Don Books

Of the 1000's of books written on leadership in the past 100 years, this one presents a very real picture of world we live in. Too many of the books I've read lately give us the magic formulas to follow, some leading us through a veritable mathematical maze to tell us what kind of leader we are. "Principle-Centered Leadership" by Covey and "The Platinum Rule" fall into this category. What Blanchard and Shula have done, and done quite successfully is to integrate theory with actual examples. While I don't agree with everything that Shula has done, I do applaud his efforts. I do absolutely believe in his philosophy of "Lead by example," and the necessity of developing trust. Both Shula and Blanchard emphasize this aspect of leadership as critical. There are too many so-called leaders in the corporate world who do not lead by example. They are quite willing to demand of you what they are unwilling to do themselves. On top of the quality of the reading, the book is very easy to read. I hi

What makes this book so effective is that the advice offered is not only solid, but it can be applied immeditely. It's a "hands on" doer's guide. The strength Ken Blanchard brings is his strong Christian influence. Shula's credentials consist of his long term track record as an NFL coach. In this book Shula describes how he leads by example and thorough preparation.

One place this book separtes itself from books of this genre is that it emphasizes "follow through" as contrasted with goal-setting. That's an action focus. It puts the spotlight on doing something.

This is a must buy for every coaches library. Coach Shula explores all of the areas a coach is confronted with. He gives the reader his philosophy on coaching and relates it to life's teachings.

Don Shula, the National Football League's all-time winningest coach, teamed up with Ken Blanchard, the internationally known and multiple award-winning author, educator, and management and leadership consultant, and together they co-wrote an outstanding book about leaders getting the best performance from the individuals and organizations they are privileged to lead. Whether you are responsible for the performance of multiple organizations, or for just one other individual, the leadership wisdom and insights in this book can help you maximize your coaching and leadership effectiveness.

The winning combination of the two separately distinguished leaders in their respective fields, and the complementary structure of the book were brilliant. Organized around the acronym C.O.A.C.H., the five coaching "secrets" that Shula had practiced and Blanchard has been teaching for over 30 years, the book alternated synergistic passages from Shula then Blanchard to explore and explain the acronym in theory and practice from the football gridiron to modern business situations, and ultimately to the game of life.

Here's how Shula and Blanchard define and think about the acronym C.O.A.C.H.:

Conviction-Driven: Effective leaders stand for something.

Overlearning: Effective leaders help their teams achieve practice perfection.

Audible-Ready: Effective leaders, and the people and teams they coach, are ready to change their game plan when the situation demands it.

Consistency: Effective leaders are predictable in their response to performance.

Honesty-Based: Effective leaders have high integrity and are clear and straightforward in their interactions with others.

Conviction-Driven: "Someone has said that a river without banks is a puddle. When I apply that saying to human interactions, it reminds me of the job of a coach. Like those river-banks, a good coach provides the direction and concentration for performers' energies, helping channel all their efforts toward a single desired outcome. Without that critical influence, the best achievements of the most talented performers can lack the momentum and drive that make a group of individuals into champions."

Overlearning: "To me a game doesn't end when the clock finally runs out. It ends on Monday, after we've analyzed every play and learned all we cana from it...Failure is successfully finding out what you don't want to repeat...Learning is defined as a change in behavior. You haven't learned a thing until you can take action and use it."

Audible-Ready: "Preparation means everything to me. I'm passionate about my players being ready for anything. Now, part of being ready is being able to shift your game plan at will. I see myself as a battlefield commander who has the guts to make the right moves to win. I want to be prepared with a plan - and then to expect the unexpected and be ready to change this plan. I must preserve the right to change - even to change at the last moment - as circumstances demand...Audibles aren't surprises - just new ways of doing what you already know how to do. Business people need to learn to call audibles, because in today's world, nothing stays the same."

Consistency: "Your team will soon learn what your standards are and perform accordingly. I not only insist on practice perfection, I'm there to see that it takes place. I don't miss practices. I need to be out there smelling out whatever isn't working. Even the slightest deviation from perfection needs to be noticed and corrected on the spot. Correcting and redirecting performance is strategically important - it's where we outstrip the competition. Some coaches will let little things go. Right there is where the difference is made. To me, it's not a matter of how many times we've done it or how late it is or how tired the players are. We'll do it until we get it right. Then we won't deviate from it in the game. I'd rather throw out a play or formation during practice than find out it can't be done correctly in the ball game. We seldom try anything on game day that we haven't been able to perfect in practice. If I'm asking our players to do something they can't do, I want to know about it now."

Honesty-Based: "I have a straight-up approach. I don't know how to go around corners or how to finesse. My players know this and they expect candor from me. Congruence is important to me. What you see with Don Shula is what you get. I don't play games. Effective coaches confront their people, praise them sincerely, redirect or reprimand them without apology, and above all are honest with them. Integrity pays, and integrity means being honest with yourself and others. This is a key ingredient in my coaching philosophy."

In his introduction to the book, Blanchard stated that he is on a search for simple truths to help leaders and managers be their best. With Shula's proven long-term coaching effectiveness as the foundation for this book, Blanchard has found and shared many simple leadership truths and complexities. This book would be a welcome addition to anyone's coaching or leadership collection.

A Field Guide For Families is an excellent outline of EVERYTHING one needs to consider when helping older relatives. It is a great resource of common-sense approaches to everyday problems. In an aging population, this is a timely guide for the
baby boom generation!

A Field Guide For Families: How To Assist Your Older Loved Ones When You Don't Live Next Door is a sound, "reader friendly", and practical resource for family members who may be spread out over large areas, and find that the problems of transportation and distance impede the ability to take care of an older loved one who needs assistance. Offering insights into the physical and mental changes that come with aging, and specifically addressing the questions of what can cause mental confusion in an aging parent; helping an elderly love one change negative attitudes to positive ones; memory loss; when it no longer safe to drive; problems with scheduled medication; and the prevention of falling, A Field Guide For Families is very highly recommended for its practical advice on the diverse dilemmas of dealing with deteriorating loved ones.

A Field Guide For Families is an excellent outline of EVERYTHING one needs to consider when helping older relatives. It is a great resource of common-sense approaches to everyday problems. In an aging population, this is a timely guide for the
baby boom generation!

"A Field Guide for Families is essential for anyone who cares about an aging loved one. Whether you live nearby or not, this is the book you'll keep reaching for, over and over, to better understand what is happening to the person you care about. This is the book I wish I had when my own parents were living."
Jim Donovan, author, This is Your life, Not a Dress Rehearsal

Great reference book for flower frogs. Good clear pictures and every item had a photo; clear, concise discriptions.

Bonnie bull is probably one of the most knowlegable collectors of flower frogs. Her descriptions of the many kinds and the materials used to create these not quite antiques is wonderful. The book is easy to read, and is an excellent resource for new or seasoned collectors. Grandmothers used flower frogs to arrange their flowers and now collectors use these aids to decorate their homes. If only Bonnie could have captured the tale each flower frog could tell. An intelligent and informative read.

great book, found many items that we have had for years and were unaware of
there value. this book is one of the better price guides in our collection

We collect frogs and this is a perfect gift for a collector

As a former varsity coach now coaching the lower levels, this book contained good insights for building an offense that works without either being too simplistic or unneccesarily complicated. Especially helpful was the section on goal line offense. I wish there were more detailed diagrams, and more on practice organization, but this is a solid read nevertheless. If I were a head coach, it would be required reading for the Freshman and Sophomore staffs.

If your a football coach looking for the holly grail of coaching Don Schnake breaks it down to what is most important. There is more how-to and common sense in this one book than in my entire coaching library.

The title "Simple Six" refers to six base plays the author recommends as the foundation for your offense. He gives examples, but it is up to the reader to decide on what their focus will be. From the base plays he goes on to discuss counters and play action passes that stem from the base. He also discusses goal line packages.

This is a good place to begin if you are just starting out to develop your own offensive style/philosophy. I've been coaching high school football (both JV and Varsity) for 8 years now, and it reinforced my belief that offenses at this level should limit the number of plays they run. Master a few plays, run them to perfection, and only add when you are comfortable that your players can handle something new.

I would say the author also believes in the K.I.S.S. principle. It's not a very long book, but it is easy to read as the author uses a conversational style.

Coach Don Schnake's newest book "Football Simple Six" is an excellent read. His solution to running a high-school offensive to day is to limit the amount of plays so you can maximize the reps in practice of those six plays. The six plays will fit into anyone's offense.

Coach Schnake is an excellent author and coach. Try and get his earlier book on his father in law, prep basketball great Arhur Trout of Centralia, Illinois,

i have never read a book that has captivated me more than this one if you read any book this summer this is the one to read Dr Ribble is simply amazing with his insights into human nature and is a shining light to us all

i have never read a book that has captivated me more than this one if you read any book this summer this is the one to read Dr Ribble is simply amazing with his insights into human nature and is a shining light to us all

Ribble has penned a splendid collection of poems filled with witticisms and insights. His breadth of ideas and knowledge of traditional form should appeal to both the seasoned poet and the aficionado.

"Don't Eat the Snake" is easy to read and re-read. It uses traditional poetic forms, including often-clever rhyme, to put a little order into the mess we sometimes make of the world. There's nothing here to make you feel Ribble is speaking down from some high pulpit, but his subjects are the ones you're accustomed to hearing pretentious people bore you with. Ribble isn't boring at all, and he's often outright funny.

I bought this book for my 18 month old because we like birds and the illustrations looked cute. I love the sweet story and the singsong rhymes like Dr. Seuss. Such a fun story and great illustrations - it didn't take long until I had memorized the whole thing, which is nice because my daughter can hold the book and turn the pages and jiggle the eyes while I recite the story to her. Highly recommend it!

We read to our children every day and I look forward to reading this book especially. It is so enlightening and a joy to read. I wish more stories had such a positive inspiration as Friends of a Feather!

An adorable book that easily catches your eye as well as the eye of your child. Arlen Cohn writes in a Dr. Suess like style which children and adults will enjoy together. An imaginitive story that introduces your children to different kinds of birds, with a summary at the end, giving a non-fiction description of each bird in an interesting way that is sure to keep your childs interest. The illustrations by Don Sullivan are absolutely fantastic, sure to make for hours on enjoyment! Highly recommended!

A wonderful book, both the pictures and words, and it really informs you about lots of birds. A sense of adventure that's mixed with suspense, the joy and the fun of the book is intense. The story is brilliant, the drawings sublime, and they manage to carry it off all in rhyme. So buy it, enjoy it, it's full of surprise, and not to forget, it's got googly eyes. Now the author's my brother, I have to confess, but that won't mean that you'll like the book any less.

My 2 year old loves this book because of the pictures of all the construction vehicles in action. The text is a little too simple and does not seem to flow very well for my taste.

Using acrylic paint, foam board and plaster to create his colorful illustrations, the artist and author has created an entertaining look at the heavy equipement needed to build a bridge. Each double-paged spread has one or two sentences describing the action. A turtle who gets in the way of the construction workers is never mentioned, but provides humorous visual action in the story. Although the illustrations appear bold and simple, there is enough detail to invite close inspection of each picture. This will work very well as a book for a child to look at alone, and for use in group sharing, such as storytime.

My son has been into trucks since he was 6 months old. I bought this book for him last year (when he was one) and it quickly became a favorite! It's the only book we even took on our vacation last summer, because we knew he would never tire of it. We did, however, so now we have made up a tune to the book and sing it as a song. My son loves "reading" the book to us, singing the song,and when he plays in his sandbox, he recites the book as he is playing with his tractors "digger digs hole" "bulldozer fills hole."
I'm not sure I really appreciate the book at his level, but then again, I don't get how a 2 year old boy can be fascinated with the wheel on a touring bus!
If you're thinking about it, just buy it -- I don't think you'll be sorry you did!

Get up early in the dark, quiet morning, and join the workers traveling to the worksite. It's time to "get to work, trucks!" There are big trucks and little trucks, busy all day, and hard at work. Meet the loader and the dump truck. Watch the digger dig a deep hole, and the bulldozer push dirt into other holes. The cement mixer is hard at work mixing and mixing. The crane lifts beams high in the sky, and the roller flattens the road on the ground. And as a special treat, see if you can find the visitor on each page who just can't get enough of heavy equipment.... Don Carter's simple, descriptive text, written in short sentences, is kept to a minimum. The real story is told through his bold, bright, and busy, eye-popping illustrations. Each two page spread dazzles with vivid color, texture, energy, and humor, and little ones will be itching to hop aboard the dump truck, or maybe the bulldozer, or crane, and get right to work. Perfect for preschoolers, Get To Work Trucks is an engaging and informative little gem of a book, that's sure to become an instant favorite at your house.

I honestly believe that after reading this book, anyone will be able to confidently discuss global warming topics from an objective viewpoint.

Dr. Archer wrote this book after teaching a course with the same title for several years. His writing style is as great as his lecture style - non-intimidating, humorous, well-explained examples and analogies, and he teaches the science behind the famous words "global warming". There is no arm-waving or magical answer. The descriptive text encourages the reader to find answers themselves via simple calculations. In addition, several fun and relevant web-based models are included. For example, in one model, you can calculate how the earth's temperature may change if you increase the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere. In another, you can play with the supply of fossil fuels and predict how long it will be before we run out.

I've been a teaching assistant to Dr. Archer for two years, and his lectures, which this book is partially based on, have helped students with no previous background understand the science behind global warming, and enjoy themselves while doing it. But as a graduate student, I still find myself consulting his book for general facts about the carbon cycle or atmosphere. It truly is a book that can be enjoyed at any level of background, especially today, when global warming is such a hot (no pun intended) topic. I've read the book each year, and look forward to reading it again. Definitely a great buy!

There are some annoying typographical errors in this book, otherwise I would give
it five stars --- visit the book's website for a list of errata.

Plenty of books tell you about global warming, but this book really does
dymystify the nuts and bolts of how climate scientists know what they
say they know. The book says it is based on a course for non-scientists and
it shows --- the explanations are clearly honed from experience of explaining
scientific concepts to non-scientists. It is always difficult for scientists
in any field to convey the depth of knowledge which has accumulated over
a long period of time to people coming from other disciplines, but this book
does a pretty good job.

The climate books by Flannery, Kolbert, etc. tend to be anecdotal, with qualitative descriptions of how the climate works. While I think those books are valuable, what's been missing is a more technical description of the physics of the climate system that's accessible to people who aren't physics majors. This book is it. It serves as a bridge between the fully qualitative books and highly technical textbooks requiring calculus. There is some math in it, so math-phobes might approach it with caution. I think the book would be especially useful to scientists or grad students who want to know something about the climate problem, but don't want to invest a lot of time in reading dense textbooks or journal articles. I'm going to have my incoming grad students who did not major in atmospheric sciences read it in order to educate themselves quickly about the climate.

I wish to commend this wonderful book written by my colleague, David Archer. The class upon which this book is based is a runaway success, and each year it seems they need to find a bigger lecture hall. When you have read the books like "The Weather Makers," and "Field Notes from a Catastrophe," and are ready for something more quantitative but still fairly gentle on the math, this is the one for you. I think it's the best source around for people who want to get a true scientific understanding of the physics and chemistry of climate change.

my son loves this series it's put the fun back in reading for him!!!!!!

If you are into mysteries you would like this book. It is full of adventures and kids getting into mischief. It was great book to read.

There are some weird grownups in Bailey City. But could the new computer teacher at school really be a tricky goblin? THE BAILEY SCHOOL ARE GOING TO FIND OUT!

this book is a good book to read if you are into the eletronic world.

This book is very conversational. Zane speaks to you as if he's having a face to face conversation with you instead of talking through his book. His humor is a bit controversial and hilarious! It makes reading fun which is a success in itself. This is a book for the humor ridden, non-religious based stereo-type. So pretty much for almost anyone. Great book!

The book is spiritual and flat out hilarious at the same time. Morris goes over how you could get more of what you want from the guidance of God and also uses lots of humor to keep the person's attention to the book with his friend being a Hobosexual (I didn't mispell it, his friend is a HOBOsexual) and coming on to any woman that is reading this book.

You may think that a person that is helping you to rely on God and using humor that you don't think is funny may be just wrong or blasphemy but remember this, Laughter is the language of the Soul.

This is a down to earth approach to God...keepin it simple and keepin it real. Zane uses real life and an honest outlook on God and gettin what u want and/or need.... His words are Gansta, hilarious, out of this world, you gonna be like what the hell did I just read??? This is about God??? Then it comes together...Cop this book, you wont be disappointed!!!

Zane's approach to writing is as bizarre as I have read... But it works... A visually appealing layout with illustrations, his style of writing lends to this self-narrative of helping you, yes you, find peace with yourself, with life, with your soul and hopefully fulfilling all your dreams... Whether hobos are involved with your future plans or not, learn to lighten up, learn to work and learn to enjoy the payoffs... Zane says you deserve them... You should listen to Zane... Definitely worth the read and it's well worth the laughs.. And hopefully you'll leave with a little bit knowledge, a sense of your own worth and a taste of one's soul.. Zane's or your own...