Interactive Books

As a new recruit in the growing international army of Civil War reenactors, I was anxious to evolve past the usual march-and-shoot mass maneuvers into effective first-person interaction with spectators. But having never even seen a living-history interpreter, I wasn't sure what to do. Then I found Ms. Roth's delightful book on the internet! She interviewed scores of experienced interpreters at the best living-history museums in the United States and Canada to find out how they hook -- and keep -- the interests of their visitors. The result is some imaginative out-of-the-box approaches that make visitors think they're being entertained instead of educated! The fun that the interpreters obviously have with their roles is infectious -- I could hardly wait to try it! This is a MUST read for anyone who's ever thought of going to a historical reinactment as either a participant or a spectator.

I have participated as a living history first person interpreter for over 6 years, and have been a visitor at many living history sites across the country. I am also the period costume coordinator for a living history site. I have seen first hand many effective and ineffective presentations.

While reading and searching for textbooks for our upcoming "Dame School" program for young ladies at our site, I came across this book. Since the text is clear and written to be interesting as well as educational,I have chosen it as a textbook for our "school". I believe our young students will be able to relate well to the book, and that we will be able to use this book to guide them to more effectual presentations. I also highly recommend it for adults.

This book is very good at giving hints on how to engage visitors in conversations useful in imparting stories of the site one is working, as well as methods to diffuse potential problems. It presents varied types of sites which were reviewed by the author, and gives good examples of what is effective and what is not. This book also discusses class distinctions and first person interpretations of difficult and traumatic events and activities of the past, such as slavery. To give a well rounded view of history, first person interpreters can't just present the rosy side of life!

The extensive listing of living history sites which is in the back section of the book would be very useful to persons who are considering the hobby or profession of first person interpretation.

Television, movies, computers, even video games have changed the way we look at history. Recently written books on history are now in a style that gives the reader a greater understanding of what our founding father's and 19th century pioneer's daily lives were like.
Everything, it seems, is three dimensional today. Try visiting an American History museum - it's not your father's museum, that's for sure!
In her book, "Past Into Present," Ms. Roth just about covers every aspect of presenting history in all its glory and gore by using the process known as 1st person. First person brings the folks from the distant past back to life by having a re-enactor or a museum docent dress in period clothing, doing a job or a chore from the past, and speaking as if they actually ARE that long-dead person, alive again, here to share their knowlegde of times gone by. I, myself, impose a 1st person technique for my civilian impression in the 21st Michigan Civil War reenactors, and I must say that "Past into Present" truly helped me understand the importance of what I am representing while doing my impression. Through her book Ms. Roth also helped me see the pros and cons of being a 1st person living historian as well - how to stay in character, for instance, without jumping back and forth between first and third person.
From what I have seen at some re-enactments - and even at a museum - some living historians do not give the past the justice it deserves. They are the ones who should own this book as well. I've learned to give the reverence these folks from the past that we are emulating the respect they so deserve.
The writer can get a bit wordy (so can I, can't you tell?) but if you are one who is a bit more passionate about the past and would rather get deeper involved in history than the average person, then I would suggest you taking a gander at this book and read how you can become one from the past into the present at your next reenactment.

This book is great for kids. The illustrations are wonderful, the story is interesting and educational. My daugther loves it.

This is a good little book for those learning the Spanish language on several levels.

My 3 year old granddaughter never tires of hearing the story over and over of a selfish fish who learns how to give. The holograms thruout the book fascinate her.

Ahoy, mateys! Famed pirate hunter Captain William Lubber just will not rest until he has captured every last seafaring villain to wreak havoc on the open water. In PIRATEOLOGY: GUIDEBOOK AND MODEL SET, the companion to Dugald A. Steer's PIRATEOLOGY, the good captain employs (forces, rather) the help of one very bad pirate to better understand just how these wily buccaneers storm the seven seas.

Designed as a private journal brimming with the same fanciful art, historical trivia and hair-raising adventure that made the 'Ologies books bestsellers, every aspect of pirate life is carefully detailed in Lubber's handwritten notes and elaborate illustrations --- from instructions on how to sail (or, more importantly, seize) a ship and the ways captives are punished, to what the crew will typically eat, drink, wear and do to keep themselves entertained.

The antiquated maps, charts and secret code keys, as well as an intricate scale model of a typical pirate ship to build yourself, make this breathtaking guidebook the most valuable tool on any young pirate hunter's next great adventure.

--- Reviewed by Marisa Emralino

i gave this book as a gift to an 8-year-old boy, and he was absolutely thrilled. He marched right upstairs and assembled the pirate ship model, then came back within the hour to show it to his mom and me. It's a book AND a toy combined!

My son really enjoyed reading a couple of pages in this each night and discovering exciting things on every page. So did I!

"A Place In The Sky" is a beautifully illustrated and well crafted story about the magical place balloons go when they fly away from the little hands who hold them. The story follows Sarah in her dreams as she journeys to the far away place above the clouds where the balloons go. After sadly losing her purple balloon to the sky, Sarah's mom tells her of the place where balloons go far above the clouds. In her dreams Sarah is able to journey there with her purple balloon to see how beautiful and magical this balloon land really is. A land of color, balloons, candy, rides, and all of the things children enjoy. After waking, Sarah sees a green balloon attached to her bed. Her mother had gone out and bought the special balloon and some orange-vanilla cream. Sarah now knew her mother had once visited this magical balloon land where balloons smell like orange-vanilla ice cream. This journey is magical and beautiful. We all know children who have lost a balloon at least once or twice and now we have a wonderful story to tell.

Reviews from kids in Georgia. "I had to share this book with a few children in the neighborhood and here's what they had to say"

Elijah, age 8. Last week my mom bought balloons for my step-dads birthday. I was upset when I let them go on accident. Now that I read this book, I fell happy because the balloons are playing with other balloons.

Cheyenne, age 7. I really like the book. It was fun and colorful. My mom never told me this story, but now I can tell her where balloons go. She will think I'm really smart.

My mom is helping me write this because I really, really love the story. I'm 6 and I can read it all by myself. The pictures are so pretty and I want to visit the place where the little girl went with her balloon. It's my favorite book now. I sleep with it under my pillow, if I do that, maybe the balloon will visit me someday.

A Place In The Sky is by far one of the most beautifully written and illustrated children's picture book I ever read. I feel the loss of the balloon and the fantasyland little Sarah visits is symbolic for more significant losses, and a tender, sensitive way for parents to help their child cope, whether it is death or divorce or a lost pet.

I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone; it is a breath of fresh air and a "must have" for parents who want their children to experience an engaging story that cultivates kindliness, humanity and consideration for others.

I am so blessed to have read this book, and so will you be! I am the author prayer books myself, and have spent countless hours in the Word, studying-practicing & living prayer...and every time I pick up one of her books, I am still blessed with new insight and inspiration for prayer!
In this book Stormie goes into great explanation about the basics of prayer, what it IS and IS NOT...and why God desires us to pray, privately and corporately. She also gives a lot of personal and Scriptural proof of God's call and blessing upon PRAYER IN AGREEMENT!
This book is very informational about prayer, especially in forming groups and gives alot of examples from her prayer groups and her church! I felt as if I had attended a service or two with Pastor Jack teaching after I finished this book. THEY ARE LIVING PROOF, as IS THEIR CHURCH OF THE POWER OF PRAYER!
GOD IS WAITING AND WANTING TO DO HIS WILL ON EARTH< IN OUR HEARTS & LIVES...HE IS JUST WAITING FOR THOSE WHO WILL BELIEVE ENOUGH IN HIM TO ASK!
I am so glad that she also emphasized the beautiful, godly relationships that are only formed as people pray together. I had gotten away from prayer groups (in person) and had only been doing it online or over the phone. WELL, THIS BOOK INSPIRED ME TO RETURN TO THE BLESSING A GROUP OF LIKE-MINDED WOMEN PRAYING TOGETHER, in person as well!!(or of course men and couples). My best friendships and fondest memories, and GREATEST BREAKTHROUGHS have been born in and from "agreement prayer," especially in prayer groups!
God PROMISES in James THAT IF WE WILL CONFESS OUR SINS TO ANOTHER & PRAY FOR EACH OTHER THAT WE WILL BE HEALED..then, THE PRAYER OF THE RIGHTEOUSNESS PERSON IS POWERFUL & EFFECTIVE!! God COULD just zap us and heal us...but He uses people, and those who will send forth His Word in prayer. He COULD just DO HIS WILL, BUT HE WON'T UNTIL WE BELEIVEThis can't be done by ourselves, but in relationship. God created us to worship Him, and to do this privately and TOGETHER!!
She also does a great job of teaching the importance to be praying "beyond ourselves" for other peoples and countries by praying specifically. When we have a target, we give God something to work with. He gives us the desire and "prompting" to pray for another, so that we may invite His will and power to come in and transform the situation/person with His Love & GLory!
THERE ARE THINGS THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN>>IF WE DON'T PRAY...AND THERE ARE THINGS THAT WILL HAPPEN, IF WE DON'T...
If you are ready to learn to pray and stand in the GAP, this book will help to equip and inspire you!! She, as always gives real life stories, great Scriptural teaching, and this time has added numerous quotes from Pastor Jack's sermons on prayer!! ANOINTED & POWERFUL TEACHING!!
READ THIS BOOK, Prayerfully, AND ALLOW GOD TO WORK, PRAY, AND LOVE THROUGH YOU!!! YOU NEVER KNOW WHO & WHERE GOD IS WAITING TO BLESS>>AND YOU NAY BE THE ONE HE IS WAITING TO ASK!!
YOU WILL BE MIGHTILY BLESSED AS YOU READ THIS BOOK & DO WHAT IT SAYS!!
BE SURE TO ALSO READ HER BOOK "THE PRAYER THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING" POWER PACKED PRAYER IS BIRTHED AND USHERED FROM HEAVEN IN PRAISE!!
TAMMY M PRICE/AUTHOR:
40 Day Journey to the Heart of God
PRAYING GOD'S WORD for the WORLD-Lighting Pathways of Blessing!
Alphabet Prayers: The Power of Praying Scripture into the Hearts You Love

If anyone could write a book about the power of praying, it is Stormie Omartian. If you pray at all, you will want to read this book. It will encourage you to strengthen your prayer habit. If you are curious about the benefits of prayer, or exactly how to go about it, this book is for you. You will be instructed and encouraged to develop a personal prayer habit.
Once you develop this personal prayer habit, you will indeed experience the truth that there is power in prayer.
Another great job, Stormie!

After her books Power of a Praying Wife and Power of a Praying Husband, I expected this to be more along the lines of a Praying Couples book. Instead, Stormie went with a look at prayer groups and congregational prayer. This is not a bad thing, in fact I found it an excellent book, but if, like me, you're looking for a book to draw yourself closer to your spouse in prayer, be forewarned that this is not that book. Buy it anyway.

This book spends more time dealing with the subjects of "what prayer is" and "why you should pray" than her other books. It also goes into how to pray and different kinds of prayers (confession, intercession, etc.). If you're a new Christian or haven't had much of a prayer life, this is an excellent book to get you started.

The entire book is great, but my favorite section is where Jack Hayford describes people who pray as lightning rods, acting as the conduit through which God exerts his power on Earth (pp. 91-92). There are a lot of powerful word pictures like that throughout the book; that's just the one that hit home with me.

The only thing I didn't like about the book is that Jack Hayford's comments on prayer are all related in the past tense. Granted, some of them are included as part of actual past events, conversations or sermons, and there it's totally appropriate. Elsewhere, though, the verb tense should have been modified to make them feel more current. It's not a big thing, but it does make his comments feel dated.

As I said before, if you don't know much about prayer or you don't spend much time praying this is an ideal book for you. If you do have a prayer life, but it's grown stale or could use a good goosing, this book is for you, too. I still think "The Power of Praying Spouses" would make a good book, but I'm glad Stormie has written this book as well.

I was promoted to run the call center in our company. We have two centers with 300 Telephone and Customer sales reps. I have no expernce in computers except for my PC. I bought this book to help me talk to the computer staff. They cannot fool me as much now. They were too busy for the call center. Now they understand we make most of the money. This book help me present this better.

For most customer communications, the call of the customer contact center is the point of entry. Author Andrew Waite does an excellent job in this book of explaining the strategies, techniques and technologies to ensure that you get the most out of your telephone call portion of your customer contact center investment. Waite first goes on to explain a few parts and principles that affect the customer call center manager. Next, the author touches on staffing and the importance of adequate labor pools in the location you have chosen to operate your customer contact center. Then, Waite focuses on the telephone call component and the management of telephony workflow. Next, the author deals with the hardware, architecture and relationship between the components and subsystems of a switching system, which includes the automatic call distributor (ACD) system (of which the author acknowledges that there is no easy way to catergorize ACD systems). Then, Waite looks at the instruments used in the traditional call center.

So, as customer contact center managers become more sophisticated and mature in their role, according to the author, they grow to trust the machine data and, thus, need fewer comprehensive reports. Nevertheless, Waite points out one inteesting fact out of all this that is coming out of call center operations: Unless it is a pure direct sales respnse, most calls happen for less than positive reasons.

Finally, with the preceding in mind, Waite has done an outstanding job in this book of identifying the major trends within the customer contact center industry center around explosive technology growth. This has led to a growing library of open architectures with industry standard interfaces, more sophisticated tools reisding in smaller centers and more component applications involved in each transaction.

A Practical Guide To Call Center Technology: Select The Right Systems For Total Customer Satisfaction by telecommunications expert Andrew J. Waite is a highly informational book for businesspeople who need to set up a telephone system to handle customer orders, complains, and other important matters. Fielding long-distance calls from any number of people for good business is no small feat, and chapters from this guide address such diverse issues as basic connection and setup, typical switching systems, the value of an ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) system, and much more. A glossary at the back helps readers unfamiliar with the terminology catch up quickly...A solid, fact-filled, and highly useful guide for anyone who needs to launch an effective and efficient call center -- and keep it running smoothly!

If you want to understand how DSL works and how to shop for a DSL provider, this is THE book to get. The authors do an excellent job of explaining DSL quickly and clearly. This is NOT one of those books written by a computer geek who understands the subject but doesn't understand how to explain it to others. After reading this book I understand how DSL works, and I was able to purchase DSL service to host a server for my business. For those who want to understand DSL but do not need to know ALL the technical details, this is the book to get.

I work for a small law firm and I've been trying to convince the partners to install a DSL line (30 employees were sharing 4 analog lines for Internet service). After purchasing and reading this book I was able to cobble together a proposal (with judicious sections of the book attached) that convinced management to purchase DSL. Although I'm not a computer network professional (I'm a paralegal) I was able to install and set up sharing of the DSL service without calling in the expensive network consultant we normally use. The book made installation and sharing very easy.

Thanks to this book the personnel in my office can now get on and off the Internet any time they wish.

The author explained DSL, its advantages and disadvantages so clearly that even our most computer phobic partner had no trouble understanding what I was talking about.

I've been wrestling with DSL, Cable, Satellite, Wireless for many months. I wanted a high speed connection for my home but found digging through the confusing technology impossible. Then I found and read Ms. Reynolds book. She does a fantastic job of explaining DSL, what it is, how to get it, why you can't get it, etc. I am no longer confused. Thank you Ms. Reynolds!

Exceedingly well written, concise, interesting, perhaps life-changing, this book makes the science seem less complex and easier to comprehend. A great study companion for my human physiology course, a major aid to my exam scores. Highly recommended for serious or casual studies, or even anyone with interest in the human body at all. I would even read this on my free time; in fact, Im going to go explore the unassigned chapters...

Excellent as an introductory text. Everything is thoroughly explained and the software provided is a great studying tool as well.

Great book to read for better understanding of human body functions. There are good and colorful illustrations in it. Through the guided illustrations and simplified physiological explanations, it makes easier to connect the function of one part of the body to the other.
Well I made good grade on my exam in anatomy and physiology anyhow ... so I can say that this book helped me a lot.

I was very happy with the information regarding the shipment and the prompt delivery of the item. On arrival the book was in excellent condition.

Very good book was shipped in the time stated at buying and was in stock when said.

The study guide with CD ROM gives a very organized approach to study information for the PTA Student preparing for the National Exam. It includes a CD ROM with 4 practice exams in the same format as the National Exam and explanation for each answer.

At first I was a bit perplexed by a CDROM that's more an interactive objet-d'art than a game; and in the first night I played with this for like eight hours, until I thought I'd played it to death and would never touch it again. But I found its strange imagery coming back to me, and I tinker with it more and more now, sometimes just to hear the interesting background music, of which there is a LOT.

The packaging for this CD says it contains over two hours of instrumental music or spoken word performance, and it's true. Some of the music I recognize from "Ugly One With The Jewels", and some of it was even background music that Laurie Anderson did for Spalding Grey's movie "Swimming to Cambodia" (and as far as I know, no soundtrack CD was ever released of that).

If you find yourself wanting to hear the music on its own, it's straightforward to sift thru the CDROM's directories, find the AIFC files (*.AIF), decompress them (easy on a Mac with SoundApp -- I don't know what you'd use for handling AIFCs on other platforms), and burn them to audio CD for your personal listening fun. Now, there's not many CDROMs where the music is so good that you'd want to do that! But this is sure one of them.

I would love to be able to review this CD-ROM, but 2 1/2 months
after placing my order, Amazon wrote that they could not supply
it.

So why does Amazon still have it for sale?

Clicking the "used and new" link, I find some used versions for
more than the "new" price". It seems there was originally a
Macintosh only version, and then a Windows/Mac version.
A "new" Mac/Windows version is available from Amazon seller
"amana2" for USD$225.

Googling indicates that the Voyager company which produced
"Puppet Motel" no longer exists. I can't find a mention of it at
Laurie Anderson's site, though apparently in the past there was
a reference, pointing to Amazon as the place to purchase the
CD-ROM.

"Puppet Motel" is highly regarded, so I gave it five stars in
absentia. But Amazon deserves a negative number of stars for
pretending to be able to supply it.

When I bought this I was a little worried it would be out of date because it is a few years old, but WOW! Incredible, awesome, always surprising, entertaining. I love it more than her CDs!