Languages Books

My toddler son is attending a French pre-school and we plan to enroll him in a French primary school as well. We don't know French at all and speak English in the home. We got this CD around his 2nd birthday and it has been a valuable tool. The songs and rhymes that are on the CD are the same songs and rhymes that he sings at school. I think this CD has helped him to learn faster and be able to "fit in" at school, when we, his parents, could not offer him any thing in this subject area!
The songs are very pleasant and not torture to parental ears, and the accents are authentic. This is 100% French language with no spoken English. However the CD does come with a booklet with the lyrics in both French and English, so if you don't now any French at all, you can read it and get some idea about what your little one is singing!

I love this CD. It is fun, very nice songs and rhymes. Very easy to follow. My kids listen to it every day in the car and in a month they are singing and counting in french.

The method is so wonderful that I just ordered the one for Chinese.

My 9mo. old loves this CD as much as I do. I studied French for 4 yrs and learned more from the songs on this CD! I like it because I don't get sick of it and find myself humming the songs when the CD is not on! I haven't bothered with the books yet but hopefully will get to them before baby finishes high school.

This CD is wonderful! I find a lot of products for children 2 and older but this product is geared specifically towards children ages 2 and younger who are learning another language. My degree is in French, so I understand the CD, and I think that the things that it teaches are excellent! It exposes children to sounds specific to french, like the double l which is pronounced y, the ever-problematic french "r", as well as idiomatic things like "Trois" as the number three as well as "toi" used as the informal you. Best of all it is all done in a fun way through songs, rhymes, etc. I put this CD on every night when my daughter goes to bed and we both really enjoy it!! I think I'm going to buy the Spanish and Italian ones too!

I just got this item yesterday and have not had a chance yet to go through the book but my first reaction is a little bit of disappointment.
I may not have read the exact description of the product but I was expecting a board baby book with lyrics and pictures and not a guide for parents that I am sure is nonetheless very interesting. We have another CD with a board book and it is truly amazing; The book is colourful and some of the songs are interpreted by children which is the second thing I was expecting from this product. It is so much fun to listen to those cute little voices instead of those quite boring adult voices.
The only thing I like about this CD is that it has a lot of songs and rhymes that I grew up with and I am glad that my son will be able to learn them because for most of them I had forgotten the lyrics.

This a great collection of poems from the past! If you enjoy whimsy, this is for you!

with eliot, a maximum of content is achieved through a FORM worked with a
care and conciousness not seen perhaps since the greeks. he understood,
as he once wrote, that the novel form ended with flaubert. in the centuries after picasso and stravinsky there is no place for anything in
literature which makes people remain sitting, whithout standing and perhaps dancing. the same thing could be said about pound, very different though very twin.

The Eliot of despair, the Eliot of 'Prufrock' and 'Wasteland' is contended with and overcome by the Eliot of the 'Quartets'. The message of modern mankind's meaninglessness, the broken fragments ( of Tradition) shored against his ruin is replaced by the vision of sacred turning, a Christian vision of redemption. Eliot is a writer whose work and life break down into these two distinct periods each of which has its champions in defining what is best in him.
As one raised on 'April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land' and 'Let us go then you and I when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table' the most memorable lines are certainly of the first phase where it ends not with a bang but with a whimper.
Yet my admiration for the hypnotic power of Eliot's memorable lines is strongly qualified by my knowledge of his 'Burbank with a Baedaker, and Bluestein with a Cigar' with his all too fashionable literary anti- Semitism. Of course Eliot was not preaching death camps and extermination but he did connect his work to the tradition of Christian Anti- Semitism.
Thus I have always had difficulty being comfortable with my 'enjoying of Eliot's poetry. And I have never been able to sympathetically read 'The Quartets.' They have always seemed to me to be too impersonal characterless and abstract.
Eliot who for most of the century strode the English Departments as if he were a colossus did noble work in reviving interest in 'The Metaphysicals' but somehow failed in my mind to write a poetry humanly rich in the deepest sense.

When you think of the best poets ever, T.S. Eliot is one of those that comes to mind. His work is well crafted, intelligent, beautifully written, and has a flow to it that few poets can match. And this is a fine collection for the Eliot lover or for the reader unfamiliar with Eliot. It's divided into several sections. The first section is his Prufrock section, poems from 1917, which contains probably his finest poems: "Prufrock", "Preludes" "Rhapsody on a Windy Night", "Hysteria", among others. Then there is the Poems 1920 section which also contains many fine poems ("Sweeney Erect" and "The Hippopotamus" being my favorites). Then follows his masterpiece The Wasteland. Then The Hollow Men which is followed by the wonderful Ash Wednesday. Then the Ariel Poems (which contains "Journey of the Magi"). Then there are two unfinished poems, "Sweeney Agonistes" and "Coriolan" which I thought were weak. Maybe they would have been great had he ever finished them. Then there is a section called minor poems followed by the mediocre "Choruses from 'The Rock.' And then there is what I consider to be his true masterpiece, "Four Quartets." And the book finishes with some occasional verses, one of which is a sweet and touching poem to his wife. This is a great collection of poems.

Yep, this is a great collection of Eliot's works. I initially found out about Eliot throught the Movie 'Apocalypse Now' in which Brando is heard reciting the poem 'The Hollow Men'. The poem sounded so good I hunted it down and came across this little book.

My favourite poems would have to be 'The Hollow Men', 'Love song of Prufrock', 'Ash Wednesday' and 'Rannoch, by Glencoe (perfectly captured, drive through Rannoch and you'll see ;-)

Yep, definetly worth a read.

As a person who abhors ignorance, especially that based upon religion this book was terrifying. The quote from the presiding judge is appropos.

The book is accurate and provides rich details concerning the lead up and the pitch-the play by play of what happened in Dover. And, most especially, how many Christians in that community were outraged by the high handed actions of the School Board.

Hint: Being a Christian, even one who professes to be fundamentalist, is not a priori evidence of one's being a brain dead zombie. Science is science and religion is religion and many of the devout can tell the difference ( and participated as plaintiffs in the case ).

So read the book if you want to understand what happened in Dover. Yes, many fundamentalist Christians don't see the line between religion and science and , indeed, most or at least many don't comprehend the intent of the first amendment.

But that first amendment gives them the right to speak their convicions openly. The Bill of Rights also gives them the right to organize and campaign politically to have their ( wrong ) ideas and objectives cast into law. That's what courts are for....to apply the Constitution to errant acts of both citizens and government.

So, let us not forget the inherent rights of the villians in this tale.

But I have a problem. I am not a true believer in the full platform of either the extreme right or left. I'm not partisan and don't belong to a political party. On some issues such as this one......the truth of evolution....I am hard left. On other issues I am hard right. So I have to watch my tongue lest I be attacked when among lefties or righties. Why argue? Most adults settle their core beliefs by age 18 anyway and most won't back down. It's a waste of time. Closedmindedness is, I firmly believe, a basic human trait. Not that I profess to be open minded. It's just that somehow my "core" beliefs are all over the map politically.

But, as Steven J. Gould frequently said, it's a sad thing that humans have to have it either all one way or all the other.....because, frequently the truth lies at neither extreme. ( to paraphrase his comments that humans naturally dichotomize issues-which, I think, is to save energy having to think for yourself.

I found the underlying tone in this accurate and insightful book to be partisan left. That's OK. The author tried to place this particular issue and the trial in the larger context of core beliefs of a portion of the populace ( of which I am not a part incidentally ). However, I think it's much more complicated than she comprehends.

I found highly partisan comments related to presidential elections, presidential politics, international affairs and other areas such as abortion rights that she believes are directly related to the mindset of the no nothing morons of the anti evolution crowd.

Hello, it's more complicated than your book makes it out to be and you would have been well advised to stick to the topic at hand. I suppose that these gratuitous comments add a certain luster to hard lefties ( Did I mention I am more intelligent to believe that one side or the other has a monopoly on the truth? ) view of this book. We can tell that the author is a true believer in the one side that has a 100% monopoly on the real facts.

But, aside from the partisan undertone, the book is excellent.

Remember, by definition, half the population has a less than average IQ. Most people in this literate nation or any other literate nation, could not even begin to form a coherent description of how the process of evolution works even if they cared in the least.

Remember also, that while Christian fundamentalists are capable and willing ( in the name of God of course as Christian soldiers etc ) to usurp the rights of others there are religions on this earth whose abuses of basic human rights are much worse. Anyone from New York City should be well aware of this as he nurtures his hatred of fundamentalist Christians on the grounds of their evil acts. It's a very bad thing to force your religious view upon others in the guise of science. However, this is a small thing compared to many other heinous acts humans commit in the name of their gods and religions.

If you've never met a true believer in intelligent design or creationism you have missed a illuminating experience. You ask them if they believe in evolution and they say of course not. You ask them if they have ever studied the subject of evolution or know anything about it. They tell you they would never study such godless lies and are proud they know nothing of that evil theory. They will tell you that there is no reason to study or understand something that they know to be totally wrong in advance. Yes, it's scary. To be ignorant is one thing but to be proud of it and offer it as a badge of honor and belief is quite another.

I remember in my childhood and youth being advised to check the first pages of any book I was interested in reading for the latin phrase "nihil obstat" . Pardon me if this is remembered incorrectly after 50 years. It means that the book has been reviewed by the keepers of the faith and that they find "no objection" to faith or morals in the pages within.

Keeping a faith pure from adulteration and change is important in the minds of the firmly orthodox. No doubt the fervent fundamentalist protestant would recoil at the idea of Latin words as a preface to their approved reading list. However, they would certainly agree with the idea. It was these two Latin words, though, that taught me one of life's most important lessons, think for yourself, and that drove me from the very religion that was trying to keep me safe from heresy.

Out of the handful of books written about the Dover "intelligent design" trial, "Devil in Dover" is the only one written by a local Dover resident. Lauri Lebo's book is different from the others in several ways, nonetheleast of which is the author's ability to give us a feeling for what Dover was like before intelligent design came to town, and an insider's view of what it will be like after it never shows its face again.

When the "theory" of intelligent design was first tossed around as a "supplement" to Dover High's biology curriculum, Lauri Lebo was there, and there she remained as a staff writer for the York Daily Record. She was there not only for the ensuing trial, but for all the local grumblings at cantankerous school board meetings. Her book is a reflection of this; she is an insider and is able to paint a picture as only an insider can.

Devil in Dover is not only a beautifully written account of Dover v. Kitzmiller et. al., but also a journalist's deep reflection on the nature of her craft. Lebo's dilemma through the whole trial, which she recounts here, was to balance the journalistic maxim of neutrality and impartiality with the idea of telling the truth. If the evolutionists had the stronger case (they did), then how does one produce a piece of journalism that professes neutrality towards both "sides?" If intelligent design is premised on disingenousness and/or ignorance (it is), then should one avoid saying so in journalism just to remain neutral?

In the end, Lebo took sides. While watching the trial unfold, Lebo concluded, quite rightly, that ID is a fraud, that the schoolboard lied in their intentions (which were religious rather than educational), and that and intelligent design is little more than a subterfuge. We the readers are able to watch Lebo's change from an impartial journalist who was uneducated about science, to an impassioned journalist who learned enough to know that ID is junk science. And she does a good job at expaining why.

While Lebo's book is not the best blow-by-blow JOURNALISTIC account of the trial (that may be Humes's "Monkey Girl," or Sack's "Battle Over the Meaning of Everything), it is probably the most thought-provoking. Lebo treats us not only to a first-hand account of the trial (though not in as much detail as the two aforementioned), but gives us a lot to think about: what is the nature and obligation of journalistic objectivity? what does it mean to be a Christian? Why did a school-board turn the author's home town into a laughing stock? etc.

As and end to the review, I have read all the books about Dover v. Kitzmiller by now (including the Discovery Institute's own "Traipsing Into Evolution"). Lebo's book is the first that really got me thinking that not only did ID deservedly lose, but that this trial was truly the worst possible thing that could happen to ID. It lost the case, was made to look duplicitous thanks to an inempt school-board, was lambasted by a REPUBLICAN judge in a 100+ page opinion, and was squarely trounced in EVERY DETAIL in the courtroom. This book, perhaps more than others, makes the reader very aware that not only did ID lose, but it got creamed.

Lauri Lebo was witness to a pivotal moment in American History, although most people still do not know how important that trial in Dover was. Her first hand knowledge of the people involved in the case since they were from the same small town of Dover gave her unique insight. She was able to follow the histories of the various participants and the relation of those people with the places and culture that defined that area since she herself was a part of it since her own childhood.

With her insight she was able to see how the national battle of the religious right to invade science education caused divisions among neighbors and within families that never existed before. She saw and documented these effects in a way that an outside journalist could not. Her story was able to tie in the motivations, strategies, and on going battles occurring at the national level between those who want to further the aims of the fundamentalist Christians and those who defend our civil rights as well as scientific integrity to the very tactics used by the foot soldiers in this war.

I highly recommend this book as it provides the reader up close and personal accounts of the battles going on to defend our rights. It provides the reader with a good description of the casualties resulting from this battle. And it provides inspiration to the readers to take a stand against those people who desire power over the way our country thinks, those who cloak themselves in false credentials, false patriotism, and false piety.

Every week, one of the evangelical Christians who supported the teaching of Intelligent Design in Dover, PA schools drove to the nearest maximum security penitentiary to `bear witness' to the inmates. On their release, he would find them jobs and homes. One - not strong enough yet to live alone - lived with him for months after his release. They became `best buddies' as the Americans have it. This same man still supported the Dover Area School Board when its members - to a man and woman - perjured themselves in court, telling Judge John E Jones that they had never discussed creationism at Board meetings. This despite the fact that Fox News had television footage of one member doing just that. The man who supported the liars and visited the penitentiary was Lauri Lebo's father. He died there, in the midst of visiting an inmate who needed his help.

Lauri Lebo covered the Dover intelligent design case (Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District) and finished up so disenchanted with Christianity by the end of it she got a tattoo of the Flying Spaghetti Monster just above her butt. What set her apart from other journalists who converged on the Harrisburg, PA courtroom when the Area school board tried to insert Intelligent Design into the science curriculum was the fact that she was a local (she worked for the York Daily Record). She knew most of the plaintiffs and most of the defendants. Her father - the prison visitor - ran the local Christian Radio station, one of a plethora of `talk radio' outfits that blossomed across the US after 1987, when the Federal Communications Commission rolled the `Fairness Doctrine`.

Forced by geography to be scrupulously fair, her book on the case, The Devil in Dover, is one of the best lay accounts of a complex and controversial trial I've ever read. That apart, she doesn't write off people she knows as `wingnuts' and `nutjobs', because she knows they aren't. But she also doesn't let them off the hook when they lie for Jesus.

Somehow, this book manages to rise above politics, skewering the comfortable notions of `Red' and `Blue' that have become part of the world's political vocabulary thanks to the 2000-2004-2008 US election cycles. Her skill at noting the telling detail is particularly effective: one of the plaintiffs seems like a boiler-plate anti-affirmative action, gun-totin' small-town Republican who cheerfully drinks in a pub 20 feet over the county border because, ahem, Dover is a Dry County. But he's also a science teacher who knows the difference between science and religion. One of the defendants, an upstanding member of the Board and successful local businessman turns up and chews gum throughout both examination-in-chief and cross-examination (no, it doesn't bear thinking about. Lebo's description is both hilarious and nauseating). This is quite apart, of course, from lying under oath.

Then there's the George W. Bush appointed judge who the defendants are completely confidant they have in their pocket (they don't, and his judgment is both a model of judicial reasoning and a textbook account of just why we have the separation of powers).

Best of all are the pen-portraits of the various lawyers, from the ACLU and the Thomas More Law Centre, both circling for a test case. The image of a lawyer engaging in a version of champerty (Thomas More's counsel encouraging the Board to change the school curriculum `and we'll defend you when you get sued') or putting full-page ads in local papers in order to drag in potential plaintiffs (the ACLU) certainly gives one pause, especially for those lawyers trained in Australia or the UK.

Comics (and others) on all sides of politics have had great mileage out of portraying the other side as `liberal wieners' or `right-wing nut jobs', without imagining just what or who is behind those words. This is particularly the case in the creation v evolution battle. It is possible to make a strong case for some socially conservative positions (particularly on Roe v Wade, in part because the ruling took the decision away from the legislature, thereby producing serious democratic deficit). Creationism, by contrast (even in its muted `intelligent design' form) simply invites mockery. Not just `unscientific', it's a ludicrous form of anti-science. In fact, Charles Johnson memorably described the newly-opened `Creation Museum' in Kentucky as an `Anti-Museum'. Instead of disseminating information, it actively obfuscates it - a visual version of `if your baby does not like spinach, try boiling it in milk'.

Lebo's book is not particularly optimistic; at one point she laments `we're never going to fix this'. She then comments:

"My father will leave this world believing he will never again wrap his arms around his daughter, that despite eternal life (eternity? Oh God, what a concept), we will never be reunited. Rather, he believes that I will exist in a place `where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'.

If you believe this, truly believe this, then how could anything else matter? The First Amendment, scientific reality, the truth? All this would mean nothing. I grasped this. And for those of us who don't believe, can't believe, we have to bear the weight of this fear."

Imagining our enemy's honour is likely the most difficult thing one has do, and yet liberal democracy demands it of us. In ages past, we fought against and killed those who disagreed with us. Now we contest alternative visions at the ballot box, and try to be gracious winners and honorable losers. Lauri Lebo's book is a fine exercise in that tradition. I cannot recommend it too highly.

Written from an insider's perspective, this book exposes the emotional part of the Dover incident much better than Monkey Girl was able to. Both books need to be read to understand the dishonesty of the right-wing, anti-science crazies in our society. Why, when enjoying the benefits of science (antibiotics, microwave oven, cell phones, agriculture, just to name a few), they want to retreat to the Dark Ages is beyond understanding. Read this book and re-read it.

The primary purpose and goal of a writer's workshop is to help writers improve their writing. Simply stated, but often quite difficulty to accomplish because like most things in life, writer workshops can be classified into one of three categories -- the good, the bad, and the mediocre. Now in an updated and expanded second edition, award-winning writer and teacher Josip Novakovich's "Fiction Writer's Workshop" is clearly one of the good ones in the form of a comprehensive instructional that covers every aspect of the art of fiction while providing aspiring and practicing writers with all the tools and techniques useful to developing the consistent, day-to-day discipline so fundamentally necessary for becoming a success professional at the literary craft. Offering more than one hundred writing exercises, with each exercise including a specific statement of purpose to guide the aspiring author through every step of the creative process, "Fiction Writer's Workshop" also provides self-critique questions with each exercise for assessing written works with an eye toward identifying weaknesses and strengths before moving on to the next lesson. Enhanced with the full text of eight acclaimed short stories complete with analysis and exercises suitable for modeling and the reinforcement of 'lessons learned', "Fiction Writer's Workshop" is appropriate for all fiction writers regardless of personal writing styles. Especially recommended for those aspiring to write publishable works of fiction, the "Fiction Writer's Workshop" should be considered indispensable reading for anyone who has every considered or attempted writing the kind of novels and short stories that would attract the attention of academia, the general populace, and generations of future readers yet unborn.

I own the first edition. I'm a sculptor but in coming up with ideas I have recently thought of writing stories involving my characters. I borrowed this book from a friend about three years ago and rediscovered in on my bookshelf about two weeks ago. I love it. Buy the second edition. It includes short stories.

This book is a must read for anyone who has trouble getting started. The mantra that has been beaten into my head over and over by most college professors is the importance of writing everyday. However, that's often easier said than done. Outside of CW courses, class assignments and workshops, it's been very difficult for me to get started and I've never been big on journaling. This excercises in this book have provided me with countless "assignments" to help get the creative juices flowing. If you find that you need a little push to get going, this book is for you.

I have taken several classes lately and with them gotten several books. Most of them have at least some valuable information to make one a better writer with modern examples, but this book is unique in that you never feel like the author is giving you lines in which you are supposed to color inside of to make a good picture. You never feel pressured either. Since I am a beginning writer, this was the perfect atmosphere for me because there was room to learn new things, and reject some things without feeling I am suffering long-term as a writer. If one feels a strong sense of personal voice, this is the best book to acquire and develop new skills (as well as refine existing ones)

Once you have read an introductory book like Brayfield's Bestseller or Kings 'On writing' this is the book to buy and use.

Novakovich covers there basic elements: Setting /Character/Plot/PoV/Dialogue & Scene/Begins and endings / description/ vice and revision. He uses numerous examples form published literature and each chapter concludes with a number of good exercises.

One topic Novakovich does not cover is writers block. Maybe that is because he provides the solutions. Writers block is either due to lack of ideas or anxiety about one's writing. Novakovich provides the solutions - a chapter on the sources of fiction and a reference book to dip into every time one feels a anxious.

The beauty of Fiction Writers Workshop is the exercise - do them - and that all aspects are covered in one short book. That is also its disadvantage. Successful writing is complex, it requires fluent and adaptive use of a number of skills. To become fluent you will need to read and practice each in greater depth than can be provided in one book that covers them all. Don't make the mistake I made of going in depth on one skill first. It can lead to imbalance. Start with Fiction Writers Workshop and you will gain a balance.

Readers of this review can review it - tick the box 'useful' or 'not useful'. There is something I have noticed in those reviews. If reviews are critical then people are less likely to tick the box - 'useful' and more likely to tick the box 'Not useful'. What they are in fact saying is 'It was a nice review'. For a writer that is the worst kind of review. It leads you up the garden path. An author needs is honest candid review.

I'm not being nice about Fiction Writer's Workshop. It is that good.

just Jack

I bought this book when my daughter was about 13 months old. She enjoys flipping through it each day. The way that it is constructed is very durable with thick enough pages for a young toddler. Now that she's 16 months, I have started really teaching her what some of the images are and she can point to the right one when I ask here where something is. It features pictures that are interesting to her and the size of the book and pages is just wonderful.

This book is a great learning tool for a young child. My son could identify several images by 8 mounths old. The images and colors kept my son's attention, which is great when everything around him is something new to explore.

We bought this book and take it everywhere we go! Our child has always loved books and reading. This book is very durable and the large pictures and print are perfect for our child. It is by far his favorite. He took it to daycare with him one day and it was the hit toy of the day! We also love First 100 Animals. I highly recommend this book. our child was 15MO when we introduced it to him and 3 months later he still loves it.

My 16 month old son loves this book. He started out pointing to the pics and I told him what they were. Now, I ask him to point to the items and he does it. I recommend this book for babies.

We've had this since he was still in utero and from the time he could crawl over to the bookshelf and pull out a book, it's been his favorite. He loves looking at all the pictures and having us say the word that goes with the picture. One of the advantages of a book this simple is that you can do a lot with it (what color is the jacket? Is the boy wearing a shirt? Where does a bear live? etc. etc.) We have several more books from the Priddy Books series and my son loves them all. They have helped him learn a ton of words and at almost 2, he has the language ability and vocabulary of a 3-year-old. Can't recommend this highly enough, or other books in the series (100 animals, My Big Word Book, etc.).

America's darkest hour of Betrayal was during the Global Depression of the 1930's was written by Tim Tzouliadis entitled: "The Forsaken".

This book is about how America, during the Depression of the 1930's, and I quote from the book; "Lured American's to work in the Soviet Union. This is a POWERFUL book, as he researched for almost a decade, and how he obtained historical information through an American law; The Freedom of Information Act of 1966 in order for Tzouliadis to write this historically accurate book. The author wrote in detail how and why the American Government under Franklin D. Roosevelt, his Secretaries of the Treasury, Commerce, State, and the American Ambassador to the Soviet Union knew of the thousands of innocent American unemployed Trade Unionists plight, but ended in Gulag's throughout Siberia only to meet their deaths.

A must READ for those who seek the truth behind Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Joseph's Stalin's Five Year Plan.

The "Pen is Mightier than the Sword", and books bring knowledge in hopes that history will never be repeated.

"TO THINE OWNSELF BE TRUE" !

To me, having never read The Gulag Archipelago, this book was a revelation. It's the absorbing story of American prisoners of the USSR and the indifference shown them by our government, particularly the state department. Most shocking to me, however, was his description of the gulag camps north of Magadan, where the prisoners were slowly starved while subjected to long days of labor in unearthly cold, 365 days a year, in the mines. It's hard to imagine a worse death. The Terror is also revealed in its wide scope, its cruelty and its arbitrariness.

To be honest, I bought this book thinking it would be about a bunch of Americans who turned their backs on America simply because times were bad or because they had a political agenda. However, the writing of the book made me sympathetic with the many of the people the author wrote about and by the time I finished it I really did feel sorry for these Americans who were duped into entering the USSR and then siezed into the gulag system. And no punches are pulled as opportunities to intervene on Americans' behalfs are discussed, lost opportunities thanks to fellow travelers, bureaucrats and politicians. And not only are the depression-era workers a subject for the writer but also American servicemen captured during WWII, Korea and the Cold War. Someday I hope a reckoning is made and the files will be freely opened for us to know what happened to so many of these men and women.

This is the type of history book that I always look for; filling in a blank spot in knowledge, well-written and affecting. You can read the greater detail in other reviews, but the high-level story is the totalitarian savagery of the Soviet Union on almost everyone it could get its hands on. The second theme is the indifference and political expediency of the Roosevelt administration and its successors in not raising a finger to aid or protect any of the victims; in the immediate aftermath of WW2 it became a direct co-conspirator by shipping thousands of Russians to their deaths in the Soviet Gulag. There are also interesting tales of artists and newspaper reporters visiting from America who routinely chose to maintain their privileges in the Soviet Union at the expense of their American and Soviet friends dragged away in the middle of the night and never seen again. The moral of the story is that you should hope to be a person of compassion and principle rather than become the informer and the murderer; that could be difficult to do in a place like the Soviet Union.

Not too far from where I live is a small National Cemetery. Way in the back corner are a half dozen or so markers of World War II German POW's. Some of those German soldiers buried there committed suicide because at the end of World War II, the US Government was going to repatriate them back to the Soviet Union. You see, they came from a part of Ukraine, settled by Germans, under Catherine the Great, when the Germans invaded the USSR, they joined the German Army. They apparently also understood what awaited them in Stalin's Russia. This is just a side bar in the great history, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia by Tim Tzouliadis. The author tells the story of what became of American nationals, who out of committment to communism, hunger during the depression, or just plain naivete emmigrated from the United States to the Soviet Union during the great depression. Out of tens of thousands of immigrants from the US to the USSR during the 1930s, very few lived to tell the tale of their experiences under the greatest terror conceived by any dictator. Stalin out of his own twisted paranoia had many of them executed or sentenced to the slow death of the Soviet Gulag's. But, more disturbing than that is the fact that the US Government, under Franklin Roosevelt, knew what Stalin was doing to US nationals, including downed American Pilots originally captured by the Germans or who crash landed in Soviet territory during our war with Japan, and quiety acquiesced to allowing them to be executed or imprisoned by the Soviets. So much for "Nothing to fear but fear itself." Unless of course your President, for lack of a better description admires and kisses up to a Soviet thug. The Author paints a clear picture of how the first American Ambassadors to the USSR were so enamored of Stalin the Soviet experiment they were willing to look the other way. It also paints a sad picture of how the Roosevelt administration contributed to the Soviet "Terror" by choosing to ignore it, only to be followed by the Truman administration's gullibility when it came to trusting Stalin and his regime. This book will hopefully open American eyes to just how not great FDR and give 'em hell Harry really did this nation an diservice when it came to dealing with the Soviet Union. As I mentioned earlier, there are side bars here, namely how the Soviet's used our lend lease materials, trucks, ships, etc. to feed the terror, namely transport people to the Gulags, and not fight the Germans. This is a well written history, but deeply disturbing because of the facts it reveals. This book is highly recommended if one wants to really understand how the United States government by its elected an appointed officials aided Stalin's terror against not only his own people, but foreigners too.

This book is a fantastic resource for implementing Independent Reading Workshop within the classroom. The book provides day by day brief lessons.

Our teaching staff is using "Guiding Readers and Writers" as part of our book study. We meet once a month to discuss effective strategies/ideas mentioned in the book. There is so much valuable information in this resource that this may very well be a two year book study for us.

Our school is a junior/intermediate school and we have found it helpful that the book addresses literacy for the upper elementary grades as well. So many great things, it is like our LITERACY BIBLE.

This is the book you need for creating and maintaining a solid and authentic classroom literacy program. "The First Twenty Days" alone is extreemely helpful. You can start small and grow as you feel comfortable. A little overwhelming at times but worth it!

Excellent resource. Everything needed to start a reading/writing/word study workshop. My book is full of sticky notes of things to use!

Every teacher who teaches grades 3-6 should own this book. It has practical mini-lessons, rationale for teaching comprehension strategies and additional resources. If you don't already own it, you should get your hands on a copy.

This is a great book, all of Kapuscinski`s books are great. It takes you for a journey you don`t expect. Great style and I always regret it`s over, after I finish to read his book.

As stated in most of the reviews of this book, Kapuscinski is a great writer. If you have not read him allready, read this book and understand why. If you allready have read him, you are going to read this book based on what you allready have learned to know.

Having given Kapuscinski the credit he obviously deserves for his writing, I believe there is some points that should be done.

-First Kapuscinski stands on the shoulders of giants. His writing is to a great extent the result of the local people that he meets on his journeys and agrees to open their region and their lifes to him.

-Kapuscinski is a very gifted writer endeed, that have read a lot about the places and peoples that he visits. On one hand this is what always makes his writing so alive, something to go back to and read agian, so informative. On the other hand gret litterature sometimes can serve as a way of getting away with having little or nothing to really report from the battleground when his plan fails or when he does not get what he intended out of a trip. Striking examples of this is his journey at the Trans-siberian railway where he only observes the Soviet Union through the train window or to Nagarno Karabakh where he is stuck inside an airport, a car and a flat. That his stories is as intriguing, even when he hardly experience "what the war looks like on the ground" is a clear sign that his capabilities as dramaturg and writer can make up for a rather thin story. Even when he gets the chance to write the story he intended from a place he visits, the timeframe and the difficulties he worked under limits his insights compared to the writers that have covered the area afer him.

-Some paragraphs in the book makes me a bit uncertain about how good the translation is (my review is based upon the Norwegian translation). In the first chapter - Pinsk '39 the comment of a NKVD officer visiting their house "Muzh kuda?" is traslated "where is your husband" instead of the correct "Where have your husband gone", meaning that the NKVD officer allready knows that he has recently been in the house, meaning someone has infomed the NKVD that Kapuscinski's father (a hunted partisan) has recently been in the house. Things like this is not a big deal, but it makes you start thinking about the quality of the translation in general and if it can be the case that the author underplays the role of ordinary people as informers in the terror.

-In his story about the war in Pinsk 1939, his memory of the events as a child probably is an important expalianation behind the qualities of the stories. In the memory of a child events that would probably be described as horrorful and sad by a grown up, in the eyes of a smal shild gets exciting, intriguing, colorful and down to earth.

All in all, Kapuscinski is good reading and Imperium is a great intruduciton to the former Soviet Republics. To get true insight in the contemporary former Soviet Republics, you will need further reading though.

Perhaps history will never be told better than through the eye of this travelling writer (or is it a writing traveller?). Read and be awed by the staggering proportions of recent history in the vast empire that is no more, the Sovjet Union. And be chilled to the bones by the unimaginable amounts of suffering inflicted by the sovjet leaders on their own people. And be astonished that in the midst of the most utter despair, poverty, and enslavement, Kapuscinski can find optimism, humor, and love of life.

I purchased this book after reading about the author in the Wall Street Journal. He died earlier this year. The author, a journalist, kept two notebooks while on assignments throughout the world, one for his assignment and one for himself. In this book he combined his observations from several trips he took within Russia and its states over a span of many decades. At times his writing style can be quite poetic, and the book is not unlike a travel book, although Soviet Russia was not a friendly place at the times of his visits. I intend to read his other books, and highly recommend this one.

A lyrical masterpiece by this superlative writer! Nowhere have I found a dissection of the Evil Empire done with such fluid verse. He goes from the periphery into the heart of the beast and everywhere he discovers that appearances deceive and what seems to signal change is really a re-hash of old. Kapuczinski's sharp analysis and trenchant comments will be sorely missed!

This book is essential for any english or elemtary school teacher. I teach social studies and found many ideas within it informative and relevant. The book is written in an approachable way, filled with mini-lessons and examples of her own students writting. An easy read and needed guide for great practice within the classroom. I highly recomend this.

You can let students have choices about what to write and still have formal guidelines, unlike what the other reviewer/teacher wrote. Nancie Atwell's book is based on years of her own first-hand experiences in the classroom, and, as someone who assigns and reads well over 1000 formal essays per school year to over 200 students, I'll listen to Atwell's advice before some burned out teacher's rantings about the need to drill, drill, drill.

Atwell's research and dedication to the true teaching of literacy in classrooms of all levels has changed my philosophy of teaching forever. Those who judge her approach without attempting to understand it, are only missing out on an innovative and fresh approach to how English should be taught.

In my own classroom of tenth graders, I have gone from yawns and glazed eyes to students who leave my classroom at the end of the school year saying "I could write for pages and pages about how you've helped me become a better writer." I still address grammar, literature, "5 paragraph" essay writing, and the dreaded (and overrated)state tests. Instead of being students who force themselves to read and write for a grade, they are readers and writers who are proud of the accomplishments they produce in literacy.

I recommend this book to anyone who is serious about changing the way literacy is taught in our schools, and creating not only engaged students, but people who love to read and write.

I bought two copies of this book from Amazon, for myself and my class aide, on the strength of the other teachers' recommendations here. The book is as good as the most enthusiastic reviewers say it is, but it is seriously flawed, and to some degree self-contradictory, because it talks too much. As good as are the author's approaches, she doesn't really need 484 pages, plus numerous appendices, to get the message across. In fact, she buries the message in verbosity.

Note that other reviewers found the book easy to read. But if you are already convinced that you want to refresh your approach to teaching reading and writing, you may grow impatient with the overabundance of anecdotes, homilies and elaboration.

Teachers know there is no itemized recipe for teaching, but a book on teaching writing could at least demonstrate the virtue of being concise. Mrs. Atwell should read her own quotes and not "cloud the issues with jargon in place of simple, direct prose...." (p. 16). (This is one of numerous quotes of Donald Graves, who returns the favor by endorsing her book in an exemplary brief foreword).

As one who likes quoting great writings in every chapter, the author could have used and applied the Hellenistic Demos: "I will be moderate in all I attempt and do Nothing to Excess."

Summary: it's just too much of a good thing. I'm going to spring for the workbook (Lessons that Change Writers) and generate even more royalties for the author, in the hopes it is more to the point.

A book that helped inspire me to become a teacher. Some other reviewers may not find it totally "practical" for them to adopt, but anyone with common sense would know that you take what works best for you from as many legitimate resources as possible and adapt.

"Lucky" by Jackie Collins was a terrific book!! It arrived to me in new, perfect condition courtesy of Amazon! I give a thumbs up to this book and suggest reading it, as well as the others in her "Lucky Santangelo" series!! - Danielle

This is the story that got it all started. If you haven't read this book then you are in for a treat, and before you finish this book make sure you have chances, lady boss, dangerous kiss on hand because you are going to need to know what happen next. I assure you.

In an earlier review, I said Collins wrote trashy reads; I regret that now. "Trash" is sexist as it often only refers to light fiction written by women and there's LOTS of pop fiction by men that is hardly prize-worthy. I also think calling her work "trashy" was a way for me to act as though I was above it and just reading it ironically. The truth is, Collins is great at what she does and that's writing compelling, "can't put them down" novels that can make you turn off the phone so you won't be disturbed.

"Lucky" is Collins at her best. Don't worry if you haven't read "Chances": Collins summarizes the previous book in the opening chapters. Also, don't be turned off because there is a Mob element if that's not your thing because the Mob barely figures into this tale. What we get instead is a sprawling, multi-character tale full of coincidences, surprising developments (at least once a book, Collins springs something on me that I didn't see coming) and the usual doses of sex and money.

"Lucky" is an insanely fun read. Despite the fact that it was published in 1985, the novel is as enjoyable as ever and is my highest recommendation for a fun summer read of 2007.

Jackie Collins' Lucky, is a novel about power, love, lust, sex and crime. Daughter of a powerful man, Lucky Santangelo, an erotic and wild beauty, plans on continuing the family tradition with honor. Hungry for power, success and pleasure Lucky sets out seeking for her desires. Before she knows it, Lucky embarks herself on an adventure full of glory, passion, trouble, sex, vengeance and suspense. From Vegas to New York after her father's unexpected and undesirable wedding. Pregnant by the world's richest man, Dimitri Stanislopoulos, a passionate lover, Lucky lives her life between her East Hampton home in New York and her son's father's private Greek Islands. Off on business in Atlantic City, Lucky hits the road with power, money, glory and love. Her glory is cut short, when her dangerous past catches her back leading her to court.

This novel is extraordinary. This novel kept me reading, I couldn't take my eyes or mind off the book. Jackie Collins gets deep into descriptions making you feel the characters emotions and desires. As you read on and learn more about each one, you feel that you know these people. You can just imagine each scenario in your head, and feel that you are part of the scene but that no one can see you.

What more can I say? All of the money in the world could not get me to pry my fingers off of this book. In Collins' sophomore release of the Santangelo saga we get reaquainted with the awe-inspiring, business savy and headstrong Lucky Santangelo, daughter of the notorious Gino "The Ram" Santagelo -- former mob boss.

Not one iota of what Collins' writes in this book comes off as being unrealistic, boring or repeptitive. Writing a book like this takes pure, unadulturated talent!! How she manages to come up with new and exciting characters, keep us thouroughly updated on old ones, intertwine all of their storylines FLAWLESSLY and leave her fans begging for more is harder to comprehend then learning Chinese Arithmatic in Latin!

Lucky comes back geared and ready for a whole new peril. I don't know if there is much I can say about this book without giving too much away... It's just all so JUICY and addictive! I will say that we are introduced to some new characters -- Lennie Golden being the main one. As well as reuniniting with some characters some of us may have thought wouldn't come back -- Olympia and Dimirti Stanislopolous ... These three characters will influenece Lucky's life in a MAJOR way... You will just have to read to find out. This is yet another 10 star read from Ms. Collins.