Vans Books

Alicia's Happy Day/El Dia Mas Feliz De Alicia is a softcover, bilingual English/Spanish picturebook featuring enthusiastic color illustrations, a dash of Latino culture, and a spirit of all-around mirth. A young girl is have one of the happiest days of her life, and wishes to share that happiness. The reason for her joy is revealed on the last page - it's her birthday! "May you have a day that's twirly-swirly. / May you hear salsa and start to dance. / May the flags all fly for you. / Taxicabs all stop for you." The gushing joyful sentiment is quite contagious in this delightful read-aloud story.

We use this book in the classroom to celebrate our kids' birthdays. The illustrations are fun, and it's nice to have a book with a cultural twist, alot of my students relate to it, and the others get to ask questions about the others cultures and the words they used. A lot of FUN!

This is a wonderful cookbook. Oftentimes vegetarian cookbooks' recipes are difficult to "veganize". Not so with this one! Most of the recipes are vegan already! Also, my roommate has Celiacs Disease and eats a VERY strict gluten-free diet. I have no problem finding recipes in this book that satisfy both of our dietary restrictions.

The recipes are great but also the book is very informative on various food items. I enjoyed reading it as much as I did cooking from it. The book is divided regionally ie The Northeast, South etc. Each section consists of a brief culinary history of the region, followed by the recipes, with anecdotes and little essays regarding particular food items thrown in. Very interesting.

Being a teacher of gifted and high achieving students, I'm always on the look out for ways to tie Social Studies and Science together. My class loves hands-on projects, so I thought this might be a good fit for us. Boy, was I right! The projects are easy to follow, the steps and supplies are well planned, and most importantly, the kids LOVED the projects. Wave bottles were a major hit, and we'll be making Bubble Bath next.

The historic details about Ben's life were not only great additions to the descriptions of his inventions, but there were lots of quirky details about him that my kids loved (although they're going to skip the air baths!).

I'll definitely pick up more of Ms. Van Vleet's project-based books to use with my class!

Ben Franklin's creativity and ingenuity has always amazed me. His fingerprints are all over American history. He was a statesman, an inventor, an author, and a scientist. Now we can get to know Ben and recreate some of his greatest triumphs with Amazing Ben Franklin Inventions You Can Build Yourself.

The inventions are either replicas of actual Ben inventions or they represent a concept of an invention or contribution. The projects range from making a Feather Pen (five minutes) to making a Long Arm for objects out of reach (35 minutes plus drying time for glue). Projects which require adult supervision are clearly marked. Other projects include a Solar-Powered Oven and a Street Light (powered by a flashlight).

As creative and entertaining as the projects are, this is more than a classroom project book. Ben's personality shines through, whether he's powering himself across a pond with kite power at age ten, or proposing as an adult that the streets of Philadelphia be paved with bricks to ease travel and keep the city cleaner. The author includes a glossary, a timeline of Ben's life, and dozens of his Poor Richard sayings. The book is a pleasure to read, thanks to Van Vleet's lively writing and her careful research. Bonus--some Almanac-style fonts and many pictures.

So whether you want to get crafty or whether you just want to rediscover Ben Franklin, Amazing Ben Franklin Inventions You Can Build Yourself is an excellent choice.

If you have any book on amber in your possession, this is the one to have. Amongst amber aficionados, this is considered to be the "Bible". The chapter on differentiating between real amber and the vast number of fakes is vital for those that collect this wonderful gem. If you have the opportunity to get a copy of this book, don't hesitate!

Patty C. Rice brings a passionate love for her subject to this wonderful book. She offers a very comprehensive study of this beloved gemstone, from a detailed account of its long history, to the folklore surrounding it, to a thorough study of its scientific properties.She explores the many sources of amber worldwide, and gives an exhaustive study of the amazing variety of amber. Most helpful to a collector, she explains in detail how genuine amber differs from its imitations, and how you can perform simple tests to determine if yours is authentic.The mechanics of working with amber as a lapidary or jewelry- maker are also discussed. I loved the wealth of gorgeous photos, many of them from Dr. Rice's own impressive personal collection from all over the world. Her book does full justice to the beauty and enduring fascination of amber, and if you love it as much as I do, her book is a must-have.

I had read The Good Doctor and enjoyed it plenty for great characters, great writing and a slow-building, relentless tension. The Quarry has the same great characterization and prose, but nothing at all slow about it. The beginning of the story is enthralling, both the introduction to the main character and the first incident at the quarry (best not read liner notes etc more max effect). What continues seems a combination of Greene's "Power and Glory" (in terms of "feel") and Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" (in terms of suspense and pace). A fantastic aspect is the power of the not explicitly stated (e.g. main character's real name never revealed, ). And the construction and build-up to the denoument is something Tolstoy - like. The Quarry is clearly another example of the spectacular literature of South Africa.

In this stunning novel, Mr Galgut tells the story of a fugitive from justice hitchhiking in the desolate backdrop of South Africa and who is picked up by a driver, a minister on his way to a remote parish. When the minister discovers that the hitchhiker is a fugitive and confronts him in a disused quarry, the response is lethal.
This novel is a masterpiece featuring a story and characters utterly compelling. The author shows that even the quietest spots on earth can seethe with repressed violence. A blunt and tense read about guilt and evasion of truth. Justly enough, Mr Galgut has been compared to the greatest South African writers like Andr? Brink, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee and Achmat Dangor.

Introduction: Alison Lurie, a professor at Cornell University wrote the preface. She sums up a hundred years of American Fairy Tales and introduces the stories in two pages.

Organization: There is a table of contents and the stories appear to be arranged chronologically. The illustrations by Michael McCurdy are simple black and white ink drawing and scratch boards that remind me of illustrations I saw in hundred year old periodicals.

The stories themselves: The stories vary as much as the authors. Some, like Feathertop, are quite literary. Here is an example sentence. "'Poor fellow!' quothe Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance." As written, these stories may be better read than told. The stories are also fairly long so a teller might need to trim them.

Source Notes: Each story starts with a lengthy source note that includes some critique and history. The Afterword by Neil Phillip is long, detailed, and scholarly. Phillip states that he chose to look at literary tales with a named author for this collection. He critiques and puts the stories into their historical framework. He looks at the broad changes seen in the hundred years that he covers.

Final Thoughts: This is a very scholarly look at American fairy tales. Sadly, most Americans are probably not familiar with more than one or two of these stories. This book would make an excellent text book for a high school or college English class and should be required reading.
Karen Woodworth-Roman

Just having returned from 18 days in the UK two of those spent in jet and bus travel and eight more getting the most out of an eight day Brit Rail pass that we could I must say that even though I have stopped running I feel like I am still running in place. That is how I get some of my best ideas. Those of you who know me know that I sort hang at the margins of the formal academic study of literature. I do this because language and literature study are really sort games which you have to learn the vocabulary (lexicon) if I were presenting at a conference or writing for blue noses.

Well one of the hottest games now in the world of literature is the study of the postcolonial literature of the former European colonies, South Africa, Algeria, Vietnam, or what ever. If you were a young academic then it would be well to focus your study in this area. This is especially true if you want work in something other than the house keeping and food service industries as your ultimate career goal.

That got me thinking as I re-read and loved Rip Van Wrinkle by Washington Irving in this wonderful collection that I was reading perhaps the archetypal work of post colonial literature, old henpecked Rip (a subject of George III), has a few beers with some very serious 120 year old Dutchman as he falls in with them in their the secret Hudson River Valley meeting place.

Twenty years later he wakes up to find he is an American Citizen. I don't but know for sure but, I bet a lot of post colonials feel like that They share with Rip one very large hangover. Well I could go on and play the game further but I think you have the idea, and as a dear friend of mine once said sometimes Philip a little of something goes a long way. So let me get back to this wonderful book , as I urge you to add it to your collections

American Fairy Tales is a collection has something for everyone .It is a collection of American tales, which really serves three publics. First of course the adolescent reader who may miss or only seen fragments of these wonderful stories. Next the eternal Adolescent likes my self at age 55 who loves a good story. It also serves any serious students of children's literature, this medley of stories progresses chronologically across a century, from Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" to Carl Sandburg's "How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country." From the Maleficent Witch, Mother Rigby, in Hawthorne's "Feathertop" to the ethereal fairy in "The Lad and Luck's House," Book List had some good things to say about it "A patriotic-looking jacket with blue stars and red stripes adorns this collection of 12 stories drawn from an emergent American literary tradition that includes such characters as bee-men, goose-girls, kings, fairies, and wizards." Editor Neil Philip provides an introductory essay about the "American fairy" tale" and briefly introduces each selection.

I loved the variety of stories and the collection of famous writers, including Hawthorne, Sandburg, Alcott, and Baum. McCurdy's woodcut illustrations give the stories a sense of the past yet still allow plenty of room for fantasy, woodcuts have a haunting timeless look about them. Theses stories are made to read aloud. But it must remembered that because of the time they were written but a few contain language or allusions that now seem politically incorrect. But we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. American Fairy Tales is a beautifully Illustrated book you may have to work a bit to find it.

Philip Kaveny, Reviewer

alkalinity minimum level in uasb and how to devolpe alkalinity in uasb

This book outlines the practical aspects of treating wastewaters anaerobically. It combines these practical aspects with supporting theory and case studies. Critical aspects of operation are also covered in some detail as are tips on appropriate monitoring. The book focuses on Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) Systems but also covers other anaerobic technologies and briefly the necessary following treatment. Design of UASB systesm is also covered.

I use the book as one of my principle references for anaerobic treatment.

It is assumed that the reader of this book has had a first course in circuit analysis and is familiar with Laplace transforms. Because the book is intended for undergraduates, algebra is used to explain the mathematical workings of the various filters rather than calculus if at all possible. The book concentrates on inductorless filters. Such filters are required for voice and data communications systems where the size and weight of inductors make their use not very feasible. An advantage of this approach is that the usefulness of the op amp can be stressed. Chapter 2 introduces the op amp in analog operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and integration. Chapters 3 and 4 constitute a review of sinusoidal steady-state topics recast to provide an introduction to first-order filters. Chapter five features the universal biquad, and through it the standard forms of filter response: lowpass, bandpass, highpass, bandstop, and allpass.

In the chapters that follow, the functions of a filter are studied in combination with the frequency-response approximation used by filter designers: Butterworth, Chebyshev, Bessel-Thompson, inverse Chebyshev, and elliptic. Chapter 14 treats the synthesis of doubly terminated passive ladders. This, together with Chapter 11, constitute an introduction to passive filter design. An important conclusion is reached in Chapter 14 in regards to sensitivity - the passive ladder circuit has low sensitivity. The study of simulated ladder circuits is begun in chapters 15 through 17. Simulation of the passive ladder is accomplished in three ways: by introducing new elements which make it possible to exclude the inductor, through the simulation of the block diagram representation of the ladder, and through the simulation of resistors using switched capacitors. All of these methods are discussed.

In spite of its academic origins this really is a very helpful design book. It has the circuits side by side with the math, and it also has design rules in numbered steps with very good illustrations and examples throughout. I highly recommend it for the library of the practicing engineer as well as the student.

(Reviewed by a practicing electrical engineer) This book is an excellent introductory text about analog filter design. It was written for use in teaching a junior-senior level undergraduate class at the University level. The book begins with a review of basic op amp circuits and then progresses to simple one-pole circuit designs. From there, the author builds a step-by-step theoretical background for active filter design, starting with the most fundamental two-pole building block (the biquad circuit), and then showing how to use these to design Chebyshev, Butterworth, and Bessel filter characteristics of any number of poles. Cauer, Inverse Chebyshev, and switched capacitor designs are also covered. Other highly useful chapters cover delay equalization, sensitivity to component variations, as well as a general design approach for choosing appropriate filter characteristics for a design requirement. The book's main focus is on active filter design using op amp's, although there is also one chapter devoted to passive filter design. Design is stressed in the examples and problems from the very beginning pages, as opposed to mere mathematical analysis. The mathematics are fairly straightforward, mostly algebra, and the text is fairly easy to read and follow. Examples illustrate each chapter segment, and each chapter has questions at the end. I would recommend this book for anyone seeking a basic theoretical understanding and design capability for active filters. (Probably other introductory texts would be better for passive filters.) This is not a "handbook" or "filter cookbook"; it actually lays the theoretical and mathematical groundwork for the filters it teaches you to design.

Great book. Must for any one working on ADCs and DACs.

One of the few books in the data converter field. I used this book when I took an advance course on analog circuit design and found this book to be very usefool. This book contain a good amount of information on data converter and cover almost every important areas - i.e specification, testing, High-speed/high accuracy architecture, sample and hold circuit, compartors, noise shaping coding, voltage and current reference sources and also contain a chapter on sigma-delta converters that can lead to more advanced study for IEEE books on oversampled data converters. If you are an analog circuit designer or want to be an analog circuit designer this book will be a good reference for data converter circuit.

Messy data is data that does fit into the structure to be directly analyzed by the standard methods. In the case of linear models based on designed experiments this can be due to missing data or unbalanced data. The authors do a fabulous job of laying out the various situations that involve methods for handling such problems. By separating the material into three volumes the authors can concentrate on the nitty gritty details as they do here in this volume, the longest of the three.

This book is a classical book in data analysis. It provides techniques and methods for effectively analyzing non-standard or messy data sets that arise from experimental design situations. You can always be benefit from the book for your whole life