Virginia Books

If you are of appalachian descent and you want to understand how you got the way you are; if you read Oxford magazine and are amazed that someone from your background can write great literature; if you are amazed that you left the country but the hills never left your soul, this is the book to start with to begin to understand yourself.

The food in this book is simply wonderful! It has a good selection of both Tidewater Virginia recipes and also of cuisine from the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains. I grew up eating a lot of these foods and this book describes how to prepare them in a way that is very easy to follow.

This is one of the best books I have ever seen on land use planning and growth management. It is filled with color photos of conventional(i.e. bad) development and its alternatives. The book provides great data and arguments for improving the quality of new development.

I had to read this book for a course on Contemporary Religious Thought. And while it is densely philosophical and theological, I also found it to be a surprisingly accessible study of 20th century philosophical theology. I recommend it to anyone interested in the present and future of philosophical theology!

These books are wonderful and a must read for EVERY woman and man for that matter. Very enlightening, insightful, and informative.

I read this collection of "Big Bend" lore (relating to TransPecos Texas south of the first rail line, roughly south of the Davis Mtns) during a recent visit to the region, and was able to pick up on a lot of the cultural elements of this fascinating country. The publishing date (1955) gives it a peculiar added interest, namely that of a snapshot of west Texas at the outset of the "civil rights" era; Ms. Madison, like most intelligent white Southerners (yes, Texas was a "Southern state" at that time), varied between cultural liberality and defensiveness, a "we have problems, but we can solve them ourselves" sort of thing. She is a skilled discursive writer, and people with an interest in this area should find the book enjoyable.

Very pleased with this book. Page after page of pictures. Super resource for looking items up. Will use it year after year.

"The Big Box" is a Level 1 book from the Real KidsReaders series. My son is a still a beginning reader, strugglingsomewhat, and is easily frustrated when he finds he cannot read many of the words in a book. I have tried other beginning reader series of books found that several of their Level 1 titles were too advanced for him. I introduced this book to him, and lo and behold, he read an entire book by himself! His confidence level was raised by accomplishing this and now, since I've introduced other books in this series to him, he has started taking more risks and his reading is improving steadily.

I was very pleased that the content is phonics based, includes rhyming words, and bright photographs of the main characters - children who appear to be around the same age as the reader it was intended for. It also includes a page at the end with phonics guidelines and helpful hints for parents to make reading a positive experience for their children.

If you have beginning readers who are ready to tackle their first book by themselves, I highly recommend this book, and the others in this series.

This book isn't a how-to guide, but is a linguistic study of the simultaneous acquisition of both Cantonese and English by the authors' children which is a language pair somewhat neglected in previous literature. A knowledge of Cantonese is not required in order to understand what is covered as the authors do quite an admirable job with their explanations and theories, but it would give the reader more of an insight as to the "why" of things. This is a great book.