Languages Books

Throughout the Cold War era, the Albanian People's Republic was ruled with an iron hand for nearly fifty years by Enver Hoxha, a man virtually unknown to the West. Thus, it is certainly by no means accidental that Ismail Kadare sets his wry, satirical novel, CHRONICLE IN STONE, in Hoxha's (and, remarkably, Kadare's) hometown of Gjirokaster, an ancient stone town not far from the Greek border. Hoxha actually appears as a marginal character in the story as a Communist partisan sought by the invading German army. In addition, and presumably biographically, the author at one point mentions in passing that among those lost to a recent aerial bombardment was one L. Kadare.

In the early years of World War II, Gjirokaster suffers the travails of an essentially defenseless city, overrun first by the Italian Army, then the Greeks with the assistance of the British Royal Air Force, and eventually the Nazis before finally succumbing to the oppressive thumb of Stalinist Russia. The uneducated townfolk, still heavily prone to superstition and fantastical beliefs, exchange rumors of a red-bearded man, Yusuf Stalin, who will drive out the unwelcome invaders. "Is he a Muslim?" one character asks another. After a moment's hesitation, the other replies confidently, "Yes. A Muslim." "That's a good start," the first answers. Later, it is the infamously sun-glassed Hoxha who is believed to have started a new kind of war, the one that brings the Germans to Gjirokaster.

Kadare hilariously personifies the absurd effect of this constant changing of hands. Albanians leks become Greek drachmas, then Italian lire, then back to leks again. At one point, a plane drops leaflets on the town that begin, "Dear citizens of Hamburg." When the Italians first arrive, a lesser resident named Gjergj Pulo changes his name to Giorgio Pulo, then to Yiorgos Poulos when the Greeks take over. He dies under the German occupation just after having applied for another name change, this time to Jurgen Pulen. The townswoman whose business it is to prepare the make-up for brides on their wedding day is given to repeating the phrase, "It's the end of the world," at every news event and new revelation.

CHRONICLE IN STONE is narrated through the eyes of an impressionable young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. In the first third of the book, events are seen almost entirely through the boy's impressionable and naïve eyes. After he discovers a book by Jung and reads "Macbeth," however, those eyes seem to take a gradually maturing and more jaundiced look at his surroundings. In fact, Kadare uses multiple references to sight and blindness throughout much of the book. Early on, his boy narrator even likens blindness to a stopped up toilet, where the many sights a person has taken in have somehow formed a blockage that prevents new ones from passing through.

Kadare revels in the boy's sense of wonder, his susceptibility to superstition and magical occurrences, and his lack of appreciation (and fear) over the true horrors of war. Gjirokaster takes an a dreamlike impossibility, like one of Escher's impossible prints, where "...if you slipped and fell on the street, you might well land on the roof of a house..." Water collected into a cistern from a heavy storm becomes in the boy's imagination individual, personified droplets, the new ones joining uncomfortably with the older ones already there. Mice skittering about the attic at night become Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes. After watching ants scurry about the ground, the boy asks if his grandfather can "read" ants, since their random movements look to the boy like Turkish characters forming and reforming.

Not that the town's adults are much more modern. Gjirokaster is still a land of crones and witches, prophecies and superstitions. Airplanes are fantastic flying machines, taking off and landing from a newly built airfield whose paving seemed little more than an unreasonable deprivation of the cows from their usual grazing. A local townsman plans to build a flying machine powered by a perpetual motion engine to defend the town from invaders and bring honor as well for its wondrous invention. An English airman's severed arm takes on such an iconic, almost mystical significance that it ends up in a museum and is attributed as the source of miracles.

CHRONICLE IN STONE stands magnificently with so many of Kadare's works as a darkly humorous but fully humanistic tale of life under the most strained of circumstances. Cross Franz Kafka with Garcia Marquez, and Kadare is what you get. He is a writer far too little known as yet to Americans - he deserves better.

I have read this book in Albanian and English, and it is excellent. Obviously through translation some is lost, but this book is truly a gem. It is well written, funny, and smart...I highly recomend it

When I found this book on my aunt's bedside table, I didn't know anything about it and the cover and inside cover gave no clues. I am only 13, so I immediately figured that the book would be a tough read. But I was amazed to find that it was fairly understandable and the way Kadare wove the child's thoughts, I was charmed and drawn in, reading the book in a record 2 hours. It was great to learn about how World War II affected this boy, and his slow growth into a man in his city was fascinating. I would love to visit this town, but for now I will have to make do with this book! I'd definately recommend it.

Ismail Kadare's "Chronicle in Stone" is a window into the world of World War Two Albania. The trials and times of a small Illyrian town as it weathers yet another occupation by foreign soldiers and yet more war are put to paper in this magical recount of the author's own experiences as a child. The extraordinary feature is that the reader sees into this window through the eyes of a young boy, and the descriptions of this town of stone, Gjirokaster, are what make the book so prominent. Kadare gives this ancient city a life all its own both as a whole and among its elements in his tale. When the boy narrator coos into his house's water cistern, it isn't an echo that replies but the cistern itself, and he ponders the feelings of an old and lone(ly) anti-aircraft gun that guards over the city.

The author in this work has given the reader several themes in this one novel of a city and its boy. We see post-Ottoman, post-Great War and post-independence Albania as it sits under Italian occupation, which never figures much in the boy's or the other residents' minds much until the city becomes a battleground for Italians and Greek armies. We see the new modern generation taking shape, in the form of two youths--one of whom causes an uproar by donning glasses to correct his vision, glasses being an eternal metaphor for the educated intelligentsia--who speak Latin to each other as a secret code and a rebellious young aunt who runs off to join the partisans. We see the richness and complexity of the simple lives played out in this ancient city, despite the hardships caused by Allied bombing. Finally, we see the convulsion of a world gone mad as the city is emptied of its inhabitants and then overrun by "the men with yellow hair," the Teutons from the north. Throughout it all the boy relays this enormous world as he sees it through his young eyes.

"Chronicle in Stone" brings a deeply rich Albania to life.

Ismail Kadare's Chronicle in Stone is the tragic story of a city steeped in history and Old World traditions that is forced to change or be destroyed by the madness and brutality of twentieth-century warfare. The story is told through the eyes of a child, and just as the narrator's innocence and sense of wonder are lost forever as he comes to understand the violent nature of all that is happening around him, so it goes with the city as a whole, which also loses something irrevocable as it is wrenched from its sleepy, timeless existence into the chaotic modern world.

The choice to use a child narrator heightens the sense of immense change that the city is undergoing, for this child sees the city's buildings, streets, and bridges as living entities which shift and move and change their mood from day to day, one day seeming to offer firm comfort and shelter, and the next seeming menacing and hazardous, depending on the weather, the attitude of the people around him, the relative brutality of the occupying army, and the intensity and closeness of the bombing campaign. In the stone facades, steep winding streets, and rain-streaked rooftops of the city, the narrator personifies the desires and sufferings of his people, but he does so unselfconsciously, for he is merely reporting what he sees and feels, because for him the city really is alive.

As a child, he is also able to report what he sees with a peculiar mix of detachment and awe that would not be possible from an adult. When the city is bombed, the emotion he feels above any other is pride in the fact that his house, as one of the biggest and strongest in his neighborhood, is chosen as a bomb shelter. For him, the bombings, as well as the occupation of the city by the Italian army, are simply facts of life - just the way things are and always have been for him - and he doesn't always understand the anger and bitterness of the adults around him.

There are many things to admire in this novel, but what I admire most, I think, is the way Kadare unfolds the story and conveys the grand scale of the tragedy but manages to do so in a way that is very personal and easy to connect to. He conveys character very effectively and economically-- with a few sentences of dialog, he gives us a very clear picture of the family and neighbors of the narrator, their individual quirks of personality and beliefs, as well as what the narrator thinks of them. He also disperses throughout the narrative brief fragments of a chronicle of the city, as written by one of its eccentric residents, and this interwoven chronicle lends a greater sense of the historical context of the events as they unfold. As the chronicle gradually becomes less and less coherent, we become aware of the effects of the chaotic violence on the mind of the chronicler, and by extension, the minds and hearts of everyone in the city.

By the end of the narrative, the child has seen many horrific things, but has also known many small joys and wonders. This story reminds us of the incredible brutality that humans are capable of, as well as the openness and compassion to which we should aspire.

This little book was a great reference for my introduction to Spanish class. It presents 100 of the most common Spanish verbs in an alphabetical format. Each verb has a comic strip/cartoon which will help you remember the meaning of the verb by using the methods of mnemonics and association with the equivalent word in English.

For example, the Spanish word "mirar" means "to look at," so the cartoon shows a person looking in a mirror with the caption: "Roger looks at the MIRROR." Another example is the word "cantar" which means "to sing." The cartoon shows a boy singing on a stage with those in the audience covering their ears. The caption is: "Bing CAN'T sing." Also "gastar" means "to spend." The comic shows a lady purchasing gas and the caption says: "Mama Cass spends too much on GAS," and so on and so forth for the other 97 verbs. While this method may seem silly to some people, it is also unforgettable and therefore an effective way to remember.

Another plus is that the verb conjugations in the present and preterite tenses are listed below the comic strips and a small exercise with it usage on the next page. Going by my niece's enthusiasm about this book, teenagers taking highschool Spanish will love it too.

If you enjoy this method, you'll probaby like "Spanish by Association" by Michael Gruneberg too. However, it doesn't have the cartoons like "Comic Mnemonics" but it includes nouns as well as verbs.

I often lend this book out to boys in my classes to peak their interest in verbs that they may have trouble with. The set-up is nice - one page without English words, the next with the definition, so students can use it for self -study. I also give an assignment each year to come up with comics of their own to explain verbs or other words they are struggling with, and then the students explain it in Spanish - so a great use for anyone. I would be sure you have a pretty good foundation in Spanish, though - there is nothing in the book about pronunciation, or grammar. This is strictly a supplement, and a great one! I'd say the age range is about 12 and up.
Sra. Gose
Spanish teacher and Author of Spanish Fun Activity Calendar

This book is cute, helpful way to remember verbs. I was hoping that it would give me some new ideas, but honestly, I already use a lot of these mnemonics. Made me feel pretty good about my class and my teaching! Great for a student new to the language.

I purchased this book to help me teach verbs to a Spanish I class. So far, they do recall many of the mnemonic phrases especially the rhyming ones (e.g. Boone leaves the saloon), although the book does not contain as many verbs as I would like, and does nothing to help remember stem-changing verbs (besides listing the conjugations below the cartoon).
Even so, it's a good study aid and we have been using it whenever new verbs come up that are included in this book.

This book is a must for anyone learning Spanish who has problems remembering verbs tense.

"A Gentle introduction to Symbolic Computing" as the name states is a great introduction to Lisp. It starts at the beginning with introducing the reader to the basic concepts of Lisp. Rather then the basic functions it starts with what a function is and how it behaves, the book moves into what a linked list is how it works and how to manipulate it (cons, car, cdr).

While many would rather jump in feet first and write a basic hello world program I personally prefer to understand the basics of what I'm doing and why it works. This book is excellent in that regard. My one problem with this book is that its out of print so you have to find a used copy. The alternative being that the Author/Publishers provide this book for free online, use Google.

The book is useful even if you have programming experience in other languages. It explains important concepts (list, cells, symbols, variables etc) better than many other programming books do.

Highly recommended!

This is a great book for those wanting to learn Lisp.
In the first part of the book, when describing functions, the author stays away from Lisp and any real programming notation, using diagrams to show some of the fundamental concepts -- which are explained in such a clear way that everything become so obvious! Later he switches to Lisp, telling you it's a "different notation for the same ideas".
The text is always clear, short and right to the point.

We had a LISP course (prerequisite for AI) in the university, and our teacher used this book. I immediately fell in love with the language! This book is written in a fun way, that really makes sense. It was only from this book that I mastered the art of recursion (the cat in the hat comes back? the dragon stories?). Everything was fun about this book, you really have the sense that it was made with extreme passion and dedication; something that usually doesn't apply to programming books.

This is an excellent tutorial. A good place to start before reading any of Graham's books.

Although the book is now out of print, you can use the link below to download the pdf at no expense.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/

great artwork- very realistic. Easy to read and fun for learning the alphabet. Especially for a construction machine loving little boy

My Grandson (aged 2) loves this book. We have to read it two or three times in a row. He is fascinated with construction machinery and this is perfect. The pictures are great.

I bought this book for my son for his second birthday. After reading it to him a few weeks, HE was telling ME the names of the tractors. He calls this his tractor book and asks for it all the time. This is about the top of his list of favorite books. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a little boy who is mesmerized with construction equipment. Educational and Entertaining.

Easy choice...My 3-year-old loves it and is adept at pointing out real vehicles on the road and letting me know the name of it and what it does!

The Construction Alphabet Book

This book was a gift for a five year old and he loves it!! He is a book lover and this one is now one of his favorite bed time books.

I would definately reccomend it.

This is the kind of book I will refer to over and over. It tells you exactly how to write a travel book, while inspiring you to action at the same time. When I say exactly, I mean the book covers literally everything you need to know.
* Creating a concept and finding an audience
* Ideas for different ranges of scope and focus
* Formatting and use of icons
* Developing an angle and a style
* How to research a travel book
* What to include, what to leave out
* Use of photographs, maps, and illustrations
* Different approaches to getting published as a travel writer
* A list of publishers who focus on travel writing

Crafting the Travel Guidebook is nearly 300 pages of solid information. I will keep this book on my shelves, alongside my other essential writing resources.

Award-winning travel author and newspaper columnist Barbara Hudgins has
produced a road map for fledging travel writers in her new book, 'Crafting the Travel Guide Book."
Succinct and savvy in style, HUDGINS' book furnishes the framework for the would-be travel author.
She helps the writer define concept, category and audience, and builds on basic topics such as organization, structure and general format.
Extremely well-organized , this book covers such details as "front matter"(as Hudgins terms them)---namely titles, sub-titles, copyright,
foreward, acknowledgments and table of contents.
The section on "What Goes In and What Stays Out" includes definitions of plagarism, copyright and "second-hand prose, or re-told stories from a wire service or other source.
Clear and concise, Hudgins' book takes the reader on a tour of the byways and highways of travel writing ---and makes it an easy ride.

The previous five, all five star, reviews are dead on. Crafting the Travel Guidebook is an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to or already writing in the ever-expanding, increasingly popular travel guidebook field. Crafting the Travel Guidebook was pure joy to read. It is not the same old outdated information rehashed yet again. The information is detailed yet concise. Norman Goldman's review (either above or below, just find it and read it) gives an excellent breakdown of the book and its benefits to you, the writer. I only want to add that Hudgins, to her great credit, unlike many journalists and authors, really knows what she is talking about in the self-publishing field and the differences between self, vanity, subsidiary, and POD publishing. Many are the unwary authors that did not know the difference and suffered the consequences. If the book has a drawback, it is that the reader will come up with ideas for many new books as they read along. Having a legitimate excuse to research and travel to an exciting new place is some drawback, huh? Bravo, Barbara Hudgins, as C.S. Potter so aptly wrote.

My husband and I have been traveling for over forty years and we keep a journal of the places we have visited, from a cruise through the Panama Canal, renting a villa in Italy with friends, various hiking trips in Europe, and a three week visit to New Zealand, as well as drinking our way through Napa and Sonoma several times.

I've considered combining my journals into a book, but had no idea how to begin. When I discovered Crafting the Travel Guidebook, I knew I had found the tools to make that a reality. Honing in on a concept, figuring out your format and your parameters, finding a voice and constructing chapters that follow one another in a logical way--it makes everything so much easier.

There is also information on the construction of a book, particularly a travel book---from writing the disclaimer on the copyright page to listing what goes into the appendix. I also liked the information on how to approach a publisher and the rundown on the variety of self-publishers and subsidy publishers. All in all, a great buy for anyone who even comtemplates the writing of a travel book.

Crafting the Travel Guidebook had some good information in it, mainly of the inspirational nature. However, it also had a lot of typos, strange formatting, omitted words, and other errors that made it seem unprofessional. Furthermore, some of the advice in the book - such as writing your own [[...] reviews and sending them to friends in other states to post for you, to drive up your ratings - were borderline unethical. Some tips were repeated over and over again, while other areas were very thin on content.

The good stuff included inspiration about famous travel guides who started out small, a good overview of self publishing, and a good overview of the different types of travel guides that you can write. Overall, what was good was great, but the book would have benefited from better editing and more solid content in several key areas. It was definitely worth reading, but I wish I'd borrowed this book from a library instead of buying it new.

This book is clearly a "must have" for anyone developing with VFE. Despite spending a fair amount of time on the VFE Tech Support Conference, attending 2 VFE DevCons, etc., I have found this book to be invaluable. In particular, I like the narratives on the Instantiation of the Application object and Form, along with the discussion of various key properties and methods of the major classes. To the extent that one spends time actually studying these narratives, properties, and methods in conjunction with stepping thru the code, I feel this will reap rewards in the form of better productivity and higher quality applications. For those who aspire to get some depth of understanding of this framework, this book is for you.

This book is great for both new users of the VFE framework and experienced users alike. Not only does it provide step-by-step guidelines for building your apps with the VFE framework, but it also contains numerous tips and tricks for experienced developers. A required reference for all VFP/VFE developers!

This book is a "must have" reference for all Visual Foxpro programmers who use Visual FoxExpress. The information in this book will save many hours of development time. I highly recommend it.

I have read this book twice and will probably read it again. Everytime I read it I gain a little more insight into this great foundation and n-tier development. I especially like the explanation of the step-through logic in Chapter 10 and the explanation of each method in the various objects.

I think that if you buy Visual FoxExpress and buy this book, you will reduce your learning curve by several months.

This book is a crucial part of my reference library. Although Visual FoxExpress comes with good documentation and a sample application, it lacks the step by step walkthrough with explanations on the thoughts behind the concepts. This book fills in the blanks very nicely and helps the reader to gain a better understanding of not just the "how" but also the "why". The authors do not hesitate to inject their own observances and opinions about working this powerful framework. This makes it an interesting read as well as a good reference.

A door opener, maybe, but also very basic. I needed something slightly more advanced than this picture book text. If you have no experience with web pages and limited experience with computers, this might be the book for you. For me, it was a waste of my money.

Creating Web Pages Simplified, the best book of web page creation I ever read. This book will clearly show you how to create a basic web site, to a great state-of-the-art web page. Why buy another web page creation book when this one has it all? Graphics, incredible exaples etc. This book is a must. I recommend it.

The full color photos and easy to follow instuctions make this a great book for the experienced and inexperienced computer user alike. I would recomend this book to any one who wants to learn how to build a web page or wants to learn more about building web pages.

Some of those commenting here are teenagers; here's a comment from an almost-50 Mom. This book provides a great overview. I've been in computers for 25 years, but never had occasion to create my own web page. This book gives a good overview of the various parts of a web page and how the pieces fit together.

Those of you who are mainframers will laugh your heads off when you see that the internet has made Script cool...

This book is a door-opener for those who want to learn to use HTML. This book teaches you the basics, and gives you room to expand, and learn more by practice and trial-and-error. The best book for learning HTML!

The lexicon provides excellent coverage of all English words used in the King James Version of the Bible. In addition passages where words are included in the critical Greek texts are also listed (an added bonus).

The concodances of both English and Greek are most helpful and adequate to the average student. It is like getting three books in one: a lexicon, English concordance and a Greek Concordance.

Another bonus feature are the appendices of various readings of the major Greek Critical texts. Most helpful are the variants given to the Codex Sinaiticus.

This is an excellent biblical study aid, that along with other research tools gives greater insight into many Greek words in the New Testament, thereby giving a greater understanding of the rightly divided word of God.

This book is a good starting point studying the New Testament translation. Makes reasearch easier when words used in the KJV are translated into Greek with the original meaning of the words used.

I own this concordance as well as strong's and young's. This one is by far the most informative, easy to use, and gets the most use in my house-hold. I have not found a Lexicon/concordance that is more insightful than this one (which doesn't mean one doesn't exist). The definitions in this concordance are clear, open up your understanding to God's word, and I actually find it easier to use than Strong's and Young's (it is designed to go alphabetical by the english word, and then you find the greek words that are used in translation with the verses under the english word). This book is truly more informative than anything else I've seen. For me this is a MUST OWN!!! You won't be disappointed by this book.

This Greek Lexicon is a great resource for the bible student or seeker of the real definitions of Greek words. This not only helps with defining a word but gives you a better idea of the context of an entire passage. For example the word "teach" used in 1 Tim. 2:12 is one of instruction or direction (leading a flock) but the teach" in 2 Tim. 2:24- meaning to instruct ( as in the context of skilled in teaching or the havin the ability to teach. This book gives you the scripture passages that the word occurs in and it is very helpful. The only draw back is the numbering is in ROman numerals, but its good practice.

Michael Green's 1983 Unicornis is one of those magical books that actually makes you believe.

Presented as a fascimile of an ancient Medieval manuscript, the journal of one Magnalucius, member of a mystical fifteenth century order of philosophers and mystics, the Collegium Gnosticum (College of Knowledge), located near Ravenna, Italy, this book is simply magical.

Green presents it as his translation of the ancient Codex Unicornis, entrusted into his safekeeping by one Frater Iamblicus, a member of the Order. The book consists of the fascimile manuscript pages, done up in very authentic-looking Medieval style, and Green's translation of the Latin text. The illuminations and paintings are spectacular! So cleverly crafted and enchanting is this book that, even though I knew it was fiction, I still kept asking myself, Is it possible this could be for real? I even found myself carefully studying the illuminations and paintings in the book, trying to ascertain whether they were authentically Medieval or not. The book is THAT GOOD.

If you want a truly enchanting book that will make you believe in unicorns you simply MUST locate a copy of this book. Medievalists and lovers of fantasy will delight in this book.

I read this book very many years ago and it is still a treasured possesion in our home. I was a seeker, and I have found the truth and beauty of the unicorn. I believe !

This is a beautifully composed and illustrated manuscript from an obscure monastery in late Medieval Europe, combining "Medieval style mysticism" with "Renaissance style inquiry" to present a work dedicated to the arcane lore of the unicorn. Selected pages of the manuscript are reproduced (with amazing drawings) and the Latin translated. What I liked most was the layout and atmosphere of the drawings and text which makes a few thousand words and dozen pictures into a great book. A great find!

Of all the unicorn books that I've read, this is the book I believed in the most. It leaves the reader with awe and wonder. A great cure for doubt and loss of innocence.

This is a wonderous achievment! De Historia et Veritate Unicornis is a book that really a translated version of a 'book' or just some writing/notes (with drawings) about the Unicorn. I am an avid fantasy reader and this book was a great find! Unfortunately, this is out of print, but if you ever find it, make sure to buy it and enjoy its beauty and let yourself believe!

Mr. Gallagher captures your interest with his style of writing that makes reading this book easy. He provides a great amount of strategies to try in the classroom. Overall his ideas to improve student comprehension while reading were fun to read. I would recommend this book for any teacher looking for ideas to improve reading comprehension with their students.

I am in the third year of teaching Reading Workshop.
This book is Fantastic!!
I am reading it for a class I am taking, and each chapter that I am assigned to read is CHOCK FULL of things I can take and put into place in my classroom right away.
I would HIGHLY recommend this book.
It is very reader/user friendly.
If you are looking for ways for kids to connect more with what they read...this book is a must have.

I'm a 5th grade teacher who loves to teach reading and writing to my students. Over 12 years ago, I attended the Literature Project and the Writing Project in San Diego and learned many strategies for teaching my students to engage in reading and use writing in powerful ways. This book, written by Kelly Gallagher, a teacher leader in both those projects, moves everything I learned one step further. It emphasizes critical thinking when students read anything: from the symbolism and metaphors used in classical literature, to the bias used in journalism, and even to the propaganda techniques used in advertisements. It also emphasizes collaboration and truly thoughtful reflection, like asking oneself "What is left unsaid?" I believe we need more critical thinkers in our world and, if you open the pages of this book, you will find numerous practical ways to turn your students into people who think for themselves.

I read this book last summer and then implemented the strategies when school started. The real challenge came when I started my sophomore classes on the novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles. We started reading it right after Thanksgiving and finished the book and literary analysis papers by the end of school in May. At first, my students thought the book was written in a foreign language because it sounded so strange to them. They hated the book and wanted nothing to do with it. By using all the techniques in Deeper Reading, the students came to really enjoy the book. When we finished reading the book in April, each student wrote a literary analysis on the book. I can honestly say that my students did not find it very difficult to write these papers because we had read, re-read, and thoroughly discussed the book for months. When they discussed the book with me or their peers, they sounded more like college students than economically disadvantaged 10th grade students with immigrant backgrounds. The part that was the hardest for me was slowing down to allow students time for mastery of the book, but just as the students adjusted to the book, I adjusted to the idea that we would only read one novel at a very deep level during the school year. By the last 5 chapters, the students could read the book independently, but we always had our class discussions before and after reading. By the last third of the novel, their understanding of the book was incredible. Many students confided that they had never really read a class novel before. All of the students were very proud of their achievement. This is an excellent book for any secondary teacher that wants to teach books beyond what the students could read by themselves.

Deeper Reading is one of my favorite language arts resources. As an 8th grade teacher, I am constantly looking for ways to improve reading and reading comprehension in my students. Whether you are dealing with low ability, reluctant, or gifted students, the lessons Kelly Gallagher presents lead students to "deeper reading" in fiction and nonfiction text. (My classes are especially fond of his lesson on creating metaphors when analyzing characters during reading.) Our middle school bought copies of this book for the staff and created after school book discussion groups to encourage implementation of the strategies in this valuable resource.