Language Arts Books

The children in my classroom are learning ASL from me. I have many books and books/cds or videos about it. This book is great because children can look at and get the infomation without the sign, it can be read and use as a normal picture book. There are pictures of each item and next to it the sign for it. So they can learn about it on there own without a teacher always having to say "this is the sign for dog". Also they are signs for every day things which I think helped bring interest to the students in my young preschool classroom. There are better books out there for teaching ASL but this book is a great one to have that can be use as a non ASL book and ASL alike. I liked it so much I have gotten it for family members to use with their children.

My 2 1/2 year old son hasn't mastered the English language yet so we're teaching him sign language, which he has picked up on wonderfully. This book is great with wonderful pictures and how to diagrams. He loves this book and it's easy to understand.

I TRUELY ENJOYED THIS BOOK. IT IS A HANDY QUICK REFERENCE BOOK TO KEEP IN YOUR VEHICLE ALONG WITH THE LITTLE ONE AS i DO WHEN ME AND MY GRADSON TAKE A DRIVE, WHETHER IT B TO THE STORE , PARK OR LONG DISTANCE TRIP. IT'S A HANDY GREAT LITTLE BOOK.

Use this book (alone or in conjunction with a book like "Baby Signs") to communicate with your baby long before they can speak. We started signing when my son was 8 mos old. He learned the signs very quickly and being able to make us understood what he wanted eliminated temper tantrums almost immediately - until he was 2 that is! When he started to talk, he continued signing for a while but then stopped using them on his own. I HIGHLY recommend signing with ALL babies - regardless of whether or not they have developmental issues.

Cheerful picture with illustrations. Highly recommended. My daughter love this book.

Whether you're speaking before a crowd of thousands, an office staff of dozens, or just trying your best to communicate with your own family, TALKING SO PEOPLE WILL LISTEN is an excellent source for communication tips and practical advice. Florence and Marita Littauer, gifted communicators in both the spoken and written word, will help you discover your own natural communication style, and even improve on it. With plenty of the authors' own anecdotes, this book is fun to read and full of good information. If we're going to survive in this world, we have to learn how to interact with each other. We need to speak so others will listen, and we need to listen, really listen, to what others are saying, and not just what we think they're saying. This book helps us do just that. If you want to be a more effective communicator at home and on the job, I highly recommend it.

Yes, it is true that Talking So People Will Listen is an excellent resource for professional speakers, but it is also an excellent resource for anyone wanting to be coached and mentored regarding communications. You will learn to be a more effective in all areas of communication--verbal, written and electronic as well as public speaking. This well written, easy to read book offers many practical and personal suggestions covering a variety of subjects. For example in written communication, when you send a sympathy card be sure to include a note about what the surviving relative meant to the deceased. "Sally, your mother was blessed to have you as her daughter. I know how much she cherished you, not only as a daughter, but as a friend, too." Ever struggled with handling compliments? What about criticisms? This book gives you suggestions for handling both in a gracious manner. More practical tips are gleaned from a study on the four basic personalities. Depending on what personality type you are communicating with, you will learn how to adjust your approach so you can be more effective with that person. Ever wonder what to wear? You even get great fashion advice in this book! And of course there are important tips, suggestions and resources for the professional, the aspiring and even the terrified public speaker. You will learn how to organize your material, develop your subject matter and sharpen your presentation style--even if all you need to do is make an introduction. Which, by the way, is a very important job! Whether you speaking to the masses or to the grocery store clerk, don't miss the opportunity to be coached and mentored by two of the best in the field of communication. After all, no matter where we communicate, we are called to "shine like the stars" (Philippians 2). Talking So People Will Listen definitely helps you shine!

This book allows the readers to see things from another person's point of view, which is a very valuable life tool.

The title doesn't do justice to all that's offered in this book. To adapt a title from the 1970s, this book is about "The Total Communicator." Florence and Marita help us understand communication from several angles, but, most important, coach us on how to make a difference with the words we write and speak. In keeping with their niche as personality analysts, they help us see we can change certain personality habits to better communicate with others. Recognizing that written communication is equally important, they include two chapters on writing notes. You'll want to bookmark the suggestions on what to write in difficult times, such as failure or bereavement. The last third of the book includes many of the suggestions offered in their training seminars for public speaking. If you find yourself frustrated in trying to communicate with other people, shy about saying what's on your heart, or just yearning to do it all better, absorb the real-to-life ideas in this book.

Whether you're speaking before a crowd of thousands, an office staff of dozens, or just trying your best to communicate with your own family, TALKING SO PEOPLE WILL LISTEN is an excellent source for communication tips and practical advice. Florence and Marita Littauer, gifted communicators in both the spoken and written word, will help you discover your own natural communication style, and even improve on it. With plenty of the authors' own anecdotes, this book is fun to read and full of good information. If we're going to survive in this world, we have to learn how to interact with each other. We need to speak so others will listen, and we need to listen, really listen, to what others are saying, and not just what we think they're saying. This book helps us do just that. If you want to be a more effective communicator at home and on the job, I highly recommend it.

One of the most valuable features of Carol Baldwin's outstanding book is its adaptability to a wide range of teaching circumstances. Many classroom teachers will treasure it as a complete fiction-writing curriculum. Others will select and adapt ideas and lessons to meet their students' special needs. As a writer who visits and leads workshops in a variety of classrooms, I find it a wonderfully adaptable resource to enhance whatever aspect of writing the workshop emphasizes. I look forward to Carol Baldwin's next book.

Carol Baldwin's book is a great resource for any educator! As a homeschooling parent, I have found this book to be one of the best writing curriculums around. Clear and easy to use, both my child and I have enjoyed going through the lessons -- a big change from the struggle I used to have with my son who once claimed, "I don't like to write."

I am so thankful that Ms. Baldwin suggested that I use her materials in my high school sophomore English class! I was having a difficult time knowing what creative writing to teach and how to teach it. This book is easy to follow, easy to use, and easy to modify for older students. Now my unit is organized, and the students have the tools they need to guide them on the sometimes bumpy but always scenic road to writing a story! Their final products now show a cohesiveness and a depth that were missing before. Thank you!

"Teaching The Story: Fiction Writing In Middle School" was developed from materials that freelance writer Carol Baldwin developed when she taught creative writing in several different middle-school classrooms over the years. "Teaching The Story" is a thoroughly 'student friendly' curriculum supplement that will enable classroom teachers to prepare their students for standardizing testing, as well as for their academic writing assignments. Baldwin's flexible approach to teaching creative writing skills to children are especially appropriate for students seeking to write coherent and readable sports, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical stories. Enhanced with more than seventy customizable transparencies and reproducibles included on an accompanying CD, "Teaching The Story" is strongly recommended for use with grades 5 through 8.

Carol Baldwin has a way to teach creative writing.
She taught fiction writing to my son in middle school and helped release a love for writing. We as parents are very grateful to her and her book is a great tool for it.

I read this book as part of a guided study for professional development. What a wonderful and practical guide for writer's workshop. The models in the book were easy to implement and modify to help my students feel more successful in writing.

This was a great book to help give teachers ideas on how to run writing workshops in the classroom. As a pre-service teacher this book really helped calm my nerves about teaching writing because does give so many helpful suggestions. It is truly a practical guide to writing workshops.

This is the best one of the best instructional models for teaching writing to the youngest of writers. It includes practical teaching strategies supported by sound teaching philospy. I wish it had been available when I began teaching 20+ years ago. I purchased it for a colleague who is a beginning teacher because I didn't want to part with my copy.

This book was very informative. Writing is a hard subject to teach and this is a book that can help you get started after reading it. I learned about target skills that are appropriate for K-2 students. There are not a lot of good books that focus on writing in the early grades. I can't wait to use what I learned in my classroom next year.

The only negative is that I wish there were more assessment and set up suggestions.

This has been a great resource for implementing Writer's Workshop in my first grade classroom. The guide is easy to read with many tips to use thouroughout the school year. This guide is packed with information on teaching writing and how to use techniques to help your classroom run smoothly.

Fifty-one writers and two brilliant editors have provided newbie and seasoned journalists with the gift that keeps on giving. In nearly 100 essays, the process, mechanics, and just plain hard work, not to mention the joy of serendipitous discoveries that go into producing compelling narrative journalism, are spelled out in writing that punches back. Wonderfully encouraging, this book is a seduction for anyone with even a whisper of an interest in the writing life. Telling True Stories poses a delicious dilemma -- do you gobble it down in one joyful reading or do you savor it, reading one or two essays a day? Do both.

Mentoring from the masters, they talk about their approach to their craft, often with surprising depth. A great bedtime book as each transcription is just a few pages long.

I bought this book for my brother, who is an author. He is always looking for a good book to improve and/or diversify his writing techniques. He is thrilled with it. hasn't hardly put it down since he got it and uses it for referencing a lot!

From my review in the January 2008 newsletter of the American Society of Journalists and Authors:

In nearly 100 short essays, this book offers an unbelievable wealth of excellent advice and information, from 51 contributors such as Tom Wolfe, David Halberstam, Susan Orlean, Tracy Kidder, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and Gay Talese. It's like attending a "who's who" conference on nonfiction writing, all for the price of a trade paperback. The book is helpfully divided into categories; you don't have to read the whole thing (although you'll be a better writer, guaranteed, if you do). Categories include finding topics, settling on your sub-genre, structure, building quality into your work, ethics, editing, narrative in news and building a career in magazines and books. The best parts of the book are the tidbits of insight dispersed by pros who have had decades of experience to figure out what makes them so good at their jobs. Gay Talese talks about his decision to spend more time "with people who were not necessarily newsworthy . . . that the role of the nonfiction writer should be with private people whose lives represent a larger significance." Katherine Boo reveals that she finds her stories "because I never learned to drive. . . . I take the bus. I walk around. By being out there -- not the driver of my story but the literal and figurative rider -- I have the opportunity to see things that I would never otherwise see." S. Mitra Kalita offers the startling -- but obvious on contemplation -- observation from her colleague Mirta Ojito at The New York Times, that "the more you know, the less they tell you." This is a book you'll speed through and quote to your friends, read over and over, and find new insights on each pass through.

I have a system when I'm reviewing books of putting Post-It notes on the edges of pages that seem especially cogent, well-written, etc. I usually have 8 or 10 Post-Its on a book that's finished, but on this one, I had so many it looked like the book had sprouted its own little line of prayer flags!

Every writing teacher needs this book. One of the best I've found. Already teaching from it. Plus, The Nieman Foundation Website offers more useful writing & teaching tools than most fee-based services. Should be required reading for all creative nonfiction and journalism undergrad and grad students.

For anyone that tells you that you can't so solid code and script development on a Mac, they haven't been introduced to the application TextMate. There are several good options for doing power editing on the Macintosh and TextMate is one of those POWER options.

'TextMate: Power Editing for the Mac' by James Gray is a perfect companion manual for all TextMate users that want to lift the hood off of this power app and get to the nuts and bolts. If you develop on a Macintosh on a daily basis for work or fun and want to learn more about what you can do to make your life easier, pick up this book and you won't be disappointed. Written well and coming in at ~200 pages, there are 12 chapters which will teach you goodies in TextMate like how to create and use Macros, using Find & Replace to quickly edit text, and much, much more!!

The Mac is a great tool for developing code and TextMate is a great app for writing it, make yourself a more efficient coder today!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Books on editors are tricky things... I'm (still) a big fan and user of vi, but textmate is my tool of choice for more project level work for its capabilties. This book has brought me closer to to the keyboard level of productivity that vi allows for with its two modes.

Visuals:
The font size in the Pragmatic Programmers books is a little larger than say the O'Reilly books, which I personally like. Easy on the eyes. Screenshots are clearly printed.

Readability:
I found the reading style conversational and easy to follow. Of course, with this type of book which includes many keyboard short-cuts you really need to be at your computer and using them to commit them to memory. Even a reading of the book will give you insights into the power available at your finger tips with Textmate.

Practicality:
If you spend any amount of time in Textmate, this is really a no-brainer. This book will help you be more productive and get more out of your chosen text editing tool.

Audience:
The book does not list an intended target audience, but if you use Textmate at all I would say you have a bulls-eye right on you.

Overall:
If you use Textmate get this book.

"TextMate is actually a thin shell over a personalized team of robot ninjas ready to do your bidding."

The funny thing is, to people who have never used TextMate for more than a few minutes the above phrase sounds like an exaggeration. It's not. (As long as you can accept the analogy of "really awesome code running on a Mac" = "robot ninjas"...)

Anyway, this book targets a pretty specific market: 1) Humans, 2) who own Macs, 3) and use TextMate. I'm here to tell you that, if you're human you should have a Mac; and if you have a Mac you should buy TextMate; and if you have TextMate you should buy this book. So there, now it covers everyone.

As with all of the Pragmatic Programmer books, I found this book to be concise without missing anything important. You may be thinking, "200 pages about a text editor!? That's crazy talk!" But you would be wrong, my friend. The amount of functionality built into TextMate is incredible, but I didn't even know the half of it until I started reading this book!

I don't want to give away the ending, but:

Three of my favorite simple features I didn't know about until I read this book:
- Pressing [ESC] to complete the word you're typing.
- The built in TODO list functionality (so crucial!!)
- [Cmd-Enter] to add a new line below this one and go to the beginning of it.

Things I wouldn't have been able to do without TextMate and this book:
- Edit some of my Bundles to make TextMate work even more how *I* like
- Complete an after-hours Web Site project *way* under time and budget

Seriously. TextMate is the One True Editor for Mac (it makes me loath using any other editor on any platform) and this is a great book for learning how to *really* take hold of its power.

This book is the perfect primer for what I have found to be one of the most indispensible Mac OS X applications - TextMate. If you are a software developer or web designer or anyone else that edits text on a frequent basis and you have not already discovered TextMate, stop right now and visit http://www.macromates.com.

The Pragmatic Programmers' book, TextMate Power Editing for the Mac is a thorough introduction to TextMate. Edward Gray II has written a very accessible book, that covers the product very well.

The first third of the book is devoted to the basics - things you do every day in your text editor. The second third of the book dives into the details of some really sweet features of TextMate that you'll find yourself using all the time: bundles, snippets, macros and UNIX shell commands.

TextMate ships with over thirty 'bundles'. Each bundle is a directory of related files that provide additional functionality to TextMate. Let's say you're working on an HTML file. The HTML bundle will help you with loads of things related to your document: validate the syntax of the document, open the document in the default browser, refresh the document in the current browser session, insert open/close tags for the current word, strip all HTML tags from the document - just to name a few. Each bundle provides functionality that applies not only to the syntax of the language you're currently working with, but repetitive tasks that would apply as well.

As I mentioned, a couple dozen bundles ship with TextMate and many more are available for free download from various websites. You can even create your own bundles to extend the product in ways that only you can imagine. Here are a few of the bundles that ship with TextMate: Blogging, CSS, HTML, Java, Markdown, Objective-C, Python, Rails, Ruby, SQL, Subversion, Text, Textile, Xcode and XML. Bundles provide you with lots of help editing files and performing related tasks.

Snippets are a smart completion mechanism that go way beyond the simple concept of 'finish this word'. For example, if you are editing a Ruby file and you type array_object.ea followed by the TAB key (where 'array_object' is an arbitrary Array object), the snippet feature will automatically fill in the skeleton of the 'each' iterator, including the opening and closing curly braces, the text '|e|' with the letter 'e' highlighted. You simply type the name of the variable you want to represent the next element (or simply leave it as it is), hit the TAB key again and the cursor will be placed between the closing '|' character and the closing '}' character, ready for you to type in an expression. Very cool. This same trick works for dozens of different scenarios in your Ruby code. And that's just the snippets that apply to Ruby code. There are snippets that apply to a large number of file types.

You've probably seen macros in other editors and TextMate's macro facility works as you might expect: you start recording a macro, perform some actions and save the macro. TextMate saves the macros as XML files, so it's a snap to edit a macro after recording if you need to tweak it a bit.

The ability to fire off UNIX shell commands from within TextMate gives you another powerful tool to use while editing files. You can fire off one-liner shell commands by simply pressing the ^R key on a line containing a shell command. You can also use shell commands to act on all or part of the current document.

For the advanced TextMate user, the tail end of the book shows you how to create your own language syntax for use in TextMate, including how to describe the grammar of the language in terms TextMate will understand. So, if you program in some far out funky language that TextMate doesn't support out of the box, you can add the language grammar to TextMate and program away!

Overall, I found this book extremely useful and easy to read. TextMate ships with an excellent help system that will answer many of your questions. The TextMate Power Editing for the Mac book will take you beyond the built-in help and give you an in-depth guide for this great Mac application.

This surprisingly neutral book compares the enormous variety of religious beliefs throughout history, with particular attention paid to Christianity. While not an in-depth text, it will serve as an introduction to critically examining the development and spread of religion.

Christians should definitely read his chapter on Christianity; Mencken considers the 1611 King James Version to be one of the most beautiful books ever written.

While his chapter hypothesizing the origins of religion is rather speculative, any such hypothesis is bound to be - at the very least it will pique your interest in the subject. The chapter on the variety of religions is particularly interesting, as it attempts to show how the same general ideas were molded into vastly different beliefs; in particular, the section on the various conceptions of heaven(s) and hell(s) will definitely be engrossing to anyone.

H. L. Mencken was a rare man indeed. He was a hard headed skeptic of the theological arts, but took an intense, scholarly interest in it, and it was a boon to the universe of thoughtful men when he decided to report back to them on what he found there. The book he wrote will stand for a long while as the best of its kind--at once dispassionate and informative, with more than a little of his trademark wit thrown about with an undisguised glee. His enthusiasm for his subject bubbles out all over the place.

The book begins with an imaginary story of how religion must have gotten started among the first primitive men. It is a story well told, and reveals what Mencken imagines is at the root of men's heart much of the time--a fear of the unknown, and an understandable aspiration to master that fear by some means. Then, very early on, the con men step in to utilize the fear for their own ends--power and cash. To successfully create a job for himself, he proceeds to invent embellishments unintelligible to the poor saps, and rituals that only the initiated, such as himself, can perform.

The book continues with some comparative religion, basing most of it on what the Romans sneered at, that the Greeks made dramas about, what the Jews borrowed from the Babylonians, and what the Asiatics actually first dreamed up. He finds in all of this the roots of Christianity, and especially the stuff that Christ had never thought of, which the theologians later added for the most practical of reasons.

His account of the early church and the evolution of the bibles is gratifying in its scholarship and clarity of description. He makes the ancient theological quarrels come to life, imparting an understanding that is a valuable addition to any freethinker's equipment. Occasionally, the real Mencken peeks through, enlivening and enlightening as he goes.

The best part of the book, though, is when he shows how religion is inadequate for the job, and is in a full retreat before the onslaught of science and rational methods, leaving the truly civilized man with " a way of facing the impenetrable dark that must engulf him in the end, as it engulfs the birds of the air and the protozoa in the sea ooze....not perhaps with complete serenity, but at least with dignity, calm, a gallant spirit."

If you're used to the snappy quotables we've (all?) come to expect from Mencken and love, you may be somewhat disappointed. "Treatise..." contains more carefully fleshed out analysis and argument than his sociocultural criticism.

In this mode, without so much of the caustic wit, his writing style actually doesn't impress quite as much. But, to make up for it, his quality of argument and inventiveness is surprisingly rich. I'd always considered Mencken to be quite a philosopher, as well as a snappy come-backer. Here, he proves it: coming up with some quite brilliant hypotheticals about the origin of religion in early man, especially. And his re-telling of the concise history of Religion shows that he has a knowledge of considerable breadth. There are a few very dramatic turns of phrase here (the fun stuff), some awkward delivery, but a lot of interesting subject matter.

Pleasant, easy to read, and thorough overview of religion from the beginning of humanity, with an emphasis on Christianity, from the position of an atheist.

From the preface: "My book is mainly factual. Its purpose is simply to get together, in handy and I hope readable form, the material data about the embryology, anatomy, and physiology of theology, with an occasional glance at its pathology....Religion was invented by man just as agriculture and the wheel were invented by man, and there is absolutely nothing in it to justify the belief that its inventors had the aid of higher powers, whether on this earth or elsewhere....There is no purpose here to shake the faithful, for I am completely free of the messianic itch..."

Chapter I "Its Nature and Origin" - Mencken describes his view of how early priests came into being in prehistoric society: "One Spring there came great rains in the valley and on their heels a flood of melting snow...One night the flood rolled into the lowermost cave, cut off the occupants, and drowned a mother and her child...The rising water to them seemed like a living thing...One fellow steps boldly forth...He goes close to the edge and bombards his enemy with stones...Growing bolder, he stalks into the water and belabors it with his club...the next morning the flood begins to recede...This first priest could accomplish something that other men were incapable of...What more natural than to give thanks?...True religion was born at that moment...He took on the aloof, philosophical air of a dermatologist contemplating a rash: he learned how to avoid making promises and yet hold the confidence of his customers... He gave some thought to the form and content of his first incantations, and thereby invented the first ritual...The gift of blarney went with the sacerdotal office, in the early days as now...the new trade of priesthood had attractions that were plainly visible to any bright and ambitious young man...When he let it be known that there were certain things, done by the people, that would gratify the gods and insure their aid, these things began to be regarded as virtuous, upright, moral. When he announced that other things were frowned upon, they straightaway became sins...The priest found himself a law-giver...Did the fires rage and the sky remain dry? Then it was because the faithful had forgotten their plain duties...It was not the priest's fault...calamities were plentiful in those days, as they are now. They remain the most potent weapons in the armamentarium of the priest...Theologians, as a class, are practical men. Immortality, as they preach it in the modern world, is but little more than a handy device for giving force and effect to their system of transcendental jurisprudence: what it amounts to is simply a threat that the contumacious will not be able to escape them by dying...I am myself a theologian of considerable gifts, and yet I can no more imagine immortality than I can imagine the Void which existed before matter took form. Neither, I suspect, can the Pope."

Chapter II "Its Evolution," continues as an academic treatise, but sprinkled liberally with condescending and clever phraseology: About creation myths: "In no department of theology is there a vaster accumulation of amusing rubbish." About afterlife: "Even in India, the very gonad of theology..." About contradictions in the Bible: "The collection of tracts called the New Testament is so full of inconsistencies and other absurdities that even children in Sunday School notice them."

Chapter III "Its Varieties" is a study of comparative religions. This is a well-done academic piece with fewer "Mencke-isms."

Chapter IV "Its Christian Form" is a beautifully written history of Christianity, highly complimentary of the Old Testament as poetry and Literature, and is the best chapter in the book. He reviews the well-accepted J, E, D, & P authorship of the Torah, with brief mention of how it was compiled. (for more info on this, read "Who Wrote the Bible," by Friedman). This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. According to the bibliography, he gets much of his factual material from James Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.

Chapter V "Its State Today," resumes "Menckeisms," such as, "The church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions."

I thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining and informative book and highly recommend it. For a different approach to the same subject, I recommend Atran's book, "In Gods We Trust."

In this sardonic, blasphemous and sometimes ferociously cynical pamphlet, H.L. Mencken castigates the irrationality and incredibility of all religions, e.g. there are 175.000 discrepancies in the manuscripts of the Christian New Testament.
But he considers religion rightly as one of ( for him) the greatest inventions of all times, giving the clergy enormous economical (all the temples became extremely rich) and political power. For Mencken, their power comes from the fear of Hell. The God of love that they preach invariably turns out to be a God of harsh and arbitrary penalties and brutalities. Religion is not only cruel (human sacrifices), but also a source of enormous human misery: 'Is a Catholic bishop a good citizen, when he commands, on penalty of Hell, that poor and miserable women convert themselves into mere brood sows?'(p. 270)
'The priest is the most immoral of men.' (p. 271)
His major targets are Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
'Calvin was the true father of Puritanism, which is to say, of the worst obscenity of Western Civilization.' (p. 245) His God is an 'appalling monster'. (p. 272)
The Churches are well aware that science is their natural enemy. Therefore, they try to control education. They are always on the defensive (Galileo, Darwin) and they are opposed to all attempts of rational thinking. For Mencken, religious education is the same as organized ignorance.
He lambasts those who defend religion for 'practical' reasons: 'the fact that threats of Hell have their social uses is ... simply an argument against the human race!' (p. 268)
However, H.L. Mencken has a dark side: 'the democratic pestilence'. Like Plato, he was disgusted with the masses which were a source of a cancerous proliferation of demagogy. More, 'the reigning theologians heated up the mob against the enlightened minority.' (p. 255)
It shows his deep pessimism: the masses could not be educated and the mighty priests kept them in an irrational darkness.
This is an important flaw in his reasoning and it turned out to be a false prophesy. In many democratic countries, the religious right is on the defensive and is losing (lost) important battles.
This treatise is one of the most violent pamphlets I ever read: a Homerian battle of the enlightened one against the powerful caste of the priests.
A must read.

Easy to learn, fast play, and compact -- play on any flat table. Probably best with 3 or more players but fine with 2. Basically uses the exact same part of your mind as scrabble but has is faster, more intense and also more complex.

The tiles are acceptable but they could be a little nicer. And it would be nice if they gave you a bag for the tiles -- the tube is fairly easy to carry around but a small bag would make this game even easier to bring along on trips.

Lots of fun and well worth having in the house.

Very Fun! If you like word play, try this fun and challenging game. It's compact packaging makes it a great game to take on vacation. My 10 year old daughter thought it was too much thinking for summer time, but the adults and other kids really got into it. It can be played at several levels depending on players sensibilities, from a "learning" mode to cutthroat. I highly recommend it.

I was in an Airport in Vermont waiting for 3 hours for my next flight home when I first played this game! It is perfect to carry around in your bag. IT's light, and tons of fun! It not only makes you think fast, you also have to have fast reflexes to snatch the word! Love this game! It can be played with lots of people or just two!

This game is great -- easy to learn, and moves much faster than scrabble! Much more engaging, as everyone has to pay attention all the time. We gave it to our parents for Christmas, and the family became instant addicts.

This is a clever new word game which is simple yet incredibly addictive. My husband and I play this game almost every night. It is cleverly packaged and takes up little room, so we keep it accessible on the kitchen table and consequently, play often.

It has a simple premise and scoring method, is fun for 2 or more players, and keeps all players involved in the game. It takes little time to play one game, so it's a great option for after dinner. It only takes a game or two for new players to become very competitive with experienced players, and thus is great for mixed groups. Good spelling is a help, as is a good vocabulary, but even those skills are less important than being able to track the words and letters in play and keep possibilities in mind for when the right letter appears. My 17 y/o stepson can routinely beat us, and he's not an avaricious reader as we are, he just sees --and seizes-- the opportunities available.

The game is great fun for all ages and I highly reccomend it.

Rosemary Daniell is on a mission, and part of her mission is to make sure that women in particular, but men as well fight and slay their "demons/issues" and get on with the life they were meant to have. Her dedication has led her to a 24-year love affair with Zona Rosa and to the brave souls who seek to break past their pasts, their fears, their excuses and live a full and authentic life. This book may claim to be "about" writing, but it's a lot more than a how-to book. The exorcises alone are worth the price. And by all means, if you can get to a Zona Rosa meeting--go! You're in for a treat.

Rosemary Daniell is a woman who has listened intently and found her passion and her voice. She shares both in this book so that others may know what the experience is like.

My favorite part is where she is working with students and the class is working on the poem "Eggs" and students ponder what is it really like to sit in a bathtub of eggs. The words are so strong they don't just invite visualization, they demand it.

Having sat in on a Zona Rosa meeting, I can say that working with Rosemary Daniell is just as electrifying.

This book is more memoir than "beginner writer" exercise book (though there are some exercises), but this is precisely why I liked it. And, of course, the "read-like-a-novel" style of writing sets it apart from ordinary "how to write" books.

Like another reviewer, I wish Rosemary and her Zona Rosa group were in my town!! Failing that, though, this book is a keeper!

I was a little skeptical about a new-age-y writing book--another writer urging us wannabes to spill words. But Rosemary Daniell won me over. First of all, she's really practicing what she preaches--and not for the money. The first chapter, from which the title was taken, describes her experiences teaching writing in schools and prisons. It's the intersection of her greatest love and the greatest need--and both admirable and daring. I've had the pleasure of using her discussion starters with children ages 5-8 and it works!

In her chapter on self-sabotage I recognized people I know as well as myself. I will pull this chapter out on occasion to remind myself what NOT to do.

I was most taken, though, with the "Further Notes" chapter. In it she described things I've had to learn the hard way myself. (She calls it demystification--thank you, Rosemary, I wish I'd met you years ago.) For example, how to paraphrase everything first. I'm halfway finished with an MFA and have studied writing with many famous writers. NO ONE has ever mentioned this before. But it works.

There are also many provocative female ideas embedded in this book, like the use of irony in good women's fiction. I'd like to sit in on that discussion. This is a book I will buy and keep and read when I need to hear the voice of someone experienced and wise.

Daniell's book is like a banquet; she has cooked up something for everyone, beginning writers, those in the middle and old hands. This is a book I buy frequently now and give away to people I like, both writers and nonwriters. As a desert, there are a whole lot of things you can do with young people to stimulate the creative process in The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself. Super good book.

Mem Fox has done it again! Fox uses the special animals of Australia to illustrate that eachof us has a special place in life that we're each suited for. Love the illustration and the possitive way the animals handled finding that special place for Wombat. It was a favorite of ours this last Christmas, but we also keep it out year round and visitors to our home love reading it.

This Australian story about a young wombat wanting the lead in the school Christmas play, tugs at the heart strings of those who don't always get what they want. In the end the young wombat learns that all the parts in the Christmas play are important and together the actors create a wonderful experience for all in their animal rendition of the Christmas Story. Beautiful illustrations.

Although not the best of Mem Fox's work Wombat Divine is a very good story about an enthusiastic main character who doesn't quite have the ability to be initially succeed where he wants but has his dream come through in the end. A wombat has always dreamed of being in a nativity play but each character he tries out for, he finds out he is unsuited for.

The great story though is let down by very average illustrations by Kerry Argent, which is a shame as those who have read the wombat tale Sebastian Lives in a Hat know she can do a very good job when she puts in the effort and can draw very realistic looking wombats. None of the Australian animals in Wombat Devine actually resemble the Australian wildlife they are supposed to be. Wombat looks like a bear, the emu for some reason has wings that can come out of the front of its body like arms which emus in real life no doubt wish for but don't have, the echidna is just the platypus with a lot of yellow triangles coming out of its body, the bilby looks like a rabbit (no wonder Mem Fox dumped this illustrator and went with Pamela Lofts for the sensational Hunwick's Egg where the bilby actually looks like a bilby.

See my review for Time for Bed. This is another book from Mem Fox and an animal from Australia.

Wombat Divine is an Australian Classic and in my opinion one of Mem Fox's best. My family now own hundreds of childrens' picture books, but this was the first one I ever bought my son. It still remains a firm favourite with us. The illustrations are delightful, as is the story. It's a must have for the Christmas book collection - something a little different and makes a great gift. You can't help but fall in love with Wombat.