The book I chose to read and review for this paper was Beyond Bingo. This was a sixty-two page book written by Sal Arrigo, Jr., Ann Lewis, and Hank Mattimore. This book is a guide book of sorts for those in the industry whom specialize in working with the aged. The authors of this book have several years of experience working with the aged, and have written a sequel since.
Beyond Bingo has a total of seven chapters plus an introduction and afterward. Seven chapters may not seem to be that many but in the case of this book I believe it to be too much. The chapters are full of ideas for activities and some of the chapter break ups could have been avoided by reassigning the activities into other chapters that seem to fit it better. As an example there is a "Crazy Ideas" section all of the ideas in this section can be split up into the other categories: Services for Seniors, Community Services, Intergenerational Programs, and Fund Raising. .
Each category while doing a good job of following with it's heading needs some work on the composition and flow from idea to idea. There seems to be a problem in that this book was written as a normal book and possible should have been written as an activities guide with simple instructions to the activities as apposed to the novel style it was written in. I myself am not a great writer as I"m sure you will recognize by the end of this paper, but I also don't have a published book.
As for the guts of the information I found it to be of great help. I am actually taking the "Leisure for the Aging" class right now. I have found that most of the activities that are suggested in the book for the class and by the instructor are almost insulting for the people they are designed for. "Arts and Crafts" are a big one that is suggested often in the other book and they "crafts" are not really crafts they are more like activities you give to children to keep them busy.
