Characters Books

This is a truly unbelievable book for Grades 6 through 12. Great stuff for biology and earth sciences. It helps me out in the classroom so much. Check out kaganonline.com for more great higher-level thinking question books, especially the newest of them which is just about Biology.

Integrate higher-level thinking into your language arts curriculum with this powerful collection of ready-to-use questions. You will find hundreds of use-again questions to promote thinking, writing, and discussion about: Adventure Stories, Book Review, Poetry, Story Characters, Story Plot, Story Setting, Story Structure, Vocabulary, and many more! Questions are provided in convenient, reproducible, question card format, perfect for the engaging, cooperative questioning activities provided. Watch in awe as your students lead themselves through carefully crafted questions guaranteed to promote critical and creative thinking. Also includes reproducible prompts for journal writing and activities for student-generated questions. Mind-stretching questions will transform your language arts class into poetry in motion.

Stretch your students' interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences with these ready-to-use questions and activities. This book is brimming with questions on topics such as: All About Me, All About School, Esteem Building, Emotional Intelligence, Lying, Manners, Multiple Intelligences, My Favorites, Sticky Situations and more! Questions are designed to promote higher-level thinking and interaction on a range of personal and social skills issues: "If you could be anyone else for a day, who would you be? Why? Who is your favorite musical group? If you were going to write a magazine article about the band, what would you say? Attitudes are contagious. Do your friends drag you down or bring you up?" Questions are provided in convenient reproducible question card format, perfect for a variety of engaging cooperative discussions formats provided and journal writing. Boost your students' EQ with these provocative questions and activities.

Use the hundreds of open-ended higher-level thinking question in this book to venture beyond the basic facts of social studies. Watch as your students voyage into a whole new realm of thinking and learning. Includes intriguing questions for sixteen of the most popular social studies topics and themes including: Culture, Current Events, Explorers, Government, Historical Characters, Historical Events, Native Americans and more! Stretch the many facets of your students' minds with these thought-provoking questions: "What do you think would happen if Congress tried to establish an official religion? What does your culture have in common with this culture? America wasn't discovered, it was stolen from the Native Americans. Do you agree or disagree?" Questions are provided in convenient reproducible question card format, perfect for the engaging cooperative questioning activities provided. Also includes reproducible prompts for journal writing and activities for student-generated questions. Simultaneously explore social studies in depth and promote higher-level thinking!

Watch your students "dig into" life and earth science with this collection of higher-level thinking questions. Includes sixteen popular topics and themes: Animals, Bugs, Environment, Health and Nutrition, Human Body, Oceans, and many more! Create a natural environment to nurture the development of your students' budding thinking skills with hundreds of questions such as: "Should cosmetic testing and medical research be done on animals? Why or why not? Why are people living longer today than ever before? What impact does civilization have on nature? If you could have one sense be super strong, which sense would you choose? How would you use it?" Questions are provided in convenient reproducible question card format, perfect for the engaging cooperative questioning activities provided. Also includes reproducible prompts for journal writing and activities for student-generated questions. Bring science to life with this whole world of questions guaranteed to get your students thinking!

Amanda Pepper is coping with newlywed status, a visiting 16-year-old nephew, and strange happenings at school. New science teacher Juan Reyes is intensely disliked by his students. But does the dislike go as far as atttempted murder? An "accidental" explosion in the science lab causes Reyes to go to ICU in critical condition. None of the clues come together though to point to the real reason for her unease at school.
With each Amanda Pepper book, I know that the author had to have been a teacher. More of this book, than previous books, takes place in the classroom and in school. The behind the scenes problems of a principal who only cares about the bottom line and cares little for the actual education process and colleagues who do not see beyond their classrooms, plus trying to understand teenagers make this an interesting and satisfying reading experience.

One day schoolteacher and newlywed Amanda Pepper gets a phone call from a colleague who is ill. She wants Amanda to attend the school party on Friday in her place. Amanda agrees. She's not exactly over the moon about the idea, but what can you do when someone is sick.

Juan Reyes is a new science teacher. He is a strict authoritarian who wears monogramed shirts. Needless to say, he is not the student's favorite teacher, in fact they've nicknamed him Dr. Jar. Juan thinks the students are acting up more than they normally do and Amanda tells him that there have been several pranks played by the students lately. However, when an explosion goes off in his lab and Reyes is taken to the ICU, the level of pranks has been taken up a notch.

Amanda believes there is a secret group of resentful students who are behind it, even though the police seem to think it was an accident. She believes she has to get to the bottom of it all, before something else, something worse happens.

As usual, Gillian Roberts has written a very tight, very nice mystery. Amanda is the perfect amateur sleuth. This is a charming, fun read, with just the right amount of danger and suspense. I really enjoyed it.

I like the Amanda Pepper series and was euphoric when I heard about Gillian's latest entry, A HOLE IN JUAN. I ordered a copy and am awaiting a great read. If you're a fan of the series, do not hesitate. Read the book. If you're a newbie to Amanda's adventures, start from the beginning and work your way to the latest novel. They're a treat, never disappointing.

Bess

It is been almost a month since Amanda Pepper and Mackenzie were married but now that the schoolteacher is considered family, her husband's kin send his nephew Pip stay with them for a while until he calms down and gets over his broken heart. Her spouse, a former homicide detective, is now in school studying to get his PH.D in criminology. He is a part time private investigator and Amanda is learning to be on call they can supplement her income from Philly Prep.

Mischief Night is coming up soon but the atmosphere at the school is dark and foreboding as the senior students are not acting like themselves. Physics teacher Juan Reyes is complaining that equipment disappears and reappears and blames his students who think he is too hard and strict with them. Amanda is getting notes that point to something terrible happening at the Friday Mischief party at the school. Two female students who are supposedly best friends are constantly arguing and two males who were best buddies have a vicious altercation. Professor Reyes is seriously injured in what police think is an accident but is in reality a sadistic prank that viciously backfires on the students who caused it. All these happenings are linked but unless Amanda figures out what it all means, a terrible tragedy will occur.

Gillian Roberts has written another exciting mystery that demonstrates how a mob can rule and force their collective mindset on another person. After reading this book readers will understand how a Columbine situation can happen if stops aren't taken to prevent it. A HOLE IN JUAN is a chilling and terrifying storyline involving crimes that are beyond comprehension yet seem plausible. The protagonist takes action making her a true heroine.

Harriet Klausner

Another school year has begun at Philadelphia Prep. Amanda Pepper, with mixed feelings as always, returns to teaching English to a student body that is less than motivated to excel.

A new teacher hired over the summer, Juan Reyes, who is a chemistry doctorate, finds the students "...a disappointment. Sloppy thinkers, lazy, only interested in their petty lives." Of course, the teenagers sense this attitude and proceed to make his life miserable.

Odd things begin to happen to Mr. Reyes. But odd things begin to happen to Amanda as well. They were called "tricks," as they were attributed to the approach of Halloween. (In Philadelphia, it is a tradition for children to pull harmless pranks on the night before Halloween.) As this night of tradition draws even closer, the tricks take a deadly twist--both for the faculty and students. Amanda Pepper must use her sleuthing skills to uncover the perpetrators before the fateful night arrives.

I loved this book--the characters, and the plotline. As an avid reader of action and adventure stories, this book had plenty to keep me interested. And, I appreciated the lack of violence and cuss words.

Being a teacher myself, I empathized with the daily struggles of the main characters. The book is a quick read and I read it cover to cover on a Friday night. Good for relaxing on a cold winter's night!

Armchair Interviews says: Grab this book and a mug of hot cocoa on a cold winter night, and enjoy!

The book brought me into a new world,in which people don't know their heritage. I had never heard the word Melungeon before. The author made it easy, interesting reading.

An excellent book, scholarly and very readable. the Melungeons are a fascinating people. VandeBrake does a very good job of explaining them and how they have appeared in the literature. I expect we'll hear and read a lot more from this author.

Katherine Vande Brake's How They Shine is at once a scholarly examination of the depiction of Melungeons in Appalachian fiction and a readable overview of the topic. Though Melungeons have been characters in Appalachian fiction for many decades, no one has yet analyzed the way in which these misunderstood people have been presented. In this book, the first to address the issue of Melungeons in fiction, Vande Brake has filled that gap.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. While Vande Brake imparts a great deal of information, her style is quite conversational. Reading the book feels like sitting at a kitchen table in conversation with an old friend over a cup of coffee. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading a good book about books or anyone who seeks information about the Melungeon people.

How They Shine is engrossing and captivating. I found it to be a superb book! Vande Brake opens a door into the mysteries of the Melungeon culture. In doing so, you can feel Vande Brake's love of literature and great admiration of this quiet, obscure community that has its roots in Appalachia. While reading, I gained a great respect for the Melungeons as a group. Vande Brake brings to the reader's consciousness that Melungeon characters are used in literature to conjure up an image stereotypical to this group of people in the mountains of North East Tennessee and South West Virginia. Their tenacity, snake handling, moon shining, physical features, and exclusivity to the outside world are all part of this characterization.

How they shine is a fascinating work, full of haunting images of a special community of people who have lived in our United States for centuries.

Vande Brake writes vividly. How They shine is a scholarly work with well-documented claims yet it is an easy read. Those looking to do research or those lay people who are looking for an enjoyable book about another culture will find it satisfying.

Vande Brake's writing makes a complicated topic understandable to any reader.

Buy it!

How They Shine: Melungeon Characters In The Fiction Of Appalachia by Katherine Vande Brake (Associate Professor of English, King College, Bristol, Tennessee) is the first critical study of Melungeon characters in written fiction. Focusing on the wealth of Melungeon culture and how the Melungeon people have been viewed through the ages, particularly through the eyes of writers who identify them with the virgin Appalachian ridges before European colonization, How They Shine is an ground breaking, seminal, scholarly analysis that takes apart stereotypes and delves into the heart of human perception. How They Shine is a remarkable, informative, superbly presented and persuasive literary account.

How to Draw Disney's Mulan was a fun look into the art of animation. Foster gives a detailed lokk at both the story and drawing techniques. Very enjoyable

Just like one girl could make the difference to China's future, some little details made this book excellent. Since I used paints to re-create the characters, the color palattes were great to help me mix the right colors. But the single distinguishing feature that made this "how to draw" book better than the others I've used were the little notations scattered on everypage that highlighted the keys to each characters. My Mushu was ready to jump off the page and fight the Huns!

This book was truly amazing...but instead of giving directions on how to draw the character...it gives you pictures on each step on the character...it also gives you advice when you draw a certian part of the character...so instead of a classic 1 2 3 step book...you actully learn how to draw the characters...this nothing like I've seen before...It may seem hard, but it really isn't...when I was done...my drawing really looked like Mulan. I reccomeng this book if you love Mulan and want to have fun drawing.

This book is a wonderful how-to book for drawers. It shows how they made the characters from simple shapes and goes into detail about costumes and more. I aspire to become a Disney animator someday and this book helped improve my drawing techniques. It is surely worth your buying, be you a kid or an adult. -S.K.S.

Wow!!! I was amazed by the quality of the drawings I made from this book. I'm 13, and Mulan is my favorite movie. I tried drawing the characters from memory, but I'm not much of an artist, and they turned out badly. Then I ordered this book (from Amazon.com, I might add) and suddenly the cast started leaping out of my pencil! A great how-to with two pages devoted to each of the main characters, this book has pencil sketches and full-color illustrations to help you along. It is even crammed with hints from the animators!How to Draw Disney's Mulan can guide even the most amateurish artist from choosing the right materials to painting the background, with wonderful results. GET THIS BOOK TODAY!

This book is for people who want to know how to draw the Peanuts characters, such as Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Sally, Linus, etc etc. However the problem was that they only show the characters in one position. Some characters have two positions. For example, there is Linus standing up and Linus clutching his blanket for dear life. They never show Lucy yelling at Charlie Brown on the baseball field, or Peppermint Patty talking on the phone with her secret love, Charlie Brown. Otherwise I guess it's ok...buy it if you want to keep up the hard work of Charles M. Schulz!

This book shows just how versatile an artist Matt Busch is. Those familiar with his usual, fully painted works will appreciate how he is able to capture Schultz's signature style with ease! For those of you not familiar with Matt's work, you should really check out his web site...!!

Since my daughter read this book, she knows how to draw very well peanuts characters. This book is extremly good. Stronly recommended!

I am no artist, but even I can draw Snoopy now if I look at the instructions! Lots of Fun!

Great book for those of us who love sketching Peanuts' characters. My two granddaughters were using the book already and I can't wait to enjoy it too.

Very Helpful - goes along very well with book.

Excellent 'guided tour' of the scriptures to teach about the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.

Joyce is a wonderful speaker and author. I had never read any of her books till this one. It was an eye opening book for me. I discovered things that I did not know and I had a hard time putting the book down. It was easy to understand, it gives you Bible verses to look up so that you can learn as well are read her book. I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to know have a deeper understanding of what God "may" be telling you. Great book overall.

I really wanted to hear from God after reading this book. Like most joyce myer books, they dont change my life, but they give me an up front view of what I have to do - in order to please God and fix the problem. Great examples from the bible and stories but no direct instructions a young person (19) like myself wanted. I can truly say she never writes a boring book but this one didnt do anything for me personally.

Joyce Meyer has overcome a lot in her life and her teachings are intended to help you get ahead in your own struggles. In this book she points out the myriad ways God speaks to His people. Keep in mind, Jesus said His sheep will hear His voice, so this is a scriptural principle. In the introduction she lays out some of the diverse ways one can expect to hear: His Word, nature, people, circumstances, peace, wisdom, supernatural intervention, dreams, visions, and the "inner witness." All these are mentioned in the scriptures. Throughout the book she explains.

This is not a book intended only for acquiring new information. It's a book for application of principles. There are reflective questions that help you to see how to tap into the lessons being taught. This book will help you grow spiritually.

Personal responsibility is an integral part of hearing from God. Meyer points out that Jesus told us to be careful how we hear, i.e., not just receive information by default, but be consciously in control of what we allow to influence us. All the ways of God are right and sure, and in hearing from Him, we learn the route He has for our lives. Listening is an active part of prayer.

You have two problems inherent to writing a Seventh Doctor adventure featuring the Cybermen. One is that the Past Doctor Adventures were meant to be more traditional Who tales, in the vein of what you would see on the screen, which isn't a problem for any Doctor but the Seventh, since Virgin spent a good sixty books expanding and deepending his character, making him vastly darker and complex. After reading all that, it's hard to go back to the initial quote-flubbing, pratfalling version. Secondly, the Cybermen, like fellow oldtimers the Daleks, are hard to make scary on the printed page, because a lot of the appeal was visual. The sights of the silver giants striding through the old black and white serials, blank faced and implacable, are genuinely unsettling and it's hard to bring that across on paper. And yet, this book succeeds for the most part simply by keeping things moving so rapidly that you don't have a chance to really think about the plot gyrations. The Doctor and Ace, sometime after "Survival" but before the New Adventures really got underway, land in London during the Blitz, and quickly get wrapped up in the various mysteries that don't seem to be connected but of course actually are. To this end the duo get teamed up with an American PI living in London and a local detective, as it becomes clear that a bunch of people are after something lurking about in London, something that will turn out to be remarkably unpleasant. For the most part the Cybermen are window dressing here, acting as catalysts but not actively engaging themselves in any sort of plan (in fact, this story harkens back to the old school Cyberman story in that their plan, from what we can figure of it, really doesn't make any sense) and the bulk of the action being handled by all the people scrambling about trying to take advantage of their presence. Since they don't really speak, their impact is a bit lessened and while this is probably better than having them by the macho gun-toting Cybermen of later years, all they really say is "You will be like us" over and over again. The authors do get a lot of mileage out of the horror of Cyber-conversion, including one particular scene that was about as disturbing as you can get. The Doctor is portrayed fairly well, keeping the manipulative streak that was becoming apparent while managing to pull off his buffoon act in a convincing fashion, making the moments when he starts to take control all the more effective. The novel does suffer from trying to do too many things at once, the two most interesting supporting characters, McCabe and Mullen, sort of vanish in the last quarter of the book as the action increases, and Ace herself disappears for a good chunk as well. The villains, while nasty, aren't that memorable, and the ultimate foe winds up being (sigh) Nazis, who are about as generic as Nazis come (and it doesn't help that we just saw Cybermen versus Nazis in, oh, "Silver Nemesis"). But it winds up being good, clean fun, not groundbreaking but not terrible either, managing to tell an entertaining story and probably being the first non-embarrassing Cyberman story to come down the pike in some time, which in itself is a feat.

Let me explain something. I love the Daleks. Ok? I really love them and always thought of Cybermen as, so-so. But this book is great. The setting, the time period, the characters all really come alive. Even the feel is of a Dr WHO? TV episode. Now if they can only get the Dalek Novels to be this good, but frankly, this is the only Dr. WHO Novel that I have had so far that is right up there, in plot and charcters, with a Dr. WHO? TV episode. Great stuff. Loved Ace. The Cybermen were ok too.

Oh, the scene with the Panzer vs. the Cybermen was cool.

I dunno. I really love the 7th Doctor and Ace, but this book didn't do it for me completely. Partly because they are separated for a large part of it, and I love their chemistry together. I can't say I didn't enjoy this book though. In fact, I liked it quite a bit, but it was lacking in parts. It tried to accomplish quite a bit, but wasn't quite able to perfectly. Still, I recommend it to 7th doctor fans. END

It's London, 1940 - and as World War Two rages, the Doctor and Ace team-up with PI Cody McBride to look into what appears initially to be a secret Nazi weapon. In truth, the sphere contains a Cyberman...

There's something about the Seventh Doctor that seems to require writers gives us stories that feature Cybermen and Nazis - first 'Silver Nemesis' and now this. However, unlike the twenty-fifth anniversary story, this one works!

Flowing quite neatly on from the established relationship between the Doctor and Ace - it is very trusting and mutually reliant. This places it in distinct contrast with the earlier written New Adventures published by Virgin, which focussed on the Doctor's emerging manipulative nature and the strain it placed on his friendship with Ace.

The Cyberman in this story is a return to a classic monster - somewhat spoiled by the ridiculous "allergy" to gold introduced in 'Revenge of the Cybermen', this aspect is not considered in this book and therefore the task of the Doctor and his allies is much more real and dangerous.

A good example of how to write a traditional Seventh Doctor story, and a welcome return to a strong portrayal of a classic Who monster.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the atmosphere of the story, the air raids, just the whole WWII theme. Like Ace, I think it would be fascinating to visit that era of history. It would have been better if the Doctor and Ace had been together more in the book as their characters compliment each other so well. It was nice to see the Cybermen back, (well, not *nice* since they killed people, but you DW fans will understand) and I found the majority of the characters interesting and likeable in their own ways. I think any fan of the 7th Doctor would enjoy this story.

Take this one to the beach but put on a lot of sun screen before you go. The plot will grab you and the afternoon and pages will fly by. Wall does a great job of keeping the narrative moving while evoking the beauty and unique culture of the coastal South Carolina lowcountry.

Excellent plot with interesting characters! This is a great mystery with lots of twists and turns - has excellent and accurate descriptions of the South Carolina coast and its people. A great "beach" read, perfect for anyone who loves a good mystery or wants to escape in an engrossing story...

The package had arrived by the time I got home from work on Friday. I tore into the package and then tore into the book. Didn't stop until I finished on Saturday! The book may be called "In for a penny", but you will be "In" for a great read!

Arriving on the island (Hilton Head) for one of my quarterly visits, I stopped at the book store and was attracted to the "Local Authors" table. I picked up In for a Penny and took it to my villa.

I got so involved in the plot, and taken by recognizing the settings, that I read well into the night and straight through the next day. I enjoyed everything about this book, including the wonderful quotes from Bartlett's.

On day 3 I went back to the book store and bought the second in the series. I did force myself to do things in addition to reading for the remainder of my stay, but I am now hooked and will savor reading all of the Bay Tanner mysteries.

In for a Penny was a good solid read with well-drawn characters that had believable relationships between them. I look forward to the next book in the series.

In this novel, also published as Bertie Wooster Sees It Through, farceur supreme P.G. Wodehouse brings together all the elements for a delightful Bertie and Jeeves adventure: the endangerment of Bertie's bachelorhood, threats to his physical well-being, Aunt Dahlia's magazine Milady's Boudoir, the necessity for Bertie to steal jewelry, the possibility that Aunt Dahlia will have to part with her marvelous cook Anatole, and more.

Bertie's narration, always a joy, is in particularly fine form in this novel, and, as always, Bertie's engagement is broken off when his fiancee decides to wed another, Anatole stays with Aunt Dahlia at Brinkley court, and things in general turn out for the best, thanks largely to Jeeves's genius. Any veteran reader of Wodehouse's work knows that this will be the case, but Wodehouse's genius is such that the book is an absolute joy, anyway, on the first reading or the seventh.

I listened to this again for the first time in over a year. It has lost nothing. Every humorous incident is just as funny the second time around. Wodehouse has an ingenious way of pulling you into comedic situations and you're suddenly there before you realize it. Jonathan Cecil is one of the best of the Wodehouse narrators.

With delightful, tongue-in-cheek humor, P. G. Wodehouse continues the adventures of Bertie Wooster, an often silly member of the upper class who depends on his much more sensible "gentleman's gentleman," Jeeves, to keep his life from falling apart. In this novel, Wooster has been growing a mustache for the two weeks that Jeeves has been on a shrimping holiday, and he fears that Jeeves will not like it. Sure, enough Jeeves does not, and neither do any of his other friends--except for Lady Florence Craye, his former fiancée, now engaged (to Bertie's great relief) to Stilton Cheesewright.

The fate of the mustache is only the starting point for Wodehouse's comedy of errors, however, as Bertie goes from London to his Aunt Dahlia's country home, where Lady Florence, Stilton Cheesewright, and Percy Gorringe, a young man who wants to produce a play based on Lady Florence's book, are also in attendance. As Lady Florence and Stilton Cheesewright play out their on-again, off-again romance, Percy is casting longing eyes at Florence, who is flirting with Bertie, once again.

As is always the case with Wodehouse, events quickly become more complex. Percy wants Bertie to invest one thousand pounds in the play. Aunt Dahlia, wanting to sell her magazine, decides to "salt the mine," secretly selling her pearls so she can serialize a novel by a famous romance author to make the magazine more attractive. Her husband, at this point, decides to have the pearls appraised. Bertie takes Florence to a nightclub to "do research for her new novel," and he is arrested. Not surprisingly, it is the resilient Jeeves who comes to the rescue, time and time again, proving that good sense and grounding in the real world are far more important than the silly pretensions of Bertie and his friends.

Wodehouse's gentle satire of upperclass life makes his novels appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. His word play, consummate sense of irony, and ability to make dialogue sound simultaneously absurd and realistic create a fast-moving set of outrageous scenes in which Jeeves, the "gentleman's gentleman" proves to be the real hero, the one person who knows how to live in this silly world. Mary Whipple

To the ever growing Audio Partners catalogue of complete books on tape can be added yet another of those hilarious Jeeves novels, this one called "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit." Written in 1954, this Bertie Wooster epic brings in many characters familiar from earlier works (Roderick Strode, Aunt Agatha, Uncle Tom, Frances Craye, Stilton Cheesewright) and many all-too familiar situations. Yes, Wodehouse does repeat himself, but I look upon it as ringing the changes. A line of bells is a line of bells, but their various combinations are what make things interesting.

Again Bertie is trying to avoid both marriage and having his spine broken in an increasing number of places, again having to purloin a valuable object to help out his only likable aunt, again depending on Jeeves first, middle, and last to extricate himself from dilemmas of his own doing and (at least in this book) those of others. Of the four actors assigned to read these novels and short stories on Audio Partners tapes, I think Jonathan Cecil is the best. He gives Wooster just that goofy intonation and all the other characters their due, making this set of four audio tapes a real humdinger. I have grown to realize that it is not so much that Wodehouse says funny things as that he says ordinary things in a funny way. That is why almost all of the Jeeves adventures are narrated first person by Wooster himself.

Just the ticket to cheer one up after a hard day or during a long boring drive.

As a PS, there is a very good life of Wodehouse by David A. Jasen put out by Schirmer Trade Books, "P.G. Wodehouse: A Portrait of a Master." It makes an easy read and brings you closer to the creator of the dreamworld in which lives the Woosters and the rest.

P.G. Wodehouse writes in a Dave Barry meets Agatha Christie style which makes you laugh out loud. P.G. Wodehouse was Agatha Christie's favourite author for a good reason. He gives you a visit to England in 1930 (or thereabouts) and plots with every twist you can imagine. In this one, Bertie, the upperclass twit, gets himself into the usual fix, and Jeeves finds a way out. The plot carries you along and keeps you in both suspense and stitches. Please listen to it if you have even a smidgen of the blues! If you have kids who are intelligent teens, this is a great family car trip book.

First sentence: The sun rose through the gap in the eastern ridge where the river cuts through.

Theophilos / Feste is a member of the Fool's Guild, recovering from a wound and newly married to Viola/Claudius, now apprentice to Feste. He receives word of his newest mission. He and Viola are to go to Constantinople.

A new crusade is being launched from Venice to Constantinople, which is in the midst of a power struggle among bothers for the Byzantine throne. Of more immediate concern is that all the Guild's agents in Constantinople have disappeared.

13th Century Constantinople is not a history with which I am familiar. For me, that made this book somewhat challenging. There were characters and incidents to whom I couldn't relate. There was very little character development, and an assumption that the reader had read the previous book, was a weakness.

What does work is the two protagonists and the relationship between them. Those characters are wonderful, particularly Viola who is a Duchess and has given up her life to be with Feste.

Gordon's powers of description add so much to the story, both in the sense of place and time he creates in brining us to Constantinople of the period and in his descriptions of the performances of Feste and Claudius. Those things, along with the humor off-set by the threat and some violence, did make this an enjoyable read.

This is a series with which I shall continue.

Jester Leaps In equals Gordon's Thirteenth Night in being an exceptionally entertaining and inventive story.

This is not because of what Gordon does with Shakespeare's characters from Twelfth Night, but because of how he uses history. Early thirteenth century Constantinople is brought to life, and the idea of a Jesters Guild continues to be a clever and original plot device.

I'll be eager to read the third book in the series, as the Fourth Crusade approaches Constantinople.

This book is great news for lovers of historical mysteries, but even better news for those who love books with a great setting, intriguing characters, crackling dialogue, and wit to spare. One of the best new series going.

In JESTER LEAPS IN, Alan Gordon posits a medieval Jester's Guild responsible for bringing some sort of sanity to a world in trouble. Now a Crusade, dominated by Venice, is under weigh and all of the Jesters in Constantinople have vanished. Trouble-shooting fool Theophilos, along with his beautiful new wife (and Duchess and apprentice Jester) Viola are sent to find out what has happened and what it means.

What has happened is murder. Someone has killed all of the Jesters in Constantinople in an attempt to hide a plot to kill the Emperor. Theophilos has to find out who, why, and then decide if the world would be better off with a new Emperor.

Gordon does a wonderful job describing Medieval Europe and the role played by the Byzantine Empire at this time. The concept of a Jesters' Guild is wonderful and just believable enough to make the plot more enjoyable. Better is Gordon's character development. Both Theophilos and Viola are fully characterized, likable, and motivated. They may be fools, but they're no dummies and they're a joy to see in action...

In the thirteenth century, The Fool's Guild feels their underlying mission beyond entertainment is to quietly keep the political balance in a unreliable world. In that regard, the Guild sends Theophilas also known as Feste to Byzantium serendipitously to investigate two matters of concern to the peace of the continent. Theo is to look into the recent disappearance of six guild members. Additionally, he is to check into rumors that have spread across Europe (at least among the Fool's Guild members) that Crusaders will invade Byzantium not Jerusalem.

Only a fool would undertake this treacherous mission, but Theo, accompanied by his wife and fellow Fool Viola, still travels to Byzantium. As Theo and Viola begin to investigate both matters, they conclude that involvement begins at the highest levels of the Emperor's government. However, neither one of them knows that an unknown assailant plans to add Theo and Viola to the list of vanished Fools.

The second Fool medieval mystery (see the entertaining Thirteenth Night) is an exciting historical tale that makes the thirteenth century vividly come to life. The story line employs an enjoyable who-done-it accompanied by a high level conspiracy, starring two likable charcaters who define Fool as genius and athletic. However, sub-genre fans will devour this tale and its predecessor because Alan Gordon's picturesque descriptive plot turns back the clock seven hundred years.

Harriet Klausner