reverie of Doll’s: “She is a personable and knowing young female, albeit too flachbrustig (though her Arsch is perfectly all right, and if you hoiked up that tight skirt you’d . . . Don’t quite see why I write like this. It isn’t my style at all).”

Yet Thomsen is a self-described Aryan specimen—six feet three, with cobalt-blue “arctic eyes” and “thighs as solid as hewn masts.”

“Most disgusting book ever,” said one. “One star or five, there is no middle ground,” declared another. “The Nazis would have loved it,” one man raged

“The Giving Tree” is not a children’s book like the useful, humble classic “Hands Are Not for Hitting.” The tale is not exemplary.

“Happy” is the last word of the story, and in interviews Shel Silverstein explained that it took him years to find a publisher for “The Giving Tree” — that it had been important to him that he keep what he called the sad ending.

Walker’s wild appeal against

Walker’s wild appeal against