Angel Park: A Novel

By Patricia Kokinos

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595391028
• ISBN13: 9780595391028
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent and Edgy Look at Our Education System

Author Patricia Kokinos in her thrilling novel "Angel Park" presents a story and theme unlike anything ever I have read--and that is saying a lot since I review several hundred books every year. This book was a very pleasant surprise to me. I was certainly not expecting to be blown away by a book on the subject of teachers and our education system. The author connects a great story line, wonderfully alive characters while balancing a good dialog with a narrative that flows. My son-in-law is a former classroom teacher and now a Vice Principal at a grammar school. From what I know of what he and his co-workers experience daily, I found this book not really too far fetched at all. The delusional bureaucracies that run school districts across our country seem to border on the insane at times and certainly are as political as they can get. Kokinos is a good writer and she pulls the reader fully into the classrooms and the lives of those she exposes in the story. The book is edgy and is told in an entertaining style that will make it a pleasure to read. This is certainly not your typical book about teachers and the schools and that is good! The book has an emotional impact and gives you a reality check, in what is perhaps,only a slightly exaggerated storyline on what may be happening at our local schools. I think everyone who has gone through the American education system will recognize some truths buried in these pages; however, teachers will find a chilling indictment of what they may have felt, experienced or had nightmares about! This book is a must read! A very worthy effort from the teacher turned author! This book comes with my personal endorsement along with the highest book rating of FIVER STARS from The American Authors Association (AAA).

Hope in education...

We grew up educated but confused just like our parents did a generation before us. Our confusion stemmed from the mind-numbing controls of government, religion, television, and parents who were caught short battling their own failures and shortcomings in life. At the time, we had no idea our education system was specifically designed for failure. Our teachers told us we were learning, but we had problems relating to what it was they taught. We wondered how any of this granola of curriculum might have any real-life application once we were handed our diplomas and sent on our ways. Then, with the real world spinning way to fast for the lack of preparation we were given, we began to rethink our life's situations. We started to question what it was that we actually learned. Those of us with enough time and concern then began to re-teach ourselves from the truths life handed us through failed marriages and broken life; from children we could not relate to; from life that offered too much heartbreak and not enough TV-like success. Angel Park leaves no room to question the source of inadequacy in our educations. Written by a lifetime educator, Angel Park cuts to the chase of an education system set up to reward those who shaped it in the first place. "You pay for the computers, your kids--not our kids--get to use them." Told from the eyes of teachers and administrators alike, we learn from their heartbreaking personal experiences why education reaches a standstill for most of us. Whether we're painted white or black or brown, our only chance at a fair shot at the learning process stems from those with money and the power to spend it. This book is written with passion and insight from a woman who shares greatly her experiences and failures as an educator. If you want to know why your education seemed inadequate; why your kids seem to learn more from television and CD lyrics than from their hamstrung teachers, then do yourself service by reading a literary gem filled with truth and magic and hope. And most importantly, consciousness raising ideals. Many kudos to Patricia Kokinos for setting the record straight.

Finding Meaning between 8:00 and 3:00

Teaching. Education. School. As kids, we were all there once--well, way more than once. September to June are in our blood and bones--and the memories can fill our dreams and flood our nightmares. We remember. But there were things we didn't know when we were young--that our teachers were/are human beings, downtown politics shaped what Dick and Jane saw and if we saw Dick and Jane.... But Patrica Kokinos knows this well, though, and tells it intelligently, thoughtfully, beautifully--with anger, edge, and, surprisingly, with hope. Politics, personal agendas, race, class--all carried by real, live, breathing, laughing, crying, hurting humans.... Wow. Connie Demetrios has done the divorce, move back to your hometown thing. She's an educator and has gotten a position in the curriculum department for the school district. She has bought a lovely home that has become a refuge, she's dealing with her parents (who own a Greek restaurant)--time to do good work, to recover--to heal. Wrong. The principal is carried out on a stretcher--he had a heart attack--the first day. The new principal is the chosen one of the vehement board member Who Knows Everything. He institutes policies that he says are to help the poor, black students--but segregate out the rich white kids, over crowd the other classes.... What Connie soon realizes is that Cornwall is like every other place she's been. The "students" are what it's all about in theory. Reality is that education has become an industry, the teachers, the staff, work the assembly line and the students are processed through. The people who want to do well, who care--struggle against a system that doesn't care about the individual student. And they get tired. And meanwhile, the are human. Have lives. Dreams that are outside of school-- When teachers and staff fight back, tragedy begins. The smug, self-satisfied, morally blind and delusional...win. Kokinos has a message but it comes through real, breathing characters. Often people who have soething to say, say it with cardboard. Kokinos tells her story, with flesh, blood, and bone. Moments will make you laugh, some will make you angry, and others--prepare for tears. An excellent book with a twist that leaves you...well, buy it and read it.

Tough to put down. . .

Angel Park is a fascinating story with so much truth and reality interspersed throughout the story. It is well-written, exciting, suspenseful, and difficult to put down. The book truly captures the essence of our American educational system in ways many choose to ignore. It is obvious the author speaks from a world of deep insight and desire for change. So well done, I look forward to many more books by this author to learn from and to enjoy!

Angel Park is Right on Time

Exceptional work by a most gifted writer...Angel Park is able to speak to the soul of the reader in a uniquely fascinating manner the inside track of school politics and how manipulative the system remains in the 21st Century. I have found this book to be a real-page turner, as I was intrigued that the author was able to have such clarity from start to finish of a situation that has been hanging over us, but not dealt with straight on! I am not waiting until the holidays to purchase additional copies of this true gem of a book, for family and friends, so that they may become more keenly aware of major measures that must be dealt with by all of us in order to ensure that the future of educational enrichment should be maintained with new found dignity.