Reviewer: Pam Hanna
Thoreau, NM

From her unique perspective as a high school teacher, Valerie Kirschenbaum has made some stunning discoveries about learning - that children learn much better when teachers use body language, that body language can be brought into writing with color and image which excite different groups of cells in the brain, that emotional arousal amplifies memory, that there is such a thing as visual thinking, and that word and image used simultaneously integrates brain operations and allows the student to come to a higher level of understanding more quickly. "Especially today," says the author, "if we don't immediately grab them, we too often lose them. Colorful visuals are a way of grabbing their attention, arousing their emotions and of sustaining their interest."

In researching the subject, Ms. Kirschenbaum discovered, for example, that "...the image of a Buddha can trigger the release of hormones such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, causing them to interact with nerves in the body and travel to the brain. Literally, the image opens the mind and heart of the reader." And in Tibet, the sight of an image that the viewer perceives as sacred can trigger electrochemical responses in the brain, i.e. readers could SEE concepts. "With the designer word," Valerie maintains, "we can transform traditionally verbal techniques into visual techniques. Rhyme, repetition, metaphor, figures of speech, characterization, tone, simile and symbolism can all be visual. We can foreshadow, change moods, express irony or sarcasm and allude and alliterate visually. The possibilities are endless..."If we cannot always make this exquisite avalanche of consciousness sayable, then we can at least make it showable." Amen to that.

It's not exactly rocket science to realize that this could be an incredible aid to reading and therefore to learning in our technological society, but as far as I am aware, nobody has connected these particular dots before this particular young woman came on the scene and pointed them out.

Before the advent of Gutenberg, Medieval illuminators used ornament and decoration to create "multiple simultaneous meanings." After Gutenberg, when block black-and-white printing became the norm, "...writers couldn't synthesize their verbal and visual innovations. They couldn't write outside the box and think outside the box simultaneously. They were stuck between word and image, seeing and thinking, left brain and right brain." And while Medieval denial may have been rooted in religion, our modern denial is rooted in an antiquated technology that insists that black and white blocks of texts are the only proper form for serious scholarship and that images, different fonts and color should be relegated to children's books.

As Leonard Shlain observed in his groundbreaking work, *The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image*, our era is evolving toward a new integration of left and right brain functions with keyboards, computers, TV, movies, etc. Why cannot that integration be extended to the printed word?

This book realizes left and right-brain integration in a most delightful way. I especially enjoyed the color graphics where Medieval, Greek and Renaissance characters are shown to be writing and on closer inspection, you see that they're using computers. I would have liked a snappier title for the book but have to admit that upon this writing, I haven't thought of any.

"First a new theory is attacked as absurd," says William James in *Pragmatism's conception of Truth.* "Then it is admitted to be true but insignificant. Finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it." One can only hope that Valerie Kirschenbaum's name will still be remembered long after her thesis has become a new canon. But as she herself admits, in the long run it doesn't matter as long as the new canon is adopted, because "...no matter how much I may have blossomed, I could never stand up before other teachers and writers and designers and not invite every one of them to surpass me."

"We will not join the ranks of the Old Canon. We will create a new Canon...."We will seek the rose in the prose. We will find the light in delight." And finally "incipit liberi besti" -"begin beautiful books." I believe this is an idea whose time has come. Bravo!

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