social aspects of the deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic. This is an incredibly powerful book. It is not easy to read due to the difficult emotional toll it can take on one, but I felt morally obligated to read it, so that I wasn't just shutting out the devastating misery suffered by so many millions. She portrays the human face of this awful disease with poignancy. It is an inspiring and human story of one woman's efforts to alleviate her own and others suffering. God bless Melissa for opening our eyes.

A truly moving experience
This was a wonderful book! Having myself been to Addis Ababa recently (July 07) with my daughter to pick up her adopted Ethiopian baby boy (4 months old), you can just imagine how this story of one woman's love for so many orphans resonated with me. The book is a quick read -- something interesting in every chapter. The author intertwined Haregewoin's up and down story with bits of Ethiopian history and the unwinding spread and theories of HIV-AIDs plus added her own experience with H. and the adoption her own Ethiopian children -- which made the reader come away with a true cultural experience. H. is truly a "Mother Theresa" figure and an inspiration to all women. Thank you, Melissa, for introducing us to her. I really enjoyed having the photos of many of the children and their adoptive families to relate to. I will be sure that my daughter reads this book and I have suggested it to my book club in Boulder, CO which will read it in the fall. -- Gayle Weiss