Vans Books

Mathematicians are always aware of the precision and consistency of their asserts, so they need to be trained in the very fundamentals of their science.

This book provides an enlightening vision about the basis of mathematics exploring such abstract topics as the paradoxes of set theory, transfinite numbers, and much more.

I used this book as a reference in a course I gave on mathematical logic, set theory, and the fundamentals of the number systems.

This is one of those books that don't get old; although it was first published in 1952, and since then much has been made in Mathematical Logic, Kleene's book has that rare position of a book that influenced the subject on its own (and all the teaching books that came after). And if you are willing to understand Mathematical Logic, and principally the reasons behind most of the definitions, I think that this is the best book to start. As a reference it is perhaps the most cited book in the area. But the reading is pleasant, elegant and well motivated. This book has another kind of appeal, in my opinion - research in Logic split after the 1950's in two distinct areas: one, more mathematical in character, is called Model Theory and is strongly abstract, working mainly with the semantics; another, more philosophical and applied, deals mainly with the sintax - this last is the line of research of non-classical logics (philosophically interesting) and of automated procedures, like Smullyan's semantic tableaux for proof-theory (very useful for computation theory). Today the interconnections on these areas, that were initially very close, are dangerously disappearing. Kleene's book, having been written before this separation, is much more comprehensive than the modern textbooks. About the contents: it begins with a (very well) introduction explaining the meaning of Metamathematics. Then it treats Propositional, Predicate Calculi and Formal Number Theory, written in the classical spirit that unfortunately lacks today. The third part deals with recursive functions, and the author was a first-hand researcher in the field, with many important contributions. Finally, the last part treats Model Theory as it was known then (this section can be considered pretty incomplete today).

I don't know who enjoyed this book more my daughter or me. The lesson is don't complain because your situation could be worse. The story is about a family,including Grandparents, who live in a small house and a wise man suggests that the woman move the farm animals into the house. This was because the woman complained about the lack of space and fighting that was happening in the home. Then the wise man tells the woman to remove all the animals and she was so happy to have the space again. Great story about appreciating what we have.

Excelent read-aloud story for preschoolers and young grade schoolers. This folktale takes place in a farm setting where grandparents, parents and their 6 children all live in one house. This story carries a lesson of conformity. Vlasta's frolicsome watercolor illustration is so vivid that it makes the reader feel the "crowding" sensation of HOW MUCH WORSE CAN IT BE!!

Gershunoff is a keen observer of character and an excellent judge of artistic quality. This book describes the good, the bad and the ugly in artistic life. The author looks behind the headlines. He gives us a true sense of what it was like to live as a person and as an artist in various parts of the world during the period 1940-80. Because politics played a huge role in the arts (and still does, for that matter!), he has some not-so-flattering things to say about powerful politicians as well as about Isaac Stern and the extremely aggressive way in which he promoted some of his proteges who might not really have been ready for prime time. Stern's constant political machinations also cut into his practice time and affected his own performance quality. And who could ever forget the major hype surrounding the Panovs? Well, here's the real scoop. Want to know how Soviet artists lived during that period? Gershunoff can--and does--tell you, in painful detail. It wasn't pretty. This is a book for those who want to know the real, human stories behind the media hype that sometimes even masqueraded as "hard news." And a great read it is, too!

Very entertaining - shows a time (1940s - 1980s) when the classical performing arts were much more central in American culture. Lots of stories of Soviet-American cultural exchange during that period including not-so-flattering episodes with the artists. Great for anyone interested in the workings of the performing arts.

I read this book when I was 13 and tried to find it again for years. This is still the best biography of JBK ever written. It's tasteful, warm, witty and touching. It was written at the happiest time of Jacqueline Kennedy's life and it really shows. Also, it's the only biography that was written in part with JBK's cooperation. If you collect Kennedy books, you must have this one.

This book is great. I give it two thumbs up. The book actually takes you into the life of Americas first lady. The book expresses jackies thaughts and feelings toward the Kennedy family. The book also gives Jackie credit for her intelligence and talks about her education and where she received her education from. This is a part of Jackie you have never seen before. The style that the author uses to write this book is also quite impressive. So many books that have been written in regrds of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy do not give facts about her individual self as this book has done. Most books over Jacqueline tell us only about her life with Mr. Kennedy and her life after his death, but this book gives us information about her life and who she was apart from the Kennedys.

I loved James ever since the first episode of DC. The book was also really great.

I have to say that I loved this book. And that's not only because they gave my website a A+. There are tons of pictures. and the writing was really good too.

An award-winning science teacher and science fair judge, Janice VanCleave took copious notes about criteria shared among the very best exhibits. This book details the winners by explaining how and why to replicate results, without spoiling the journey of discovery inherent to each project. Its beauty is in harnessing the enthusiastic yet un-focused student to pinpoint a broad area of interest, creating a project using the Scientific Method applicable to a dozen Earth Science specific topics.
The entire book is a winner, helping students design a project using the Scientific Method but also to communicate those results in a clearly visual manner on 3-sided Foam-Core Project Board. Presentation is critical: a brilliant project may be wasted if its intricacies completely escape the viewer. Ms VanCleave shows how to navigate the 'marketing' portion of the board in addition to keeping a strictly scientific approach to recording data.
Recommend this book to fifth grade children and up. It is worth every penny, especially if you have more than one child in school at a time.

I really admire this interesting book.
It has not only inspired me but it has given me
the impression that this is the book that I would
like to put to use!

Any girl who grew up in small-town America can find at least some of her story in "The Jitterbug Girl" by Donna Van Straten Remmert.

This is an excerpt from her night as prom queen.
"David Peotter is 6'4" tall. This is great as a basketball player, but it's not great for a guy whose queen is 5'2" tall. When we danced our solo dance to 'Stranger in Paradise,' my face was pushed smack-dab into his armpit. Lots of cameras were flashing, and all I could think is that with my face in the king's armpit, pictures for posterity won't show who the king
chose to be his queen. I tipped away from David's armpit and then I gazed up at him romantically. This was a good pose for the pictures, but David felt
so self-conscious about me gazing up at him that he looked off to the side instead of looking down at me.

"I just thought of something. Maybe he was looking off to the side where Bonnie was sitting. By the way, remember Jimmy Eick, the kid who got us into the fairgrounds without paying? He was Bonnie's date to the prom and little does he know that Bonnie is in love with Peotter. And little does Bonnie know that Patsy has a huge crush on Jimmy Eick."

"Jitterbug Girl" details the maturing of Van Straten through her first date, to school events, to driving, to virtually every experience teens encounter in their trip from childhood to young adult. This is her story, but she grew up in such an ordinary way that it becomes every girl's story."

Reviewed by PJ Pierce
Just as I suspected. Donna Van Straten has taken me through the gamut of emotions in The Jitterbug Girl: Class of '55. And the same fluid readability of her first novel, The Littlest Big Kid, comes through again in this one.

In this second installment, Van Straten regales the reader with hilarious slices of her teenage years during the early 1950's in Black Creek, Wisconsin. All the while the author slips in reflections of more serious truths hidden within the niceties of Wisconsin small-town society. Her first-person narrative, complete with the genuine teenage slang of that day, rings true, especially for any American who lived through that innocent decade. The author says she discovered her first-person style while writing The Littlest Big Kid. After first attempting to tell her story from an adult perspective, Van Straten says (in an interview) that the kid inside her started telling HER version of the stories. "I decided to let her take over, telling things with her words and from her perspective. The advantage of telling things as if I'm still a kid is that it gets the analytical and inhibited side of my adult personality out of the way."

From her teenage point of view, Van Straten reflects on the world as she is experiencing it. She relays her thoughts to me, the omnipresent reader, as if we are conversing. "I'm beginning to think that women run the world," 16-year-old Donna tells me after getting her first real job. "It doesn't seem like they do, but it's still true. For instance, I tell Marie Wagner and Edna Eick that I can make life easier for them by working in the grocery store, so they tell Babe to hire me. Babe had told me that he didn't need me, but after they talk to him, he calls to say that I can start work tomorrow. See what I mean? We may not get the credit, but we actually do run the world. It's because we figure things out faster than men."

Babe allows his new hireling to give cookies to the Black Creek kids who come in the store with their parents, but not to the ragged and transient gypsy kids. "I want to fight for (the gypsy kids') rights, but I can't figure a way to do it," she tells me. "All day long I think about how it isn't fair that these poor kids can't have a cookie like every other kid in town. It's not their fault that they're gypsies, is it?"

Throughout her childhood and teenage years, the author finds herself analyzing ethical situations such as how to tread the thin line between her boss and the gypsy children. And she continues to question the teachings of her Catholic religion. When the polio epidemic causes the Seymour Fair to be cancelled for fear of spreading germs, Donna and all of her six siblings have to begin taking a daily "polio" nap. Afraid of impending boredom, the 15-year-old decides to read the whole Bible to wile away the time in bed. "Catholics don't have to (read the Bible), but I'm going to,' she explains to me, the reader. "I want to try making sense of the stories by myself, without Father Scholton telling me what to think.

When her father tells her that it's not important for girls to get a college education, she list nine reasons she would rather be a boy, including "boys don't have periods, boys get chosen to be leaders more than girls do, and boys get to go to college. She could think of only three reasons for being a girl: "1) I like wearing girls' clothes, 2) I like wearing makeup, and 3) I like not paying for things on a date. "I'm racking my brain for other reasons," she concludes, "and I just can't think what they might be."

Skillfully and gradually, Van Straten helps us see the ironies of the `50's decade. But because those ironies come to us through a teenager's eyes, we can smile at the innocence and absurdities.

It is a big day in the Van Straten household when their father brings home their first television set. But the arrival of the contraption sparks a disagreement between her father and mother over whether to watch the news or "I Love Lucy." And an even bigger argument ensues when Lucy uses the word "pregnant" in front of all of America, including the seven Van Straten siblings. Mr. Van Straten contends that neither Lucy nor his wife should use that word in front of kids. "Hogwash!" Mother snaps. Her face is red like she's about to explode. "I'll say pregnant whenever I want to. Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant! If Lucy can say it on television, I can say it in front of my own children." Apparently even Lucille Ball was instrumental in corrupting the youth of America - thus preparing them for the upheaval of the 1960s.

And so we follow this feisty, inquisitive teenager to the brink of her college years. "By the way," she says to me just before I come to the last line of the book. "Have you heard about this new kind of music called rock `n roll? It's unbelievably groovy, especially Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock." Every time I hear it on the radio, I feel ready to get out into the world and be somebody. Daddy, meanwhile, says rock `n roll is the worst noise he's ever heard and that if it catches on around here, it'll be a bad influence on kids. He's such an old fuddy-dud!"

This small-format lavishly-illustrated book accomplishes everything it attempts. The posters are reproduced nicely, although in postcard size. To readers with questions about the actual canine work of a race, this book explains quite a lot. Siberian huskies are the stars of "the last great race," and there are many modern-day improvements to their lot - food-warmers, airlifted straw drops (for their sleeping comfort) and more. The Van Zyles' dogs are varied and gorgeous. Jon Van Zyle is a handsome bearded man who appears - with great success - in some of the posters. Jona Van Zyle offers a wealth of information. The drawings are romantic and even heroic - without being kitschy. For example, the piercing blue eyes of a Siberian husky are actually hauntingly beautiful in real life - and a Van Zyle painting might confirms that. A great look at beautiful, hardworking dogs by two people who love them.

Jon Van Zyle's Iditarod Memories, Alaskan artist Jon Van Zyle has captured the twenty-five years of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race year by year with his commemorative posters celebrating the triumph, heroes, historic tales, and spirit of this classic dog sledding event. With true-life Iditarod stories by Jona Van Zyle, this 64-page book is a fitting memorial testament and celebration of human and canine endurance, courage, perseverance, and accomplishment, as well as "must" reading for anyone who has ever thrilled to an Iditarod event.

A warm survey of many classic texts and why each are worth reading. I enjoyed it very much.

I compiled my own reading list after reading this book, and so far have found Van Doren's opinions to be right on the money. Everything he's recommended has been worth the time I invested. It is also a great way to get some diversity in learning. Most of us raised in the US don't really get a first-rate liberal education- Van Doren's book offers a way to do it on your own. I highly recommend it for anyone who really wants to broaden their horizens.

A rollicking retelling of the classic Brer Rabbit stories. In this adaptation of the Joel Chandler Harris stories, children and their lucky parents can watch the wily Brer Rabbit outsmart time and time again his predatory neighbors and prove that brains really are better than brawn. The difficult dialect of the Chandler Harris originals has been updated and simplified for modern readers, and these beautiful volumes (there are three books in the series) are brilliantly illustrated by award-winning artist Barry Moser. This book is a must-have; I can't imagine why it isn't a best-seller.

A rollicking retelling of the classic Brer Rabbit stories. In this adaptation of the Joel Chandler Harris stories, children and their lucky parents can watch the wily Brer Rabbit outsmart time and time again his predatory neighbors and prove that brains really are better than brawn. The difficult dialect of the Chandler Harris originals has been updated and simplified for modern readers, and these beautiful volumes (there are three books in the series) are brilliantly illustrated by award-winning artist Barry Moser. This book is a must-have; I can't imagine why it isn't a best-seller.