Ulmus parvifolia elm" for the real Chinese elm. Elms, hickory and ash all have remarkably hard, tough wood that has made them popular for things like tool handles, bows and baseball bats. Chinese elm is considered the hardest of the elms. Owing to its superior hardness, toughness and resistance to splitting, Chinese elm is said to be the best of all woods for chisel handles and similar uses. Chinese elm lumber is used most for furniture, cabinets, veneer and hardwood flooring, as well as specialty uses such as long bow construction and tool handles. Most of the commercially milled lumber goes directly
Handles (novel) comic tale ... Jan Mark knows how young people think and talk." From the "New York Times" review: "Jan Mark stretches the range of children's books ... she provides for young people the combination of fine prose and strong realism generally reserved for adults." In Tucker's obituary view more than twenty years later, "Handles" was a "happy, optimistic work" in which the heroine found in the motorbike-repair shop "the company and interests she had always longed for". This was in marked contrast to three of Mark's earlier works, young adult science-fiction novels set in "a hopeless future", which some critics