Language Arts Books

I am a middle school teacher who found this book full of useful ideas which I have incorporated into my poetry unit. I also have Ms. Heard's book, For the Good of the Earth and Sun,and I found this one (Heart)to contain more practical lessons on poetry mechanics. She describes the how-to's of poetic language, form, rhythm and rhyme, etc, which were easily adapted to fit my students' needs. I did have to do a lot of reading and typing (no ready-to-copy pages) but it was worth the effort. I esp loved the heart mapping and the six-room description process.

Georgia Heard's book Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School suggests ways for teachers to help students have positive, successful experiences with appreciating poetry and creating their own poems. Heard gives poetry workshops for teachers and has worked in many classrooms with students at different grade levels in schools across the country. Her book, Awakening the Heart, reflects how far our understanding of the teaching of poetry has come: students will not come to see themselves as poets if poetry instruction is relegated to a "poetry unit" after state tests have been administered.

Heard's book reaches out to teachers who haven't taught poetry in a workshop format before in that it offers the same descriptions of poetry and poetic terms that she uses when she speaks to students, reteaching us the essentials of poetry as we prepare to teach others. She gives examples of directions useful in explaining the centers to students, and includes student work produced in classrooms Heard has worked in. The reader gains the confidence that taking time to gain inspiration from Heard's minilessons, coupled with dedication to a positive classroom environment that integrates poetry into daily life, will really help students to become poets who read poetry with understanding and craft it thoughtfully.

Ms. Heard has put together exercises and knowledge to create a stunning list of usable classroom exercises. She uplifts even the most discouraged teacher heart and gives you the renewed vigor to attack ignorance while inspiring others to find the light within.

This is a wonderful book for both the new and the experienced teacher hoping to bring depth and breadth to their classroom poetry programs. I used it as a first-year teacher of writing, but ended up buying a second copy after sharing-out my original with a colleague with substantially more experience.

For starters, the book is well-written and concise. For busy teachers (is that a tautology?) this means you will really read and really use it. It has all the elements that keep such readers engaged: practical classroom ideas, samples of student work, segmentation of topics into smaller components and, wide-ranging perspective.

Most importantly, however, the book has PASSION! Heard launches you with an introduction entitled "Poetry, Like Bread, Is for Everyone". She maintains this level of enthusiasm through to the last page, where she quotes Matthew Fox to the effect that "The Celtic peoples... insisted that only poets could be teachers... knowledge that is not passed through the heart is dangerous."

I agree - passion HAS TO BE the core of a poetry program in elementary or middle school. Amidst the wash of demand for reading and writing more expository material that standardized testing has brought to the writing class, passion and poetry have often slipped to the background. The poetry 'program' can become a quick trot through narrow 'tricksie' forms like name-poems and shape-poems. Kids need more. You do too.

Heard offers a wonderful suite of approaches to poetry 'centers' in a chapter on "Making a Poetry Environment." These include listening, illustration, performance and music centers as well as poetry windows, amazing language center and a handful more. The centers-based approach can be hard to manage unless properly prepared, but it is a wonderful way to build fluidity into a process that otherwise suffers from rigidity of task or schedule. This book will offer strong support for such an approach.

In the chapter discussing "Writing Poetry", Heard takes the metaphor of the door as entryway, suggesting, among others, the "observation door", the "concern about the world door" and the "wonder door." She then moves to the details of crafting of poetry with a "toolbox" metaphor and a nice collection of tools. In this as in the earlier instances, her pedagogical metaphors will serve your students but also serve to structure your planning and presentation of concepts. Heard concludes with a chapter about the observational element of the poet's craft - what she terms "sharpening outer and inner visions", and a number of useful appendices.

I'm certain this book will light-up your enthusiasm for a poetry-based classroom.

I used this book as a basis for starting a poetry study in my classroom of 4th graders. The information and ideas that Ms. Heard gives are fantastic. It helps you create an poetry friendly environment, not just a few lessons. My students responded whole-heartedly to the suggested activities. The heart map activity was one of their favorites. She gives advice on how to help children write from their hearts and access true emotion (as opposed to writing about surface feelings,"I like my Nintendo"). This is the best poetry book for classroom instruction that I've found. Also, it is an easy and quick read.
I saw her speak on this book at Regis University in June 2003, she is an engaging speaker and it made me love the book even more.

If you want to make it as a screenwriter, you MUST read this book. Not only is it chock full of great info, inside advice and suggestions for strategies that will work for you... it is a REALLY FUN READ! The author does a great job of grabbing your attention, and making you want to hold on for dear life as he takes you inside the Hollywood system and tells it like it is, dirty laundry and all. By the time you get done with this book, you will know what to do, what not to do, and how to persuade others to see things your way in pitch meetings, that you are SURE to B$ A SCRIPT SALE! Filled with advice you can USE, information that will help you succeed, and strategies for B$'ing that will get you to where you want to be in less time, with less pain and aggravation along the way. A truly necessary resource for ANY serious screenwriter!
MARIE JONES, Screenwriter and Book Reviewer, ABSOLUTEWRITE.COM and BOOKIDEAS.COM

This ebook focuses on the best strategies on how to write a good screenplay to sell. It is comprehensible with up-to-date information and exceptionally inspirational. When you think on how to write a good screenplay a lot of things come to mind but Paul Sinor has compile for us the most important survival tips to win in this game. There is no doubt that this book will inspire anyone to be a screenwriter or to become a better one. There is an unbeatable combination that only Paul Sinor can compose for you to begin your journey at the same time that your own drive, ambitions and writing skill will expand like you never seeing it before.

Those who buy this book will be fortunate enough to learn about the screenwriting trade and expand their horizon whether it is for writing or just for education. Don't hesitate to get it today.

I made this purchase on a whim at the recommendation of an online reviewer. I can't say I'm sitting in Hollywood right now with a multi-million dollar deal, but I CAN say (for the first time) that my script is actually being read! I attribute this to my own personal work ethic but also partially to this great read. Like others have said, it's funny, but it also really takes you down the road and shows you what you need to do in order to get the ball rolling. It's not BS... it's B$!!! That, by the way, stands for Best Strategies, which I'm inclined to say is exactly what it is. Really recommend this to any aspiring screenwriter.

I bought the book and haven't sold a screenplay yet. If I had, I 'd give it 5 stars. I've read many books that offer advice for screenwriters, and this is one of the best. It rings true, is easy to read, and shot me in the fanny with the glory gun. I followed Sinor's advice, and two of my scripts are at least getting read!

Despite its title, I found this book useful. The "BS" is just the opposite. It gave me good, common sense advice on how to get inside the walls of Hollywood...or at least how to get the tunnel started. If you can't "take a meeting" in Hollywood, or hang at wherever aspiring screenwiters hang, this book is for you. Well written, interesting, good advice; much of which I hadn't thought of or heard before.

A must have for parents wanting to sign with their children. Easy to use. It is easy to jump right into the signing without reading the entire book, quick easy reference. This book has been very helpful in teaching my daughter to sign. Great starting point. Also true ASL signs.

Great book, this has been very helpful communicating with our young grandchildren!!!

If you've heard any of the buzz about teaching your baby to sign, but don't know or understand the importance...this book will tell you. It's informative and easy to read. You'll learn some basic and everyday useful signs to share with your baby. Signing is advantageous for all ages to learn. My almost 7 year old and 3 1/2 year old really enjoy learning new signs (now that I have a book) past the couple I taught them eons back and help with the 20 month old in her learning. Signing makes communicating so much easier too. Neither one of us is frustrated in knowing when she's done eating or wanting more. I can communicate across a noisy room without yelling. And to find out that it's only helping their brain power by learning to sign...what parent or caregiver wouldn't want that. This book helps make that possible in easy steps.

This book is wonderful in learning how to sign with your baby. It is very easy to read and understand. I highly recommend this book to anyone learning to sign with their baby.

This book is a great way to learn sign language and teach your babies/kids. My now 20 month old is able to tell me what she needs and there is much less frustration in the house than I had with my first child at this age. My 4 1/2 year old and my 20 month old can communicate with each other as well through signs. I love this book and it has started me on a path of learning/teaching more signs. You can't go wrong with it - even if you only use one sign from it (you don't have to remember them all to have your life easier by using signs).

This text contains short lessons on at least a hundred common concepts in English, with straightforward, everyday examples.

In the appendix, there is the best-organized list of irregular verbs I've seen. The verbs are categorized according to their irregularity, so that the patterns can be studied. Each of my students has a copy that (s)he refers to often.

The Table of Contents is spectacular. Each topic is broken into several different units, which are each well-described. I find this organization particularly helpful when a student mentions (s)he is having trouble understanding, say, the use of the present progressive to express the future. I thumb through the contents, and in seconds, I know to show Unit 20. Especially helpful if you and the student don't know that it's called the present progressive, just that people say "I am playing tennis tomorrow." Waste no time flipping through the index of another book only to find it a dead-end.

Lastly, the sections on prepositions (which are so difficult to teach) are wonderful. We have teachers who won't use anything else and students who have found them very helpful.

I'm using this book to teach my girlfriend English. She is from Brazil. This book is excellent, well structured, and progressive. The vocabulary its controlled. There are a lot of work with the verbs (to be), and (to have).The book also covers progressives and irregular past verb tenses.

If your native language is not English you need this book. If you teach English grammar you need this book. I have seen quite a few English grammar books and this one is the best. Somebody might find another book that is as good but they will probably never find one that is better.

It's an excellent book which will help you to keep in touch with the correct english grammar. If you aren't a native english speaker and you want to learn english language , don't worry!!! this book is going to help you with your studies, it is going to clear any grammar misunderstanding.This could be considered as an english handbook. And if you are a native english grammar you could use this book too, because sometimes you might need to clear some grammar rules to speak "your best english". Don't lose the opportunity of reading this book.

I agree 100% with the ESOL instructor from Lawrenceburg, IN. I, too, am an ESL instructor, and this book is absolutely my best resource. Each unit is a self-contained lesson (if you want to use it that way), with an explanation and examples of the point being covered, followed by a page of exercises for student practice. It's very easy to use for in-class work, homework, student self study, and even pre-class review by the teacher. I love it!

This is the most interesting intellectual biography I've read. Bickerton's motto above helped him to wander into linguistics when he was teaching English literature in Africa, and then become one of the first scientists to discover how creole languages work.

Bickerton investigates the creole languages invented by the descendents of West Africans enslaved by European powers - - the English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch. He doesn't have the "Sitzfleisch" for library research, so he spends time in bars with the "unrighteous working class" in Columbia, Brazil, Barbados, Hawaii, Mauritius, and a dozen other places.

Bastard Tongues is a linguistic detective story. It takes Bickerton almost twenty years to find the answer to his mystery - - how creoles develop into full-fledged languages (just as complex as French or English) from the simpler contact languages (pidgins) that slaves used to communicate with their European overseers.

One of the most interesting of Bickerton's discoveries is how creoles exist on a continuum from "deeper" (almost incomprehensible to someone not a native speaker) to a level closer to the European language.

Bickerton goes into detail about how "the infernal machine" of a slave economy worked and shows how it was the nature of the slave economies in the "New World" that determined the evolution of their languages. Bickerton did as much for the field of history as linguistics. His analysis of the "expansion" and "establishment" phases of the American slave economies, and his investigation of the "maroons" - - escaped slaves, from the Spanish "cimarron," ("wild" or "runaway") is as interesting as the creole grammar.

His explanation of the TMA systems (tense, modality, aspect) in creoles will satisfy anybody who wants to get deep into interesting grammars without the academic jargon in some linguistics books. ("The difference between people and linguists is that people are interested in words and linguists are interested in grammar.")

Even if you're not overly interested in linguistics, but are interested in Hawaiin history, this book is fascinating. Sarah Roberts, one of Bickerton's students at the University of Hawaii, thought to look at court records rather than more literary sources for Hawaiin creole (or "Pidgin" with a capital P as it's called).

When Bickerton started in linguistics, there were three main theories about the origin of creoles: monogenesis (there was one ur-creole that influenced all the others), the superstrate theory (the creole mostly comes from the dominant language, say French or Portuguese), and the substrate theory (the creole mostly comes from the native language of the creole speakers (for instance, an indigenous West African language).

I never thought I'd say this in a review of a linguistics book, but SPOILER AHEAD.

Derek Bickerton showed that creole languages follow the same bioprogram that all human beings use to invent language, and that the reason creoles in the Pacific and South America resemble each other in basic grammar is because their users have the same mental equipment.

It looks like Bickerton's real intellectual leap wasn't so much in assuming creole-speaker-creators would use the same process as other kinds of language users, it was in NOTICING IN THE FIRST PLACE that the grammars of unrelated creoles were very much alike in very basic ways.
Bickerton's comparison of Saramaccan (a creole spoken in Surinam, with primarily English vocabulary) and Fa d'Ambu (the language of an island off West Central Africa with primarily Portuguese vocabulary) proves it.

Obviously, this owes something to Noam Chomsky's Universal Grammar (or Steven Pinker's "language instinct"), but Bickerton doesn't get involved in nature vs. nurture or biology vs. culture arguments. One thing I like about books by British and Australian linguists is that they don't feel the need to affirm or refute Chomsky's ideas. They take what works and leave what doesn't.

Bickerton also writes about Nicaraguan Sign Language, since deaf children create the same kind of full-bodied language that speaking children do, only using the mode of gesture instead of speech. Signed languages are just as complex as spoken ones. (Anyone who's read this far in this review will enjoy Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind by Margalit Fox.)

More controversially, Bickerton proposes what linguists historically have called "The Forbidden Experiment," and which the National Science Foundation once approved for him, then cancelled. There are stories of rulers and "scientists" who supposedly isolated children without a language to see what would happen. (Fox's book Talking Hands goes into this subject as well, since that's the situation for deaf children who find themselves in a community of other deaf children, in which case they will create a basic pidgin in sign. When deaf children find themselves with others who have a basic sign language, they grammaticalize the pidgin and create a creole, a fully-formed signed language.)

I'm not as sure as Bickerton that the experiment he's proposing is a good idea, but like a lot in this book, it makes you think.

We all love a mystery, especially a big one, and the mystery of the origins of language is still a big one. Language is our most human invention. We start to talk before we start to walk. It seems so natural within the human experience that we look for it in other species and build it into our machines. Language allows us, not only to communicate but, to refine our thoughts before we even speak and in the process change the way we think. We see language as another indicator of how intelligent we really are; but is language our own clever invention or is it the result of a biological template we all possess that makes talking trash as natural as walking tall?

"Bastard Tongues" by Derek Bickerton proposes an answer to this provocative question in a charming and funny memoir of his studies abroad. That rare academic with a preference for field work, Bickerton, with his trusty tape recorder by his side, has parked himself in the middle of things all over the world to hear those "funny" languages spoken by the people who use them every day. In the process he makes you regret whatever career choice you may have made and wish that you had been smart enough to have chosen linguistics. Bickerton has spent his life answering opportunity's knock to study creole languages everywhere and the consequence of this lifetime of research is a fascinating theory that changes the way we view ourselves and the tool we use so often that we rarely give it any thought at all.

In "Bastard Tongues", Bickerton uses creole to illustrate how fundamental language really is. Children invent it. Creole languages exist all over the world using different root languages but essentially all recognizably creole and related by grammar and structure, not the language of the individual words used. Creole languages evolved wherever two or more different cultures were forced to agree on a pidgin form of their languages, simply to communicate, and their children took that skeleton and fleshed it out with all the richness and complexity of creole in just one generation. According to Bickerton's theory, the worldwide existence of creole languages demonstrates clearly that humans possess a bio-program for language. He presents all of this in a delightfully entertaining new book.

Bickerton shares with us this fascinating journey of discovery as it takes him from the jungles of South America to the halls of academia, providing all of the humor and historical perspective necessary to thoroughly enjoy his astounding adventure. We all love a mystery and the mystery of language and what it can tell us about mankind is only now being revealed by talented people like Derek Bickerton. "Bastard Tongues" is a true story that convincingly argues the importance of the study of linguistics. Bickerton's gift is to leave you wanting more.

When I picked up Derek Bickerton's latest book, "Bastard Tongues", I expected to find a scholarly treatise on the origins and journeys of the so-called low languages, and I wasn't disappointed. What I had not expected was to be entertained, intrigued and delighted to be taken on a magical journey, with a master story-teller as my guide.

Bickerton does a masterly job of tracing the roots (and routes) of pidgin languages from such diverse origins as West Africa and Northern South America, the Seychelles and Hawaii, and asking the question - why they produce so many words and phrases in common, without any known previous contact.

But it's Derek Bickerton's own fact-finding journey that provides the entertainment in this book. Part scholarly tome, part travelogue, part autobiography, "Bastard Tongues" is a plain-spoken and frequently disrepectful memoir, replete with hilarious tales of the tribulations of a language detective. Whether slogging through the bush in Guyana, carousing with the creoles in Columbian bars, or careening across deserts in the most precarious forms of transportation in search of a thread to link the most basic forms of communication, Bickerton keeps one entertained and delighted from beginning to end. I couldn't put it down.

This book was reviewed in the NY Times, LA times and Washington Post all on the same day. For some reason, Amazon only posts the Washington Post review and not the other ones, which I think were much more accurate.

The last sentence of the Washington Post review leaves the impression that the book may be a slog for non-linguists - but I have to say the opposite is true. I know next to nothing about linguistics, but found the linguistic parts to be very understandable and informative. Most of the book is about characters, situations and little known bits of intriguing history, woven together in a compelling way. It's not often that you want to read a non-fiction book all in one go, but this book was impossible to put down.

The writer's love of travel and ideas and his genuine interest in the people and world he encounters is positively infectious. Reading the book made me want to dump my job and go back to school to start a new vocation - something Derek Bickerton himself did. Just take a look at the LookInside pages and see for yourself.

I am not a linguist, but I thoroughly enjoyed "Bastard Tongues" written by Derek Bickerton. This book details Bickerton's adventures to out-of-the-way places around the world while studying creole and pidgin languages. It is beautifully written with such enthusiasm that it sweeps the reader along and makes it virtually impossible to put the book down.
This book is quite unique in that it is both a personal memoir and a travelogue while at the same time teaching interesting facts about pidgin and creole languages in a way that is easily understood by the layperson.
There is a lot of humor here and, all in all, I found this book to be extremely entertaining, and a worthwhile read.

John Fraim has distilled the essence of the conflict between East and West and delivered it to us from many points of view that makes it clear why we are in the mess burned into our consciousness by 9/11.

This is a must read for people who just don't understand why the world seems to hate us.

Fraim does any excellent, and comprehensive job of covering an important piece of intellectual territory.

In our everyday life we often are oblivious to the impact the manipulation of symbols has on us. Marekting of consumer products, the images of our popular culture and the things we call 'entertainment'. And yes, politics......

All these topics are covered in some detail that canhelp you understand the sublte, and not so subliminal images and symbols which enter our lives everyday.

The last two years has rocked our world with a sharpening conflict of very basic symbols, values and beliefs. Fraim's book is a must read for anyone who wants to elevate thier thinking beyond the reactive mode and truly begin to understand how powerful the use of symbols is in shaping our core thinking, beliefs, attitudes and ultimately behavior--both in the grocery store and the voting booth.

This is a fascinating report of a time which has forever altered the course of the world, namely the months immediately following September 11, 2001.

Mr. Fraim, whose elusive position makes hime difficult to label or pin-down, analyzed and drew from various media sources almost daily thoughout this time period and what he ended up with sometimes feels more like a "thriller" than an alalysis or report on current events. Ambivalent and highly symbolic photos thoughout the book give this unique piece of work an enigmatic feeling.

If this topic interests you, once you have picked this book up you will find it hard to put down.

Symbols increasingly shape our lives but few understand their influence over us. This book offers a brilliant and fascinating primer on contemporary symbols. The author - a leading authority on symbols and creator of the Internet's most popular site for symbolism - takes symbols out of reference books, religions, psychoanalysis, literature and art and places them in the center of popular culture and the global battles being fought today. America is placed at the center of global symbol creation with Hollywood and Madison Avenue (entertainment and advertising) as the great creators of global symbolism, New York media as the communicator of symbols and Washington DC as the great manager of symbols. All of this is explored in the light of 9/11. A brilliant and essential new perspective on the world.

It has become a cliché in modern communications theory that perception is everything. Mass media create "views" of things and events, which are governed by a contest between symbols since the difference between contents is negligible ... Coke and Pepsi, Chevy and Pontiac, Walmart and Sears, Harvard and Yale.

John Fraim's brilliant, witty and entertaining Battle of Symbols might, nevertheless, take the title of The Marketing of Soft Power. The emerging new paradigm of power, soft power, as John Fraim defines it, is the power of the information age, which replaces the hard power of the passing industrial era of economic growth. Fraim comes to this subject with background as the president of GreatHouse Company, a marketing and consulting firm. He is widely published in marketing and psychology journals.

Fraim quotes Joseph Nye from The Economist to the effect that "modern power has less relationship to the reality of resources and more to the hyper-reality of images and perceptions." The events of 9/11 are for Fraim a prime example of the power of symbols to establish and control thought, particularly regarding the question of why America is so intensely disliked around the world. The selfless champions of freedom and democracy (symbolically at least) could not understand the severe clash of symbols set loose in their Arabic adventure into Afghanistan and Iraq. Where does this attitude come from? What does it feed on? According to Fouad Ajami, a leading US Middle East scholar, "The Anti-Americanism is automatic, unexamined, innate. To Islamists (America) is a defiling presence; to pan Arabists, the backer of a Zionist project to dominate the region."

The Americans are equally biased. Harvard historian Samuel Huntington expresses the bias perfectly: "The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power."

Others agree with this view. Columnist Andrew Sullivan sees the US engaged in a religious war: "The religious dimension of the conflict is central to its meaning." Islam carries with it symbolic weights and values that abhor the decadence of American culture, or lack of it. The outcome of the West/Middle East conflict will have profound culture impact on both sides whether each side is ready for it or not. The symbolic allegiances will shift.

Fraim deftly reveals the powerful forces of symbolism and their covert global inter-relationships with a page turning excellence of prose style. There is also a vein of choice quotable stuff throughout the book. Battle of Symbols is an eclectic yet focused study of symbol power. Besides the witty description of Islam as a "cool" medium borrowed from Marshall McLuhan and not to argue whether a religion is actually an independent medium of communication, Fraim invokes the best insights not only from McLuhan but also Arthur Kroker Edmund Carpenter, and Donald Theall et al.to add the high seriousness that the subject demands.

Fraim does an excellent job of cutting through the difficulties of information overload quoting pithily from Otto Rank: "For the time being I gave up writing ... there is already too much truth in the world ... an over-production which apparently cannot be consumed." His analysis of the effects of the Internet is rare in its perception especially of its propagandistic role in American political life. Even the dangers in understanding are dealt with insightfully: "There is a great paradox involved with understanding ... Understanding symbols offers the threat of reducing their power. In the same way that greater production leaves less time for observation." The book ends on an ominous demographic note: "The Arab world has a large youthful population while American has a large aging population."

Fraim's message, however, is positive and reassuring even in its deadly accurate treatment of the inadequacies of the present political and economic troubles multiplying from our lack of understanding of how vital it is to have a practical knowledge of symbolic values. I strongly recommend this excellent study to all students of communication.

College was over 10 years ago for me but this useful little hardcover has remained a fixture on my desk through law school and several jobs.

I'm not one of Dr. Perrin's students, and I really have no clue about his qualifications beyond writing this book, but I can definitely vouch for its usefulness. It's useful for several reasons. It's clear, it's concise, and it's indexed well. Grammar tends not to suffer the fluid trends of popular fancy, so my circa 1989 second edition is still an essential in my writing arsenal - but I would like to see an update in my lifetime.

I would highly recommend purchasing this handbook above all others. I had Dr. Perrin as a professor in college many years ago as an English Major. I have used this book as a college student, a middle and high school teacher, and now in the training field. I recommend the purchase of this handbook to all new trainers for it is the easiest to use and most well orgainized book for beginning writers on the market. I have purchased others, but I keep going back to Dr. Perrin's Beacon.

I had to purchase this book when I was in college. I thought it odd when I picked it up. The book is a wonderful resource. I had Dr. Perrin as a professor and he is as down to earth and easy to understand as this book. Now that I am a teacher I use the book all the time. It is especially great when you need to find something quickly. This book is never too far out of my reach.

One of the finest, most comprehensive, and easiest-to-use guidebooks on the market, updated with concise direction in dealing with documentation of the newest forms of media. Helped me through four years of college at Indiana State (as one of Dr. Perrin's students), three years as a high school English teacher (where my students used it more than I did), and now as a web professional at a small southern college. Highly recommended.

One of the finest, most comprehensive, and easiest-to-use guidebooks on the market, updated with concise direction in dealing with documentation of the newest forms of media. Helped me through four years of college, three years as a high school English teacher (where my students used it more than I did), and now as a manager with an internet company. Highly recommended!

But this book is really fun, especially for the car obsessed. Four different colors of bears race around a crazy race track, going "over" and "under", "around" and "behind" and playing dirty tricks on each other in rhyme. Not a cloying book like many others in the series. A favorite for ages 3 to 4.

My 23 month old is really into cars. He wants to read this book over and over and over. It is really cute and teaches 5 colors and five car "sounds", along with up, down, around, and through. I think it's hilarious when the "big mean green car" plays a dirty trick and my son says "OH NO!". It also teaches the lesson of persitence and patience. Very fun book!

This is such a cute book, both for toddlers but also for new readers. It rhymes thoughout the book and basically, is the story of the tortoise and the hare but with racecars. It's really, really cute, rhymes well, and makes learning to read quite the fun time. Highly recommend!

Our 23-month-old toddler really loves this book. If you have a child who loves cars, get this book! It's really charming, humorous and fun for the parent, too.

My nephew has this book almost memorized, he enjoys the story so much. The race cars are illustrated in bright colors making learning fun. The excitement builds throughout the book, and the story teaches a message about persistence. I would recommend this book for any public or private library.

This book is a great resource. While I could give teachers the link to THWT website, passing around a paper copy has led to even more discussion, collaboration and interest. We had a copy out in the faculty lounge, and teachers from grades k-8 all found resources that were useful. Clear, well-organized, and easy to read, this is fantastic for teachers who want to spend 10 min. scanning or those who want a weekend of reading. It is helpful on both specific content links and more general resources. Get a copy for your library or faculty lounge!

Mobile technology does some wonderful things; forcing us to read through Internet pages on small screens while worrying about battery drain is not one of them. Tom Daccord offers history educators, library media specialists, and other interested readers a solution to this very problem with the most mobile, functionally-reliable technology of all: a good old-fashioned book.

Mr. Daccord's Best of History Web Sites is the perfect guidebook to help you plan and succeed on your journey through the varied and often challenging landscape of historical resources on the Web. Anytime, anywhere, the book's pages are yours to flip through, mark up, highlight, dog-ear, and re-read as you peruse the robust compilation of well annotated Web resources. Furthermore, the introductory chapters offer simple, concrete, and productive steps that you can take immediately to begin making your journey through history on the Web an easier, more efficient, and more engaging one.

Whether you consider yourself an adept online researcher, a novice Googler, or a bona fide Luddite, you can learn from this book and bring your skills with identifying and utilizing history Web sites in education to the next level. If only there were a book and accompanying Web portal like this for every subject!

Tom Daccord has done a strange, but incredibly useful thing; he has delivered his tremendous online resource, www.besthistorysites.net, in book form. It is seemingly odd because you have to ask yourself why you would purchase a paper version of a website that you get for free online. The first couple of chapters, Locating & Evaluating History Web Sites and Integrating History Web Sites in the Classroom, cover very important ideas that are in tune with his other web site, Teaching History with Technology (www.thwt.org). This part of the book offers great overviews on how to seek out, vet, and use online resources for any teacher regardless of the subject. Mr. Daccord also discusses how to teach this in class. The meat of the book is valuable because it really lends itself to how teachers work.

I work as a Technology Coach for an elementary school district in a suburb of Chicago. As part of my job I am always trying to build connections with classroom teachers. One of the best ways for me to do that is provide them with easy-to- use resources that they didn't previously know about. When I got Tom's book I emailed all of our middle-school social studies teachers. I told them about Tom's book & suggested that if they had any upcoming units for which they wanted more online resources than they already had I would be happy to look them up in The Best of History Websites & pass them along. Within a few hours I got replies from almost every teacher with request for various topics like ancient civilizations in Egypt, Rome, & Greece, WWII & The Holocaust, The Cold War, The Middle East China and its culture, religion, economy, geography, history, government, and present status, various topics focusing on Europe, Vietnam, Civil Rights, Watergate to "New World Order" , The Post 9/11 World, and the second industrial revolution/ growth of cities late 1800s/early 1900s.

The next day I had teachers stopping in to borrow the book - and that's where I think the real value is in The Best of History Websites. Teachers do a lot of planning & note taking in places where they don't have access to the web, but this book makes thousands of web-based resources for teachers available for lesson planning at any time. As mobile as computing technology is, it's still lags, at least a bit, behind a book. And yes, I found one link that needed to be updated, but out of the 75 or so that I checked, that's a darned good ratio!

For teachers looking for new ways to integrate technology in the classroom Mr. Daccord has hundreds of helpful links, ideas, & suggestions too. There are specific lesson plans, online maps, teaching guides, and activities that extend outside the classroom. This book is a real goldmine.

I'm sure that anyone considering purchasing this tome has already become familiar with the remarkable "Best of History Website." The question that immediately comes to mind is why the oxymoron of a book about websites? There are three reasons: One is the comfort of reading through a book rather than scanning webpages. Anyone who flips through the 400+ pages will immediately be drawn in by the breadth and depth of the sites reviewed. The PBS, the BBC, the Library of Congress and The New York Times websites are well represented, but there are also many obscure, yet fascinating, sites included. The extensive index is a shortcut to discovering hidden gems. The second value of this book is as a step in the conversion of the technophobic social studies teacher. I brought the book to my faculty meeting and passed it around. It was wonderful to hear the little gasps of excitement from some of the, shall we say, mature teachers who didn't know that there were so many wonderful sites on Mesoamerica or The Great Depression. One colleague tried to abscond with it! The third value of this book is the excellent chapter "Integrating History Web Sites in the Classroom." This section summarizes the best-practice use of the internet in the classroom and gave me a number of ideas of ways to make better use of computers in my class.

It is so helpful to have one resource that lists such a comprehensive
collection of online links for our teachers, in a volume that can be
marked up and passed around. The descriptions are accurate, and the
selection of resources is varied and valuable. Thank you for creating
such a wonderful resource!

I love the way this book redesigns the creative sense of writing. To think that a college paper can utilize 6-12 different genres to represent one wholistic them is brilliant!

This latest book by Romano provides yet another way to incorporate writing into the classroom. He briefly touched upon the mulit-genre paper in his Writing with Passion book, but fully expands the ideas in this book. This book is helpful for those who have not used the mulit-genre paper. (Sharon Draper's Tears of a Tiger is a great example of a multi-genre book.) Included in the back of the book is a reference list of teachers who teach the multi-genre paper with ways to get in touch with those teachers. If you are looking for a way to get your students thinking while they're writing, get this book. You can't go wrong with the examples that are included or the many contacts provided.

I love this book and have decided to base my Masters Project on this concept. Tom Romano gives such clear and concise examples and information that this book is such an easy, but very imformative read. There are several whole multigenre papers that are printed in their original form in the book that I found very helpful in explaining what forms these papers might take.

This book gives many examples of an emerging style of writing, the blended genre book. Originally designed for classroom teachers, this book explores the concept of writing a collection of short pieces on a related theme or topic, and allowing the subject matter of each piece to determine the appropriate genre of presentation for the material. The book offers many examples of college level work that are appropriate for high school Students. The elementary and middle school examples are average or low-level responses that may or may not encourage your students to do their best work. I used this book successfully with my seniors last year on a final project that resulted from a preliminary research assignment as an alternative to a second major research paper for the year.

For authors that are interested in writing in this style, it explains the concept of the multigenre text and refers repeatedly to Michael Ondjatte's work "The Life and Times of Billy the Kid." If you can find this book, it is a great example of a Multigenre work.

The one area that is less than five star quality is the explanation given for the concept of "the repetend." Tom Romano's explanation of the repetend, or the unifying element that ties all of the separate genre pieces together, is slippery at best. Romano's explanation does not make this concept any clearer for the writer or the teacher.

What do Avi, Sharon Draper, Walter Dean Myers and Stephen King have in common?

They all write books that secondary school kids love to read and they have all begun to experiment with blending genre and style in their novels. This book is a fantastic resource for the writer and/or instructor of writing. I happen to be both, and the masterful teachings of Tom Romano have been instrumental in elevating my ability as a writer and enhancing my skill as a teacher.

Romano crusades on a mission of smashing the shackles of expression in writing without destroying the important standards of traditional expository and descriptive approaches. I am not sure how he would feel about this extended metaphor, but I feel like he helped me organize my toolbox and left me with a great new power screw driver to boot!

I have watched very reluctant writers get excited about composition when they are presented with the idea of designing a skateboard graphic design or cartoon... to express their opinion on a given theme. Romano helps us give permission to students to look around the world they live in for models of authentic writing and experiment with using those models in both descriptive and expository (and dare I say even research report) assignments.

I promise this, along with his other books, will rejuvenate your teaching and writing!