Background
Graham, Stanley Belding was born on May 17, 1928 in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Son of Luther Marion Graham and Ida Belding Graham-Appleby.
(Country Zoo is a novel which deals with the everyday work...)
Country Zoo is a novel which deals with the everyday work and challenges of a beginning high school science teacher in the picturesque village of King's Park in northeastern Ohio. The disciplinary problems and the power structure he encounters are common in all our nation's schools. What then is unusual about this novel? It is definitely not To Sir With Love. One might be tempted to compare it with Blackboard Jungle and Up the Down Staircase which depict inner-city schools freighted with crime, drugs, and violence. The author of Country Zoo, Stanley B. Graham, shows that crimes of a more subtle nature occur almost daily in the lives of teachers in small communities, far removed from the big cities. In these villages and suburban-type towns the personal and daily harassment of teachers can be a fine art perfected by individual students as well as cliques. The term clique, rather than gang, is perhaps a preferred word , but the results are the same. These cliques regard teachers, especially beginning teachers, as legitimate prey for their countless pranks, both inside school and outside. They prey upon some teachers both day and night-egging their houses and toilet-papering their trees, writing obscene words on their windows, pestering them with anonymous obscene and threatening telephone calls. Their goal, of course, is to drive the new teacher out of the school, to make him quit in midyear. Into this arena arrives Bill Grant-24 years old, a good-looking, intelligent, and sensitive first year high school science teacher, fresh from college and his student teaching. In attempting to handle his problems, he envisions himself as a lion trainer trying to control the lions (his obstreperous and disruptive students). During the year he meets, dates, and falls in love with the charming Maggie Maguire, a nurse who lives in the next block, in the village of King's Park. The harassment eventually includes Maggie as well as Bill. Together, they battle the troublemakers. But Bill Grant's problems become almost insurmountable when the harassment is transmuted into homosexual propositioning by the ringleader, the son of the president of the board of education and prominent lawyer. Teacher and student get into a dangerous game of implied cooperation, as each tries to con the other, and the ring leader tries to make trouble between the teacher and his new wife. The novel is recommended for its brutal honesty and the realistic depictions of: the daily struggle of a conscientious young teacher to survive in a circus or carnival-like atmosphere; the young teacher's attempts to understand his incorrigible students; spoiled rich kids out of control; school politics; the power struggle involving students, teachers, principal/superintendent, and president of the board of education; the family relationships of trouble-making students. Through Bill Grant's actions the reader will discern the social message of the novel-that the teacher should be empowered to be truly autonomous and be in full control of his classroom.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1575029944/?tag=2022091-20
(This novel attempts to present a complete, unvarnished, a...)
This novel attempts to present a complete, unvarnished, and rounded portrait of the young manhood and education of a white American male, RICK STEVENS, in a mid-western state. It depicts his good qualities as well as his bad ones-his "warts." The span of his life covered is from infancy to twenty-nine years of age. The years are from 1928 until 1957. Parts of his life included are: his early childhood and boyhood growing up on a farm and in a small town in northeastern Ohio; persecution and verbal abuse by his stepfather; constant moral support by his mother; his extreme shyness and inability to socialize during his high school years, his lack of a father-figure and its effect upon his personality, his dubious sexual education; his voluntary service in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps (the peacetime Army from 1946 - 1949); his clerical and stenographic training and jobs in the Army; his achievement of the rank of Corporal and then Sergeant; his friendships with Army buddies; his long automobile trip with friends through the Western states; his college education (with help of the GI Bill) at the University of Virginia and Ohio State University; his friendship and romance with a southern lady; his college friendships; his failures and his successes; his college summer jobs on Great Lakes iron ore freighters; his education courses and preparation for a science teaching career (Glasgow College, Pa.); his love life and his sex life; his European trip with his best friend-a fellow sailor and college chum.Moreover, the novel deals with the nearly complete transmutation of a shy young man into a gregarious man. Rick Stevens was determined to overcome his shyness, break out of his shell, and find friends first in the Army and later in college. This novel depicts Rick becoming more of an actor than just a spectator. He was able to eliminate his laid-back passive behavior, and become a much more aggressive man-active, outgoing, generous, caring and fun-loving; His me
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1425934552/?tag=2022091-20
(This novel is the story of Marsha Davey, whom the author ...)
This novel is the story of Marsha Davey, whom the author Stanley B. Graham has called a "century woman" because she lived 100 years, from 1901 to 2001. Davey's character is based upon his mother-in-law, who at the age of 95, shared her life story with Graham. He made tape recordings of her recollections and built the book upon those stories. Graham takes his character through her entire life, from her birth on the family farm in Illinois to her death and funeral in Conneaut. Along the way, Graham deals with universal problems and situations that faced many women of the 20th Century. Issues explored in the book include proper education of young girls, romance and marriage, a young city woman adjusting to living with her husband's parents in a small town, the woman's feelings of isolation, her husband's addiction to alcohol,marital fidelity, coping with loneliness, hr desire to remarry after her husband's death, and instilling proper moral values in theminds of children and adults. While most of the characters have been given fictitious names, Graham kept intact all the Conneaut locations and businesses.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967485223/?tag=2022091-20
(Dear Book Browser: Thanks for stopping to look at this b...)
Dear Book Browser: Thanks for stopping to look at this book. What is it about? It is the story of a remarkable woman who reared her children in two different cultures--Mexico and the United States--endured some misfortunes and heartache, some happiness, and always challenges on her journey to finding the perfect life. Elizabeth felt that there was nothing extraordinary about her life until I explained that her life--because of her varied work and living experiences in two diverse cultures--was the ideal subject of a biogaphy. It's true that most biographies in the market place are about the lives of celebrities--the rich, the famous, and the infamous--but I feel it is also important to chronicle the lives of ordinary people who have handled the vicissitudes in their own unique ways. Besides being a good homemaker, she worked in the American Embassy in Mexico City, taught Spanish and Fench in American high schools, was a medical transcriptionist, and founded the Greater Akron Chapter of the American Association for Medical Transcription--the first one in Ohio. This book is dedicated to her four children and their heroic attempts to live their lives with an optimistic attitude, with honesty and sincere deciation to their careers and their families, and also to her friends and acquaintances, notably the members of the Great Akron Chapter of the American Association for Medical Transcription. In he late life she married the man she refers to as her "Prince Charming." I am flattered but am happy that I woke up "Sleeping Beauty." Throughout all of her life, Elizabeth has demonstrated remarkable courage, good humor, intelligence, and loving kindness--traits worthy of imitation. I feel that I unearthed the extraordinary in the ordinary. STANLEY B. GRAHAM (Author/Publisher & Her Husband)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967485215/?tag=2022091-20
(In June of 1952 Rick Stevens, a young college student who...)
In June of 1952 Rick Stevens, a young college student who has just finished his sophomore year, ships out on an iron ore freighter as a deckhand. He had acquired his U.S. Coast Guard card and had taken this summer job because he wanted to save money for college. This is the first full-time labor job he's ever held, and he soon learns that he may not be physically capable of doing a deckhand's job. But he is later assigned to the galley where he works as a porter, a job he can handle. He is intrigued by the work-a-day life of the sailors, and by living and working with them he comes to know how they think and feel about their lives and relationships with other people. Rick had always been searching for friends, and he strikes up two strong friendships among the sailors. Unknown to all of them, he keeps a diary which he hides under his mattress; in it he records fragments of their conversations, descriptions of the work, character sketches, and his own meditations. During ths summer of working on the lalakes, Rick learns a great deal about himself--his abilities, interests--and decides upon a course of action, his career.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967485207/?tag=2022091-20
secondary school educator writer
Graham, Stanley Belding was born on May 17, 1928 in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Son of Luther Marion Graham and Ida Belding Graham-Appleby.
Bachelor, Ohio State University, 1954. Master of Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 1969.
Teacher Kingsville Senior High School, 1955—1963. Physics, earth science and chemistry teacher Medina Senior High School, 1964—1990. Retired, 1990; Sergeant United States Army, 1946-1949.
(Country Zoo is a novel which deals with the everyday work...)
(This novel attempts to present a complete, unvarnished, a...)
(In June of 1952 Rick Stevens, a young college student who...)
(This novel is the story of Marsha Davey, whom the author ...)
(Dear Book Browser: Thanks for stopping to look at this b...)
Member of Ohio Retired Teachers Association (life).
Married Elizabeth Menges Ramirez-Graham, September 12, 1992. Married Cynthia Ann Davis, April 12, 1962 (deceased August 1991). 2 children.