Go Books

A relatively unknown set of books here in the states, but unfortunately so. The Famous Five series tells of the adventures of Georgina (George), her dog, Timothy, and her cousins Julian, Dick, and Anne.

Five Go Off In A Caravan is one of the three that ties for my favorite Five book. I love them all, of course, but this one is just chock full of humor, good food, fun, and excitement! It's summer hols again, and the Five are traveling in a pair of caravans. They make camp in an area that is also occupied by a circus! They make friends with a circus boy named Nobby and his mischievous chimp, Pongo, who becomes a source of much hilarity. But something sinister is going on in the camp and the children are sure that it concerns Nobby's "Uncle" Dan and his unpleasant friend, Lou the acrobat. What are they hiding and can the children bring them to justice in time?

I could only remember the word "caravan" from one of my favorite childhood book titles and after doing a search for this word was delighted to re-discover the titles of this and other "Famous Five" books. My grandmother must have picked these up for me when she was visiting the U.K. and I have such fond memories of reading these books that I plan on purchasing and re-reading them as an adult. Highly recommended!

One of the best in the series, and one of my personal favorites. This time, our five friends: Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy of course, set out on a holiday in caravans each drawn by a sturdy little horse. The trip starts off peacefully enough, but of course an adventure soon appears...this time from the circus camp located near where the five are staying. Why are Lou the acrobat and Dan the clown so eager to be rid of the five? Be prepared for the usual hair raising adventure filled with nasty tempered criminals, secret passageways and a lot of scrumptious sounding food. Pass the tomatos please! This book stands out thanks to the strange circus folk the five befriend along the way including a couple of circus dogs, a hilarious chimpanzee, and even an elephant who loves to play cricket!

This book is very helpful for parents of preschoolers and older kids. There are nine chapters in all and they are broken up as follows...
1. Errands: Grocery store games, how to distract kids while in a dressing room, potty visits while out, issues with elevators and escalators, how to handle visits to toy stores and more
2. Waiting: activities while waiting somewhere
3. Doctors', Hairdressers, etc: Tips for places your kids hate and more
4. Going on Outings: Tips on where to go, how to handles certain situations while at the various places.
5. Dealing with Whining in the Car: Activities to keep kids entertained and more info.
6. Getting there: Planning, packing, how to handle motion sickness, games to play while traveling, plane travel and more info.
7. Long Trips Away From Home: How to make the trip comfortable, meals, potty issues, sharing a room with kids and more info.
8. More Travel Tips: Photo tips, beaches, amusement parks, more info.
9. Minor Problemes: Separation Anxiety (getting lost), temperature issues (hot/cold weather), illnesses, suburns, etc.

This book is loaded with information. It is definitely worth checking out to get some helpful ideas for basically any type of outing with kids.

Hurray! This is a book that is actually funny, helpful and soooo practical. I got this book before we took our 3 1/2 year old on vacation. I had only read a part of the book, but the ideas I took from it (pennies in a cool whip container was priceless,)really helped keep my fussy child happy in the car. Now that I have finished the book, I have used McKee's tips for trips to the supermarket, toy store, the doctor's office and restaurants. This is one you'll go back to again and again. The first Fussbusters book is just as wonderful and is definitely worth buying as well.

Fussbusters On The Go: Strategies by child psychologist and youth services expert Carol Baicker-McKee is an outstanding compilation of effective strategies and "parent friendly" games to help make errands, outings, vacations, and general travel with preschool children fun and stress-free. From easy to understand and follow guidelines, to ensuring the little ones get nutritions munchies on the go, to handling separation anxiety and soothing incessant whining, to hygiene tips for staying clean, Fussbusters On The Go is an especially recommended addition to community library Parenting Skills reference collections, as well as invaluable, essential reading for parents of toddlers who have every had to take their child to the dentist, doctor, grocery store, mall shopping, or extended car trips.

Publisher's Weekly is very cynical in calling the ending of this "maudlin." My daughter is 4 years old and was very concerned about lonely Gator. Of course it's easy to predict what will happen, as an adult, but to see the smile on her face at the end shows the true value of this story. Again, Randy Cecil proves himself as one of the best illustrators in the business. You will not be disappointed with this excellent book!

Randy Cecil's GATOR tells of a carousel animal who loves his job - but fewer and fewer people come to the amusement park, and one day Gator must leave his familiar home and journey to a place with real alligators. His journey will take him to a world very different than his artificial park home and will even lead him to become a hero in this smooth story of a carousel animal's search for a new occupation and home.

I was at Border's this afternoon and happened to see this book displayed on a table (I was drawn to it because of the cover - the illustrations are GREAT). I sat down and read it while my daughter was running around in the the kids section. This is such a sweet, cool story! I love the idea of the carousel animal hopping down to check out the world when kids stop coming around, I love the hole in his heart idea, and the duck with the wings up at the end was the final clincher. I would recommend this book to any parent, or if you are looking for a great book to give as a gift - this is the one!

This book is rich. It is beautifully written and a joy to read. Statements like 'The Synoptics make clear that God's reign comes into history through human responses; it is not a theophany that reorders the world by sovereign power' shows that we all are co-creators in this life. The chapter 'The Analogiclal Imagination' gives great hope, especially for social justice issues. My faith witness recommends this book to all who have hope in Jesus Christ

This book is rich. It is beautifully written and a joy to read. Statements like 'The Synoptics make clear that God's reign comes into history through human responses; it is not a theophany that reorders the world by sovereign power' shows that we all are co-creators in this life. The chapter 'The Analogiclal Imagination' gives great hope, especially for social justice issues. My faith witness recommends this book to all who have hope in Jesus Christ

The author writes from a Roman Catholic Christian perspective and argues that adequate Christian ethics must place the words and actions of Jesus at its center. Spohn believes that Christianity confesses Jesus Christ to be the definitive but not exclusive revelation of God. "Morally, this confession means that Jesus Christ plays a normative role in Christians' moral reflection. His story enables us to recognize which features of experience are significant, guides how we act, and forms who we are in the community of faith" (2).

The first three chapters make the case for the sources and method that the author employs. The argument is that three particular sources shape Christian ethics: the New Testament, virtue ethics, and spirituality. The second half of the book addresses how one perceives God's reign and Jesus' compassion vision, as well as exploring the emotions and dispositions of the Christian life. When explaining the importance of compassion in the ethical vision introduced by Jesus, the author writes, "Luke's parable of the Good Samaritan shows that compassion is the optic nerve of the Christian vision" (87).

The author concludes that the Christian moral life is grounded in the person of Jesus, and this grounding is demonstrated through the regular Christian practices that shape the lives of committed believers.

This was a very good book for my 6 year old who was afraid of the dark. He seem to really get alot out of it. I love the scriptures along w/ the story. It really reminds us about Gods prescence and his power! He is a Great Big God!! I recommend this to any parent!

Precious! Liz Curtis Higgs continues to produce the quality books parents, teachers, and grandparents look forward to purchasing for their children or grandchildren. - or themselves!! The topic is so real to kids and she makes the story come alive!! Great illustrations, too!!

This book is the perfect combination of story and illustration. Higgs' gentle story will be a boon to children who are afraid of the dark. And the illustrations are beautiful--cool blues and purples. A lovely, sweet book.

I've read the first in the series (So Dear to Wicked Men) and loved it for its clever plot and funny characters. This one (Go Close Against the Enemy) is even better. The characters are still funny and the plot still clever and there is an added seriousness that is thought provoking and at times heart-wrenching. I highly recommend this book.

If you haven't read one of the 2 books in the series, I highly recommend you do so. The authors have owned restaurants and are now using that knowledge to write entertaining books. The couple in the story own a restaurant in the south. The husband is Greek. They have hired a Greek friend of his who speaks less English. This couple find themselves in many "jams" but always seem to find their way out. A very likeable couple and an easy reading book.

Racism is openly flourishing in Delphi, Georgia. This becomes acutely evidenced at the funeral of a stillborn. April McNabb, daughter of the town preacher, married a black man in defiance of her father's commands. Although he disowns her for this sacrilege, he supports her when she wants her baby buried in his churchyard. However, Deacon Walter Fry objects, wanting the infant buried in the black cemetery. During the burial, a demonstrative and ugly protest occurs.

April pushed to the limit, fires a shot at Fry, but misses. However, Fry is soon found murdered and April is arrested for the crime. She calls on her friend Julia Lambros to help her since Julia has successfully conducted a murder investigations before. Though she and her spouse are having problems with an IRA agent, she decides to help her friend. Her snooping places Julia in danger from an individual who wants to remain anonymous.

In SO CLOSE AGAINST THE ENEMY, the victim has many people wishing him dead who also have the means and opportunity to kill him. This makes the story line very complex and difficult to solve. The protagonists are a working class couple whom strikes an immediate chord with the audience. Takis and Judy Iakovou demonstrate that racism is a destructive force that can tear apart a town. This enjoyable book tells a good story while making a powerful social statement.

Harriet Klausner

This book has a lot of doable, new ideas for preparing delicious, healthy fish dinners!

B. Marold has done this book huge favor by summarizing that this will not satisfy those who want a "basic" book on fish prep, but this will serve as excellent second source to take fish cooking up a notch as Emerald is fond of saying.

Yet these recipes are not all that difficult, likely what one might call "intermediate" in terms of technical difficulty and ingredient sourcing. Those are aided as well by clear glossary and definitions and source listing.

For some who have large cookbook collections with many seafood volumes, this will be great addition with its creative, essential approach.

What this reviewer enjoys is the wine suggestion as well as side-dish ideas, and when possible even fish substitutions.

The collection is organized around multi-dish meal, with appetizer, entree, soup/salad, dessert the organizing structure.
Those which have been most enjoyable in trials so far: Stone Crab with Avocado and Grapefruit Juice;Provencial Matchsticks (made with anchovies and puff pastry); Bay Scallop, Blue Cheese and Fig Salad; Poached Skate with Spicy Lime-Yogurt Vinaigrette; Ricotta Tortellin with Grilled Sardines; Foil-Baked Cod; Crayfish and Chicken Casserole; Mushroom-Crusted Halibut with Truffle Oil Emulsion; Spicy Moraccan Swordfish; Corn And Scallion Pancakes; Steamed Banana Baba with Rum Syrup.

Excellent gift consideration for discrimnating gourmet friends.

`go FISH' by Laurent Tourondel and Andrew Friedman is one of those books which exudes promise from its pores, as it were. It has the very promising subtitle, `Fresh Ideas for American Seafood', the talented co-author who has assisted several other major New York chefs with their books, and complementary back cover blurbs from six of the heaviest of heavy culinary hitters. I will be only a little skeptical about the fact that all but Thomas Keller are French chefs with restaurants in New York. This `coincidence' is offset by the fact that one of the French five is Eric Ripert, who is a first rate fish specialist in his own right. So, if Eric is willing to pass some of his cachet off to our man Laurent, then I will take him at his word.

The book explains itself as a collection of recipes for only fish found in American markets (not necessarily in American waters) and as a collection of recipes written to be prepared at home rather than at a restaurant. That is, although Monsieur Tourondel is a seafood restaurant chef, these are dishes he prepares at home and not in his restaurants. So far, all of this sounds really great.

Tourondel continues to please me when he says that fish is really easy to cook. This coincides with everything I have read and experienced about fish cookery so far. In fact, the main talent you need with fish is to avoid overdoing it with strong flavors so as to avoid loosing the identity of the fish under a blanket of strong flavors.

Tourondel pays up on this promise by offering many dishes of raw (sushi, sashimi, tartare, carpaccio) acid-cooked (ceviche) recipes which are practically all about good knife skills and involve virtually no cooking by heat.

The authors offer us a great service by providing a chapter of fifty-eight (58) profiles of fish in American markets, almost all of which are also from American waters. Understandably, many will only be available in certain parts of the country. In eastern Pennsylvania, I have never seen stone crab, frog's legs, spiny lobster, rock shrimp, sea urchin, snails, Dungeness crab, or peekytoe crab at my fishmonger or megamart. The only seafood I miss from their list is abalone and terrapin, which are both in `James Beard's New Fish Cookery'. I will certainly not hold that against this book, as I would rather have two good books that do not overlap than two good books which succeed in the same areas.

Another introductory section gives expert advice on how to select and care for seafood purchases. This advice covers everything I have heard or read before, but with not much I have not heard or read before.

Thus, the authors seem to have succeeded with three important big ideas, all of which add up to a promising book for American home cooks. The next issue is whether their recipes are good and they have a good supply of little ideas to back up their agenda.

For starters, I believe their recipes are written in an especially good format. My usual preference is for numbered steps that make it easy to see where you are at any given point in the preparation. The authors go one better and give titles to each step. This is an excellent measure for making the recipe easy to follow, but it is also an excellent step to show, upon reading the recipes, how much work is involved in actual cooking and how much is involved in prepping the ingredients and the garnishes. In almost all other regards, the layout of the recipe text is first class. The headnotes are at the beginning, the notes about ingredients are highlighted with large type names, and almost all recipes are for the same number of servings.

An excellent last step to each procedure is instructions on how to serve the dish. Each recipe, even the appetizers, also include a wine selection which goes far beyond the usual. In fact, it goes so far that while the novice can use it, its full value may only be evident to a wine aficionado. These last two features make this book doubly valuable as a resource for dishes with which to entertain.

I am very happy to find the names of all the recipes at the beginning of each chapter. One can see at a glance, for example, that the book includes recipes for the traditional Manhattan and New England clam chowders, Pesto Minestrone, Mediterranean Fish Soup, crab bisque, and cream of cauliflower with salt cod. The editors should have taken just one more step and put the page numbers on the recipe titles.

With fish described as being so simple to cook, one may be surprised at the long ingredient lists and not trivial cooking instructions. The fact is that except for soups and plating instructions for things such as salads, much of the time and materials in many of the recipes goes for the dressing, sauce, or garnish. I looked at a few of the scallop recipes and found that the cooking in most of them was the same. The differences lay in the saucing and dressing. In spite of the somewhat long ingredient lists, I found nothing really expensive or out of the ordinary, as long as you are reasonably knowledgeable about world cuisines. Recipes originate from around the world, with a heavy concentration from France, Italy, America, the Mediterranean, Japan, and Southeast Asia (formerly French Indo-China). Many recipes even used water in lieu of chicken or fish stock.

Scallops bring up an important point. These recipes were probably written and tested with the very highest quality of scallops in hand. In landlocked Pennsylvania, all the sea scallops I ever see look more like scallop pieces laden with that stuff they add to keep them looking white.

An excellent second fish book, after acquiring Beard's book or Mark Bittman's `Fish'.

This book should be required reading for all people of all ages. It covers everything from basic manners to goal setting and methods to achieve any goal. I read this in Jr. High and wish I'd had this book read to me in the cradle. It is applicable to any situation. Buy this book for your child - for yourself! Learn it, know it, live it!

A must read for all parents to give to their children as soon as they are old enough to understand what "attitude" is all about!

I read this book when I was a teen and it had an enormous effect on my concept of what is possible in life. A great graduation present for kids 12 - 18. Although I re-read it when I was older and got benefit then too. I am now 28 and still consider this to be one of the most influential books that changed my attitude when I was growing up

The history of space activities at Cape Canaveral, Florida, America's spaceport, is as interesting as it is varied. "Go for Launch!" seeks to tell this story--already available in both scholarly and popular as well as in illustrated and textual forms--with an emphasis on photographs. At a fundamental level the "Cape," as it is universally known by those in the space community, may be as much a state of mind as it is a physical place. With high technology enterprises resting side by side with a wetlands refuge it is an eerie place, what Ann Morrow Lindbergh ironically referred to as the abode of both the "heron and the astronaut."

"Go for Launch! An Illustrated History of Cape Canaveral" is a fine attempt to capture the fifty year history of this place as the central space launch site in the United States. There are three central components to the Cape's space access efforts. The one that is best known is the Kennedy Space Center, the NASA installation that serves as the site for the preparation and launch of the nation's human spaceflight effort. The military also has a huge presence at the Cape, with Air Force and Navy facilities engaging in all manner of test and evaluation in the Eastern Test Range into the Atlantic Ocean. In recent years, finally, there has been a major effort to establish commercial space operations in the area and a growing number of non-governmental launches have been flown from the Cape. The first of all of this activity took place with the Bumper program in 1950, and the launch of Bumper 8 on July 24, 1950, established a precedent that has endured more than fifty years.

"Go for Launch!" is divided into three major parts. The first, nearly half of the book, deals with the period from 1950 through the Sputnik crisis of 1957. It relates in words and photographs the history of the military effort to establish a launch capability at the Cape and to undertake research and development on a variety of missiles and research rockets. These ranged from the ballistic missiles so well-known in history--the Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, Polaris, Trident, and Poseidon--as well as cruise missiles such as the Matador, Snark, Bomarc, and Navaho. They also included scientific rocket launches, and the construction and operation of the facilities that supported them. The authors do a good job of locating and printing in this work unique and interesting photos of these activities, many of them not well-known to the public. Indeed, many of the pages are essentially photographs with captions.

A second section relates the story of the orbital space launch era from the flight of the first U.S. orbital spacecraft, Explorer 1, launched from the Cape atop a Juno rocket on January 31, 1958, through the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, 73 seconds into its flight. Again, the authors found interesting imagery to illustrate the work. The third section deals with the more recent era, focusing on the return to flight after the Challenger accident and the development and flight of the various types of expendable launch vehicles launched from the Cape.

While the imagery is quite adequate overall, the reader should be aware that the vast majority of it is printed in black and white with only a small color section added to the book. Accordingly, while this is an illustrated history, if one approaches it seeking the splashy design of a "coffee table" book disappointment is assured. A better work of that type is David West Reynolds' "Kennedy Space Center: Gateway to Space" (Firefly Books, 2006), even though it does not treat in any detail the military aspects of the story and has several glaring errors of fact. What "Go for Launch!" does well is collect in one place a large number of interesting and helpful photographs of more interest to the specialist, perhaps, than the casual reader. Additionally, if one seeks a complex historical analysis of the history of space launch facilities at the Cape this is not the best book. Instead, a superb analysis may be found in "A History of the Kennedy Space Center" by Kenneth Lipartito and Orville R. Butler (University Press of Florida, 2007). "Go for Launch!" fills a key niche in the effort to understand the history of the Cape. It does not stand alone as the only work on the subject that interested readers will want to consult.

I- like many of you have collected the photo books and histories of Cape Canaveral(or Cape Kennedy). When I first saw this title- I thought "not the same old photos again"

Boy- was I wrong!

This book is great. Joel Powell and Art LeBrun have created an excellent guide to the history of Kennedy Space center. From Bumper V-2 to Delta IV and Atlas V. It shows the early missiles like Bull Goose and even this years Pluto Express launch. There are 17 pages of photos from "incidents and accidents" alone.

Photos of lore - like Gordo Cooper holding up his atlas rocket(page195) and Snark infested waters.The recovery of Gemini-5's Titan rocket from the Atlantic(pg.145)and the strange tale of John Glenn's Atlas rocket(pg.174 and 194)photo tours today of the first launch sites and the latest sites.
I heartily recommend this one!
This is what Apogee does best!

Space became the ultimate frontier and the battleground of the superpowers during the fifties. The fight was hard, but, happily, it was not won or lost by piling up heaps of dead bodies and dispatching hordes of mutilated veterans home from the fields of conflict, but by imaginative brainpower, engineering ingenuity and perseverance, and, of course, organizing all the fiscal and industrial resources available. Not everything happened at Cape Canaveral, but much of the drama happened there and therefrom. Here we are presented with wiews of it all, from the breadboard "bunker" and painter's scaffolding Gantry of the first Bumper-Wac launches in 1950, to the burgeoning Missile Rows and Skid Strip stretching along the shores of the Snark-infested Waters, and further to the giant constructions needed to launch giants like Titan-III and Saturn-I and V, which was the instrument of slamming the door of the Space Race to the Moon shut on the nose of the Russians. Many important battles of the Cold War were fought and won at "the Cape", but sure enough, during that conflict the tools of Space Exploration and Space Utilization were forged. Nowadays many of these installations serve new and exiting launchers with commercially important or scientifically intriguing missions. Joel W Powell is an inspiring guide to the once, now and future Cape. My reaction to his book was: "Did that, too, happened there?" Well, it did.

This is poetry with a flair! Most set in Thailand and the rest about other places and other things. The ballads are a blast esp. Noy of the Horny Toad. Bukowski would have loved it.

I almost didn't buy this book as I thought it might be too superficial but although it is uneven (it would have to be given the number of styles the author uses) most of the poems are very well written, some are moving, and some are very humorous. The one on fates of writers (mostly suicides) is interesting and poems on Thailand show the author's knowledge of and love for the country. Not all pieces are poems, but all are thoughtful and well written. If you like irreverent poetry, try this - you'll be glad you did.

This book of poetry and ballads is as the back cover says a lot of fun but there is also a lot of skill in the execution of many of the poems. Some are actually lyrics for songs and a few of these are quite moving. Just a bit over half are on Thailand and some of the others like I Had A Kid Brother are not poems that anybody will soon forget. Excellent and not only for Thailand lovers!