ASHFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY
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SYNOPSIS
Lemia is a little girl who grew up with rejections in her life— parents who did not want a child, children who didn’'t want to play with her. She had a hard time with schoolwork. But she was able to overcome these hurdles because of her belief in promises from God. Read this to your children —or to a child you care deeply for— and when they feel rejected, read it again and watch your children grow!
BIO OF AUTHOR
Marguerite Morgan LMSW\PhD\CAAC has provided services to young children and their families for over 36 years. Dr. Morgan has seen the effects of negative messages on social\emotional development from conception through adulthood. She also knows the effectiveness of using “God’s Word” to restate these negative messages that adversely effect the development of a positive self-image and self-esteem. God has greatly blessed Dr. Morgan, by continually turning all her “Lemons into Lemonade.”
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My Walk with Faith Through the Wilderness
Rev. Dr. Willie E. Cleveland
My story is about the Omnipotent God and a Christian pastor whose faith was
put to the ultimate test. After many years of talking the talk about faith, I found
myself having to walk the talk about faith. The devastation of a fire set the course
of living a life of homelessness for three years.
My life would be changed forever
through the spiritual attack of the enemy of Jesus Christ. Satan— through his
agents who also despise Christ’s many churches —tried to kill, rob, and destroy
my faith.
The attack on the physical building/temple sent me on a journey that was filled
with many disappointments. It was filled with the uncertainty of not knowing if
the congregation would survive as we tried to overcome the many obstacles we
encountered.
My story is about a faith that so many believers in Christ profess to have as we
deal with man’s impossibilities. Yet hanging on to my faith while I believed that
the Lord would do the impossible and conquer the unconquerable was difficult.
At the beginning, looking through carnal eyes, I saw defeat as the inevitable end.
But through spiritual eyes focused on Jesus —the author and finisher of every
believer’s faith— I am now experiencing the joy of victory.
Atlanta Daily News
"Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?"
Written By: Ellen Ashford
Review By: C. Elayne Harper
Anyone who expects this book to be only about the game of Bid Whist is in for a very pleasant surprise. Although the main characters are
consummate bid whist players who play together at least twice monthly, over the course of many years, the real story is not about the game of Bid Whist, but it focuses on the relationship that "The Players" enjoy with each other, as well as the ups and downs encountered in their unconditional friendship.
While this is not Christian fiction, there is an underlying spiritual tone
to the book. References are made to the church that "The Players" helped to organize in their hometown and in which they are active participants, and the players' spiritual sides are evident as they work through personal & family challenges - from infidelity to problems with their children.
It is also refreshing to note that this book contains no vulgarity and it is not age or gender sensitive - it will be as enjoyable to the younger urban reader as it is to the seasoned more mature audience. I highly recommend
this book.
C. Elayne Harper
Chicago Defender
Saturday, April 17, 2004
By Pat Williams
Some fictional writers seem to strive toward accomplishing one goal: to make readers believe that their stories are real or could be real. Rare, but sometimes one is lucky enough to run across a body of work that actually pulls it off. Who is the Joker In Bid Whist by Ellen Ashford is such a book. Ashford uses the incredibly competitive and seriously fun card game Bid Whist as the backdrop to her thought-provoking story.
A very light-weight player of the game myself, I found it refreshing that the author was courteous enough to open the book with a lexicon of sorts- summarizing and defining various plays and moves of the game.
To an avid Bid Whist player, perhaps this “introduction” may seem a bit condescending, but is safe to say, most folks will find the provision absolutely beneficial especially once they sink their teeth into the meat of the story.
The story centers around a circle of middle-aged friend-some widowed, some married, some parents-but, it is one couple, Henry and Della Miles and their spun-out-of-control relationship that puts the spin on the story.
In particularly, it is Henry, the proverbial playboy and maverick gamer who just can'’t seem to respect his marriage that carries the weight of the story. His long-standing discretions and peccadilloes with loose and lusty women propels his patient wife, Della into a state of vengeance.
As the story plays out, just as the friends card games, the once longsuffering and passive wife ultimately gives way to a severe and calculating persona. Della typifies the adage, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
Spurned and out for revenge, Della begins to play her life like she plays her hand at Bid Whist-cool-, methodically and dangerous.
Early on we realize that Henry has spent a lifetime or wifetime honing his hand at love like he’'s honed his game —loose, fast, and instinctively. The couple’s friends Lillian, Pearl, Harry and Holly Ann who are placed wonderfully around the lives and the card table of the book’s main characters are loyal, idiosyncratic and somewhat dysfunctional.
The story’s setting takes place in the 1960’s. The book’s liner explains that’s “when relationships and social norms started to revolutionize into what we have today.” Indeed. And, it is Ashford’s historical slant that really breathes reality into her characters.
What’s fascinating about the author’s approach, is that she didn'’t use this subtext as a means to grandstand or get on a soapbox about her personal feelings regarding the tumultuous decade. A decade that forced a nation to come to grips with the age-old hypocrisies and stripped a generation of its former innocence.
Ashford plays it straight and let her characters simply live out their lives which seems to evolve with the times. These characters as the book explains had been playing for 10 years by the time the reader has been introduced to them.
So, it becomes all the more clearer why Della begins to come into her own sensing something that she had never sensed before: power. Power to choose her happiness, power to speak out, power to act out, power to act in secret and the power to realize that she didn'’t have to remain powerless in a sinking marriage.
Another aspect of the story that the author really excels in (and that I wish more stories that take place in today’s contemporary settings would do) is that it doesn’t glamorize the human frailties of adultery or fornication.
It doesn’'t verbally preach against them, but it depicts the harsh realities of what these situations really do and threaten to do in the lives of those who fall prey to such temptations. Which, says so much than a tongue-lashing could ever do! It is here also that the book shows how Henry’'s “playing” and “gaming” away from the card table has left his young adult daughter, Bonnie feeling emotionally isolated from her father who was too busy chasing skirts to put quality time into her rearing.
Who is the Joker In Bid Whist is such a phenomenal story. It tells a classic tale of love and relationships. That teaches a thing or two about the results of playing the wrong cards in both the game Bid Whist and life.
Bid Whist
What Happens When Players
Live The Same Way They Play
The Game?
By Pat Pulliam, PhD
The title asks, “Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?” The author Ellen Ashford wants the reader to answer the question.
Ashford understands Bid Whist as a game and as a significant social function among Black America. Most have either played or watched others play.
She learned about the game while growing up in Muskegon Heights, Michigan.
“My parents, aunts and cousins used to play Bid Whist every two weeks as a family game,” she said. “They would take us children along. We'’d play our games while they played theirs.”
As a teen she helped her brother in Detroit host several games and served up meals for serious players.
Like Ashford’s relatives, the whist players in, “Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?” play regularly, every two weeks at the home of one of the players, enjoying food served by the host. They have fun— laughing, signifying and talking as the cards hit the table.
There the similarity ends. The author says the book is not about her family.
“Playing Bid Whist when I was growing up, later in college and as an adult, I observed players living the same way they played the game,” she said. “I noticed that when people reneged at life by not playing by the rules, their lives became shattered.”
Ashford states the rules for Bid Whist at the beginning of the book.
In the Chapters that follow, she builds an intriguing story around the dealers, players and trash-talking losers who are determined to win by any means necessary.
Individuals renege, run Bostons or get lost in relationships with jokers.
This group of friends live in the imaginary town of Shalom, Michigan. They moved “up North” from “down South” at different times and from different states, bring with them their dreams, hopes and personal challenges.
Between being invited to rent parties or a card party, the new person in town met the others.
Besides the regular card games, this group of whist players is especially proud of First Baptist Church where Rev. Clifton is the pastor.
The whist players built First Baptist from the basement up. Each is active in the church that has about 500 members. Only 150 members attend.
Henry and Harry are the head deacons.
As a husband and father, Harry takes whist –life— seriously.
“He is everything a woman could want, Ashford said. Henry is different.
“The whist players are life-like but are not from real life” she said. “We all know women like Della who gets messed on and say, ‘I’'m not taking it anymore’ and start working to better their lives. As they do, others take notice.”
Della goes through the water more than once on her way to cleaning up her act.
Henry and Della’s daughter, Bonnie, is about to graduate from college.
Della is a beautician. Henry is a sideline barber who works full-time in an office at a local manufacturing plant. They have provided Bonnie with all the best that they could afford.
Just before her graduation, Bonnie and Uncle Chester have a long conversation. He reminds her that she is standing on other people’s shoulders. He advises her to remember who her people are and the pain they have gone through to get her where she is. He tells her to vote —“because that’s what all the commotion is about down there, allowing us to vote.”
The commotion Uncle Chester talks about is happening in outside of Shalom in the real world of the 1960’s and the civil rights movement.
The bid whist players are not too concerned with the marches, Malcolm X’'s speaking tours, sit-ins, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches. It is important to them that Rev Shuttleworth is coming to town, to speak at their church!’
Bonnie encounter with racism at the university puts them in touch.
Through the university scenes and other vignettes, Ashford adds substance to the story.
She keeps it above the frivolous preoccupations of bid whist players caught up in playing the “game.”
If you are a regular whist player, a used-to-be regular or one who just watch, “Who is the Joker in Bid Whist?” is sure to grab your attention, and you’ll come up with an answer.
TITLE OF THE BOOK:
On The Shoulders Of Giants, My Personal Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance
Author: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Raymond Obstfeld
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 13-digit 978-1-4165-3488-4 10-digit 1-4165-3488-1
Price: $26.00
Page Count: 262
Reviewer Name: Ellen Ashford
Who’'s Shoulder’s the Giant is Standing On?
On The Shoulders Of Giants by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld is a celebration of the journey through the Harlem Renaissance. This is an extraordinary must read book.
To prepare for the amazing task of reading this book I organized my space quite deliberately. Around me were pillows, hot chocolate and various jazz artist playing softly in the background. I flipped opened the book momentarily wondering if he was going to put the same energy into his writing of history as he did in his basketball game. Being an avid basketball fan I thought back to his days of glory. I watched in admiration as the sports world wondered what pro basketball team Kareem would play for after he left UCLA. He chose the Milwaukee Bucks and the whole world watched the team as he made the city and club prosperous. He perfected the sky-hooks while gracefully dribbling around and over the heads of his opponents. The seven-foot frame man would eventually be traded to the Los Angeles Lakers; finally the movie stars had something else to marvel at other than themselves.
Listening to the media unravel why he changed his name from Lew Alcindor to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was puzzling. I could not capture the true meaning of the name change, and I suspect the people who were interpreting the name change were also puzzled and passed their bewilderment on to the public.
It became quite clear to me from turning the pages of the book, why he changed his name. Kareem grew-up around the community of Harlem, which is culturally rich. Most of the movies of Harlem are from a period in time where elegance was the norm and not having intelligence was frowned on. People dressed when they left their homes, and you could always find great jazz. In addition to house parties where people were scraping money together to pay their appallingly high rent, you were treated to music by the likes of Fats Waller and other jazz greats.
Kareem discusses in his book how the faces of Harlem changed. Once an elitist community where the very rich lived and Blacks were not allowed, life changed slowly. He talked about the first Black real-estate agent who through rigorous struggles, ushered in Blacks to this community with sky rocketing expenses. Unfortunately, there were penalties to be paid-the Ancestors paid the price for us being there.
When the doors of this community finally were opened it attracted some of the most brilliant writers, musicians and athletics the world has ever seen. Imagine, having the influences of W.E.B. Du Boise, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Ma Rainey, Billie Holiday, Fredrick Douglas and Marcus Garvey in one place: no wonder most of the movies centered in on this era. There was a young Malcolm X picking up the spirit of the movement while clubbing all over town.
Harlem had one of the finest basketball teams the world had ever seen. They were called the Original Renaissance Five (Rens) and the only White team they could play was the Original Celtics. The two teams became friends. But what happened to the players of the Black team was devastating. The White team went on to prestigious jobs and the Black players were relegated to lives that would destroy most of them. For more information, read the book.
Harlem finest library is the Schomburg. I have been there several times, I’'m impressed with the level of respect the community shows them, and when you walk in and find young people all over the library sitting quietly reading and asking questions, you just know that the future is in good hands. Kareem got his start in this same library spending many hours studying. His parents nurtured and inspired his spirit. His knowledge of history and superb writing style is only matched by his basketball ability.
Now I understand the name change from Alcindor to Jabbar. When one comes into the knowledge of self, you cannot remain the same, especially when you know that you are standing on the shoulders of greatness and giants. Furthermore, this giant Jabbar understands that his intelligence was molded by giants, as future generations will be molded by Kareem.
Ashford Publishing Company publishes literature that adds integrity to the global society. Books and poetry will reflect enlightenment and inspirational thought, and fictions will always have elements of authenticity. And as the O’Jay’s say, “We have a message in our writings'.”
TITLE OF THE BOOK: Urban Girl
Authors Bonnie J. Ross Leadbeater and Niobe Way
Publisher New York University Press 381 pages
Binding: paperback: price No price listed
ISBN: -13:978-0-8147-5212-8
ISBN: - 10: 0-8147-5212-8
ISBN-13:978-0-8147-5213-5
ISBN-10: 0-8147-5213-6
Urban Girls
I’'m please to be reviewing a book about a subject dear to my heart. There is a real concern about the struggles and the complexities of being an urban girl growing up in a “civilization” that doesn’t honor their strengths. It is time that we have a genuine conversation regarding the problems that urban girls are facing.
Bonnie J. Ross Leadbeather and Niobe Way developed psychological research to investigate the development of girls and women. In Urban Girls they researched and discussed girls capabilities, their strategies of conventional and non-conventional relationships with self and others in the community.
The participants in this sample were girls from African American, Asian American, American Indian, European American, Latino/a American, Multiracial and other communities. Girls were contributors from 18 states, religions, and family structures. The geographic regions, were urban, suburban, and rural with comparisons and contrasts from each region.
What is exceptional in regards to this book is that the research included the poor, ethnic minority and the working class in ways that dispute the stereotypes associated with being urban in this country. There was some dialogue around the importance of “other mothers” and healthy dating.
In Urban Girls the message is loud and clear through developing research hypothesis, and the collection of statistical data that the urban girls are resilient, have their own positive uniqueness, and are not interested in conforming or fitting in when their individuality is being challenged.
This book discusses how important parents are to the development of these young girls. It states:
…Parents offer daughters a racialized gender socialization message that often seems contradictory they teach assertiveness yet also help daughters understand that they have to deal with the realities of White power and privilege. Black girls learn respect for authority (especially White), yet they also learn that they cannot afford to be submissive. Girls need to know when to stand up for themselves and when to fight back. (p.251).
In addition to having healthy adult relationships it is important to develop an environment where girls will feel safe. In the Latino/a communities they have community living rooms (salas communitarias) in their schools. This is a culturally empowering safe place where students, parents, paraprofessionals and professionals can go and speak in their own language and culture. The counsel that these adults give youth in these community living rooms help students in the larger community and for some students the frank discussion have stopped fights between peers and pregnancies.
One thing seems to resonate loud and clear throughout the book. Children (adults too) do not respect nor want to be around others who consistently treat them as though they are not worthy or are indispensable in this society. Young people find ways to strike back. They may strike back through the written word, song, sex, or other constructive or destructive behaviors.
The study found that during times of adversity that the urban girls take on adult responsibilities. Because of taking on adult responsibilities urban girls grow up faster. Even though they are gifted in the area of finding supports the society that they live in marginalizes their intellect.
What is important to remember is that even in negative environments urban girls have the propensity to bounce back. The findings found that being involved in after school programs such as sports delayed “so-called” antisocial behaviors.
What is remarkable regarding the research is that “overall the findings showed that in early adolescence the probability is that urban girls have the cognitive affective, and behavioral characteristics that are indicative of healthy, positive development” (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Lerner, 2004c; Roth & Brooke-Gunn, 2003b).
Anyone working with urban girls, including parents, aunts, uncles, clergy, teachers, social workers, police, judges and other community leaders and girls support groups should pick up a copy of this book. This book challenges labels. It also put the responsibility back on adults to give girls a sense of self-worth.
So what can we do? Reading Urban Girls would be a start. Acknowledging the strength and intelligence that these young girls have is important. Oprah understands the problem. Taking children out of hostile environments of Africa, and giving them a safe, educational atmosphere, gives girls true hope for the future.
Buy Now
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