Animals Books

Very good book and it has a lot of info that you need to know it has most the info I already knew but a very good book for someone who needs some Questions answered.

great service very fast delivery and acurate.

This book is everything that you ever needed to know about a sugar glider! I am thinking about buying a glider and after reading this book i still do. It will be difficult, especially since it is nocturnal, but i bet anyone who tries can.
This book says the nutritional needs and even a few mixes. It says EXCACTLY what you need if you're a new owner.

A very easy to follow book that indeed covers a large basis on what it means to care for sugar gliders. This book helps to combat some of the myths surrounding diet concerns and offers many wonderful pictures. Detailed and enjoyable to read.

There is some information in this book that is outdated, particularly the part dealing with Sugar Glider nutrition. We know a lot more about the nutritional needs of Sugar Gliders than we did when this book was published in 1997. For example, MacPherson suggests it is fine to feed cat food to Sugar Gliders. That idea has been debunked for some time.

It's an OK book to start with if you know absolutely nothing about Sugar Gliders. And it's only good because no new books with updated Sugar Glider information have been published recently. There is, however, a ton of solid, up-to-date information about Sugar Gliders available on the internet.

A parent turned me onto this book several years ago. I read the book aloud to my second graders and it soon became a hit! The children begged to create a play based on the story. They then created an adapted play and performed it for the school and the parents. Since then, I've used the book each year in my classroom. I've read it to my own children and used it in classes at church. The message is strong the story is endearing. I highly recommend this book.

I first read this book on a long car drive when I was 9 years old. That's 12 years ago. I can't quite recall all the details of the book, however, I will never forget the profound, magical awe I felt as I turned each page with a mixture of eager anticipation and a slight tinge of sorrow--sorrow because I knew that each page turned would be a page closer to the end.

The richness of nature, familiarity of self-doubt, and beauty of pure love are all gracefully instilled in the reader's mind and heart in this wonderful story focused primarily towards childen, but perhaps also towards sentimental adults who would like to re-visit the innocence of childhood.

A while after reading the book I actually forgot the title (being a 9-yrs-old you don't pay attention to titles and authors) and could not, for the life of me, find this book based on my ambiguous memories. Well, today I saw it on Amazon and will definately have to make a purchase.

It has been over a decade since I read it, so take this review with a grain of salt, however, I do have to say that this book was the most enchanting of the many stories I read in my childhood.

This is a must have for any home with Elementary age children.
We all really loved this story, full of adventure and amusing characters.

The Wainscott Weasel
Author:Tor Seidler
In this book a weasel named Zeke Whitebelly falls in love with a girl, Wendy Blackish. Bagley Brown Jr. falls in love with not Wendy but a fish named Bridget! Paddy the frog comes asking for help. Bagley cant resist when Bridgets involved. Then he finds out she has kids. Will he still help them? Find out in this amazing book about weasels helping alll creatures and how love can go far.
Review by: Frances

This was a wonderful story which takes place at a location Mr. Seidler used to visit and that means a lot to him. The weasel society enjoys life and dancing, and even has its own celebrity, Bagley Brown. Bagley has a secret crush that would raise eyebrows if it were discovered, and he questions a pretty weasel's crush on him because he's never done anything great enough to earn the honor of sharing his father's name. Circumstances happen to change his destiny, and the destiny of his tough-guy rival, Zeke Whitebelly. I liked the theme of loving someone who's different, because even in this day and age the love of someone for a person of a different color or faith still raises some eyebrows. The way the book ended was a complete surprise to me, and the description of the beautiful lake with the ocean nearby made me wish I could pay a visit.

Wooffer is a beautiful story about all sorts of animals in Wooffers daily life. Wooffer has a very kind and loving heart, and is always ready to help out his animal friends whenever they need him.
I laughed and cried about the wonderful adventures of Wooffer.

This book is for children and all adults.

So sit back and enjoy all the fun with Wooffer and his pals.

Jacqueline Rankine-Van Wassenhoven.

I can't tell you the last time I read a children's book. I read this one, though - from cover to cover in one night. In fact, I was going to finish for the evening when I was a little over halfway through, but Molly, my Bichon, wouldn't let me put the book down. We both thoroughly enjoyed it, and know what the great-grandchildren are going to get for their birthdays.

Margaret, the hen. Reginald, the rooster. Cho Lee Yen, the peacock. Marygrey,Camille, the pregnant rabbit,Sir Doodah,Sandy Crane,Pogo, Daisy,Jazzper,Ibie,Sarah,Bill ,Baby Jazzmin..WOOFFER..

You don't know them..Oh...You missed this book?Get WOOFFER...

This is the first book I enjoyed with my son and still enjoying..even he knows all the characters of this book..Time has changed ..It was the time when our granny and mummy were telling stories just keeping there hand on our forehead so we can sleep..but what do you expect that my son will sleep ?While reading WOOFFER to him he was sitting like a small alert puppy listening each and every word of Wooffer.

"Betty Fasig knows well how to get connected with the animal kingdom.If still you are unaware of animal friendship "WOOFFER" will tell you the whole thing.

In 33 stories Betty has successfully engaged each small or big animal sending some moral messages and leaves an impression on a small kid's mind..He easily recalls the character as well the related story and that's the beauty of "Wooffer"..

It's a big issue in any body's life when a book turns his/her life or changes her attitude..Practically I noticed that whenever my son is a bit off the track I remind him all the great job done by "WOOFFER" and he accepts that.Wooffer is like a "superhero" for him.

Not only children, I think even elders should also read this for may be they have forgotten some real basic moral values somewhere in their busy materailistic life..

Thank you so much Betty for this Wonderful gift....
Bhawana
[....]

A must have book for any home where children visit or live. Book of 33 short stories about a courageous little Wooffer and all his backyard and Lester Field friends. The child in you will fall in love with this book.

" Woofer, Stories You Can Read to Your Dog (and Other Children,)"
by Betty Fasig
is a collection of stories from the viewpoint of this delightful
dog. One truly steps over the threshold into Woofer's world; you see everything from the (quite low to the ground) dog's viewpoint. Every
tale is a charming saga from the life of Woofer and his friends.
Not since Anna Sewell have I read works that offer an animal's view
point this way. The stories are wonderfully suited for younger
audiences, and the action as well as the characters will enthrall
them. Actually, this adult reader must admit to being thoroughly
enthralled, as well .
There are many clever descriptions, fun puns, and unusual twists
to be discovered within the stories. My favorite is the squirrel
family who are all " Branch Executives," but a close second is the
mouse family "of thousands." Throughout, country animals are
featured, from everyday birds to the newcomers Sandy and Sandra
Crane, and all the small animals one does not think about
ordinarily.
The writer here truly looked outside the human world, to find
interaction and wonderful, engaging stories going on right in her
back garden. This lovely book is a wonderful reminder of what fun
it can be to read.
Nancy Lindley-Gauthier

This is one of those books I found as a child AFTER seeing the Disney movie and reading that it was based on a book. As usual, the book is so much better! If you've never read this book, but you're fond of the movie, or of dogs, you will love it. The story is truly heart-warming, and I love that certain scenes are oh-so familiar if you've seen the movie, but so much of the story is completely new! Did you know Perdita is NOT the name of the "leading lady"? That's all I'll say about the actual story, but please, read it for yourself, even if you don't have kids. It's a wonderful read-aloud book, too--the first time my husband ever heard about this book was when I made him lie down and let me read it to him. We didn't have a child then, so now we get to share it with our son, too. Truly, a wonderful book. However, just so you know--the second book is not nearly so good! I own both of them, but I probably won't read the second one more than one more time, when I read it to my son. It's just not at all the same thing--aliens in London? Anyway, read 101 Dalmations and I know you'll enjoy it!

I loved this book I read it when I was very young, I fell in love with it then, I lost the book and for years thought of getting it again. I feared that I would not like it as much, it was as I remembered, and not the Disney version. I still love the book it did not let let me down. It made me laugh, cry and now understand my dog a little more (ha ha)

I owned this book by Dodie Smith when I was a boy. I loved it and from this story I developed an even stronger love for dogs and animals in general. Written in a most loving way, the story takes us beyond the later Disney film's watered down presentation of the story and dives deep into the realm of dogs. We discover the magic of "dogdom" and how dogs of every kind communicate with each other and with their humans (as Dodie states, and I am certainly paraphrasing, dogs own their humans, but let them think they own the dogs because it is so sweet!)

I have only one complaint about this publication of the book. the illustrations are just short of atrocious. I had an earlier edition of the book that had wonderful drawings that clearly were created with a real understanding of the story and what Dodie was trying to say. The illustrations in this edition look like they were pulled from someone's generic dog clip art. They are technically fine in their own right (I could NEVER draw like that), but they just don't capture the magic of the book.

If you can look past the illustrations, this is a wonderful story and a well written book.

101 Dalmations has appeal to dog lovers of all ages, breeds and sizes.

Dodie Smith - Thanks for leaving this gem for all to share.

This is a charming and delightful book that is deserving of its status as a classic of children's literature.

It takes a dog's eye view of the world, and features as its heroes Pongo and Missis, a pair of Dalmatians whose litter of puppies disappears one day.

As they set off to reunite their family, they find themselves in a struggle against the illegal coat-making operation of one Cruella Deville, an iconic villainess whose name and passion for high temperatures hint that she may be the devil incarnate.

The book becomes a fantastic quest book that takes place in the heart of England. The adult dalmatians find friends and foes along their path, and end up liberating nearly a hundred little puppies.

Smith has fun with the details and logistics of feeding, disguising, and transporting the refugee puppies, and young readers will enjoy learning the particulars of the secret lives of dogs.

The original animated movie adaptation is a good and fairly faithful movie in its own right, but the book is better by far.

Some parents might shy away from the book because of the gruesome idea that Cruella literally skins her young charges, but I think that the darker elements are an integral part of the winning tone, which refrains from talking down to children.

Highly recommended!

I won my tattered, dog eared, Disyned-fied copy of "100 Dalmatians" in a school auction when I was 7 years old. I learned to read late because I'm dyslexic (hence any bad spelling you may notice) so this was the first real chapter book that I ever owned and the very first I read.

It was great. This is a fabulous novel for all ages but especially for kids. I'm not going to re-hash the plot because I think the whole world knows it by now. The themes of good parenting, loyalty, and of course, good, intelligent, kind dogs are things that every child should learn. It is true that this book contains some talk of puppy killing, which didn't disturb me, and I'm guessing that today's 7 year olds wouldn't be scared by it either.

Another reason to read, or let your child read this book is that it will encourage a love of dogs, and having grown up with dogs every minute of my life, I can tell you having one (or more) helps immensely in all kinds of situations, social and otherwise. It provides an example of love and loyalty, as well as the responsibility involved in feeding and caring for a dog. However on that note Dalmatians, contrary to the lovable Pongo, Missus and Perdita in this book, do not make good dogs for children. They don't have the temperament for it. If you read this book and decide to get a dog for your child (an excellent idea) I recommend a good old fashioned mutt (they're smarter because they're not inbred) or a border collie, which can actually be trained to be nannies for children because of their sheep herding instincts.

Anyway, five stars. Great for the whole family, and an excellent way to encourage reading in a child of any age. At 18 years old I still love reading this book. And the sequel, "The Twilight Barking" isn't half bad either.

This is about as good as children's books get. Most (if not all) of the illustrations wouldn't look out of place framed and on the wall. The rhyme and meter are wonderful (lord knows I've read my son enough stories that can't seem to handle those smoothly). The School Library Journal review above that complains about the text is ridiculous -- the example quote isn't even accurate!

It's short enough to read to a toddler but interesting enough for an older child to read on his own. You can't go wrong with Taxi Dog!

I purchased this book for my 14 month old daughter on the recommendation from a friend. My daughter loves this book. She loves the story as well as the pictures. She loves Maxi the taxi dog so much, she gives him a kiss on every page.

I highly recommend this book!

Its simple...we LOVE this book. We got this when my daughter was about 1 and at 6 she still loves it. Now my 2 year old son enjoys reading it with us.
Its a great story about companionship. The rhymes roll off the tongue and the pitcures are rich with color and detail.
We have since shared this book with many of our friends and we have heard great things about it from them as well.
Howie NYC

If you know of an older toddler or preschooler who plans to visit New York or lives in New York, this book makes a wonderful gift.

Most children who visit/live in NYC will ride a taxi. So, the book's topic is very relevant to their own experience. Things about the city are subtly tied into the the wonderful rhymes of this book (e.g. dogs, Central Park, the Circus, Broadway) without being too "touristy."

This story is adorable and the illustrations are great. You will smile from the first page to the last. Definitely a great addition to your picture book library.

I liked Alaska's Three Bears beacause it taught me a lot about Alaska's Three Bears. Thanks for coming to Ashley River.

This is another book we read to our students at our summer reading program. They loved it. They thought the drawings were terrific, and especially liked the borders on each page. They enjoyed learning more about bears, and they thought it was a neat twist on the original story of the three bears. I highly recommend this book to any teacher who wants to do a unit on bears - it's a book that successfully merges entertainment and educaational components.

I liked the way she tells how the bears survive and how tall they are.I liked your visit to Ashley River.

We picked this book up in the Anchorage airport gift shop in 2001 on our way to visit our Alaskan relatives in Nome. It is a delightful and very informative book about bears for both adults and children, although the focus is on children.

This is not the traditional Three Bears story. Alaska's Three Bears is about the three kinds of bears one might find in that great state and North America: the grizzly, the polar bear and the black bear. The opening sentence begins, "Once upon a time...", but in an box below the story line on every page is valuable information about bears in general and each of the three species of bear in particular.

The first information paragraph states: "There are three species of bear in North America. Grizzlies used to roam from Ohio to California, now the big brown bears have been driven north onto the last pieces of remote land. Black bear can still be found in forests throughout the U.S. but only in Alaska and Canada can you find all three bears; the grizzly, polar bear and black bear, living in the wilderness we call bear country." Did you know all that?

The book tells how each bear chose the place where he wanted to live. The polar bear liked the cold, snow and ice so he stayed in the far north. The grizzly liked the frolicking river with its salmon, the roots he could dig and animals he could chase. The little black bear finally chose the forest with its bug-filled stumps and places to hide. In the end, no matter how far each roamed, they could always find their way back home.

At the back of the book is a Teacher Resource Guide with suggestions on how to use the book. There's a page of dos and don'ts for traveling about in bear country, and also a lovely page of colorful covers of other titles available from Paws IV published by Seattle's Sasquatch Press.
Published in 1992, this book remains a popular one for youngsters of all ages. Though far from being a youngster, I find myself taking it off the bookshelf from time to time to reread the valuable information it contains and to enjoy the magnificent illustrations by Shelley Gill.

Carolyn Rowe Hill

I like this book because it is full of interesting facts about bears.I also like your visit and how they tell you how tall they are. My favorite prat is when the the brown baer went home to his forest.Even thoe he was the smallest.I even found out some new info like Blak bears just eat the heads of the fish because they have to eat a surtin amount of fat.

This is a handsome republication of Orwell's two most renowned works, Animal Farm and 1984. Even if you're just looking for 1984, this edition is to be commended; it comes with a fine introduction by today's leading Orwell enthusiast, Christopher Hitchens, and the reward of including Animal Farm requires very little in the way of additional effort or expense on your part. At 80-odd pages, you may as well pick it up in the same volume, and you're virtually certain to be glad that you did.

I'm not alone in being of a generation that was first required to read Orwell in my student days (Middle School, in my case.) It seems that there was a lot of literature churned out then, accessible to if not directly aimed at children, with the horrors of totalitarianism as its theme. In addition to reading Orwell, we were also reading Huxley, Bradbury, and Verne -- the youth-oriented John Christopher books being yet another example. The generation that lived through Nazism and Stalinism clearly wanted the younger set to be aware of the horrors that could be, and to remain on guard against them.

It doesn't seem to be quite that way anymore. Orwell's name is invoked today, but often in trivializing contexts: "Big Brother" is now a brain-numbing reality show, and "Orwellian" is a convenient and often hysterically-applied charge to political opponents. Some complaceny does seem to be inevitable: we are now further removed from the days when the likes of Hitler and Stalin killed tens of millions. Still, regimes arise that are nearly as horrific on a local scale, from Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein to the Taliban, and are real enough that Orwell's book is no joke. Orwell deserves attention if for no other reason than to sensitize us to the bad form associated with invoking his name in a trivializing context. There was a political ad on Youtube last year from an Obama supporter that cast Hillary Clinton on a giant Big Brother-like screen. I'm not in the least a fan of Senator Clinton, but associating her image with those of 1984 -- as was also done in an infamous Apple Computer ad -- trivializes Orwell's message in a deplorable way. Orwell wrote his novel to warn against real dangers that his generation lived through, and which others might yet, not as a marketing ploy to be used in selling either computers or nearly indistinguishable democratic political candidacies.

The main reason I am writing this review, however, is that re-reading Orwell in my 40's is a stark reminder that his novels are more than political parables, but are worthy literature. I hope that those reading these reviews will be aware of this, and not shut their minds to a rewarding literary experience.

As a kid, I was able to perceive the pedagogical intent of these books, but less so was I able to appreciate the literary artistry. 1984 in particular passes the Nabokovian test of creating a fully believable, if terrifying, alternate world. Beyond that, on nearly every page, Orwell leaves an image that just might stay with you forever. Small wonder that so many of the terms in 1984 ("Big Brother," "Newspeak") have burrowed their way into our lexicography.

Orwell was a man of the left who understood something that many of his compatriots did not; that what had arisen in the Soviet Union was a regime unprecedented in its horror (arriving before, and ultimately outlasting, its horrific mirror image, Hitler's Third Reich.) At a time when others on the left simply refused to believe in the reality of the USSR, he looked at it unflinchingly and wrote what it was really about.

Also, in childhood, I was not able to fully appreciate that Orwell's books simply weren't negative-utopian nightmare-fantasies, but paralleled actual events in the USSR with chilling accuracy. I knew, at some level, that he was satirizing certain events and characters in the Russian Revolution, but only in adulthood was I able to closely recognize nearly every episode and character in Animal Farm. Those familiar with USSR history will find it all here in the two books: the rewriting of the past to reaffirm the infallibility of the Party, the sudden reorienting of national propaganda to suit the latest twist of foreign policy, and the complete elimination of all references to those unfortunate souls decreed never to have existed.

Truly, the thing that makes 1984 terrifying now, is not what was imagined in the novel's construction, but what was real in its sources. It exaggerates even relative to the Stalinist state -- but not by much. It is this recognition that makes it a chilling read today.

1984 is the more vivid and evocative of the two novels. Excepting one passage (Goldstein's dreary history lesson about 2/3 of the way through) it is riveting almost throughout its 300 pages.

A few notes for younger readers: The moral of Animal Farm is not that Napoleon was simply a bad apple, but rather that the system adopted by the Animals ensured that ultimately such a tyrant would dominate. (I find the end of Animal Farm to be something of a false note; in the end the pigs prove no better than, and resemble, the humans they replaced, but this understates the tragic reality that the USSR was worse still than that which it replaced.)

As I close, I leave you with one random question about 1984: how come it never occurs to Eastasia and Eurasia to combine against Oeania? Given that Oceania keeps flipping its allegiance from one to the other, you'd think they'd ultimately catch on and both decide to attack Oceania at the same time.

Silly questions aside, this book is highly commended. Worth re-reading again, especially if you only have read Orwell when as immature as was I.

So you could go borrow the book at the library or buy the paperback, get the content down, and be done with it. But for same reason people buy very expensive European cars, there is something attractive to looks of a exterior that makes the consumer want to own, not rent, but possess. I love both books by Orwell, and this edition is one to show off.

When I saw that Chris Hitchens wrote the intros to this I was optimistic that he would shed a great amount of light on the subjects. Unfortunately, the intros are too short to get into much depth.

Many of us were assigned these books to read in school by thoughtful teachers. All of us should read them. In both, George Orwell gives us the tools to see exactly what liberty means and why we cannot afford to lose it.

In "Animal Farm," the fable is sufficiently removed from human experience that you can read this one to quite young children, just as you can "Alice in Wonderland" or other classics which say more each time you read them as you grow up. Even a first-grader could see the relationship of the politics of the barnyard to the politics of the playground. The jeering refrain of "Surely you don't want Jones back" can easily be recognized as the propaganda fallacy called "Reductio ad Hitlarum." Whenever the ruling pigs ran out of useful things to say, they fell back on slogans which meant nothing, but which could be molded to mean whatever they wanted them to mean in a given circumstance.

The completely classic "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" is one we must keep in mind whenever politicians start using words as if they mean the reverse of what they do mean.

1984, too, has its beautifully classic lines. The main characters are all members of the Ingsoc Party (English Socialism). It is not until well into the book that we learn they are only some 15% of the population; the rest are proles. The proles are easily dismissed as insignificant: "They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect." Use that line the next time someone tells you it's not important to educate our entire population to the best of their capabilities.

When the main character, Winston Smith, attempts to placate his tormenter by saying "You are ruling over us for our own good," he is scorned as "stupid, Winston, stupid." The party big shot responds with one of the most chilling lines I have ever read: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever."

Through the medium of conversations in the lunch room of the "Ministry of Truth," Orwell is able to tell us much about the creation and preservation of a totalitarian state. One key is the control over language which the Party exercises: "Newspeak." One of the people working on the Newspeak dictionary explains it to Winston: "You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words--scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting language down to the bone." He brags that very soon "all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron--they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be."

Putting these two in a single hardbound volume and adding a thoughtful introduction by Christopher Hitchens was a stroke of genius on the part of Harcourt Books. It will make it all the easier for professors of political science, literature, history, psychology . . . indeed, if it was not such a contradiction with regard to books so dedicated to liberty, I'd say make them required reading.

Animal Farm and 1984 are classic literature. You've probably already read them.

This edition presents them in a classic manner -- it is a lovely book, lovely dust jacket, and Christopher Hitchens does the intro. I usually find him funny and a little snarky, but in this intro, he is serious, high-minded, informative, and respectful.

I wanted to read 1984 again, since so many people are kicking around the terms "Orwellian" and "Big Brother" regarding current politics. I'm so glad this is the volume I bought. I know I would have gotten the same *words* in a flimsy paperback, but this was a really nice read.


I read both novels again. It has been... 20 years? Maybe longer since my first read-through. I'm a different reader than I was before.

Now it seems to me that the people who shout "Orwellian" the loudest, the people that warn of "Big Brother" most fiercely, are the ones who really want to be Orwellain Big Brothers. Interesting.

I've got that grisly Room 101 scene back in my head -- I had forgotten that one. Thanks, Mr. Orwell.

This is a lovely edition. Treat yourself.

This book was a favorite of my children 38 years ago and now I'm buying it for my grandchildren --- and they love it too. It helps teach words of place: over, around, between, down, out, up. Plus it is a gentle "scary book."

This book is so magical when you're a kid. The illustrations are wonderful and just scary enough. I love the last page where the kids are all snug back in bed. Kids can read this book because of the repetition. It's a great way to learn to read!

We had this book when our children were small. Our youngest boy had it memorized in short order and would correct his father if he left anything out while reading. Now our daughter asked for it for her new little boy. We bought it for him for Christmas. He has already listened to it several times (he is 9 1/2 mos old). We love the book.

My kids (girl 8,boy 7) love the Berenstain Bears. I grew up with these books and now my kids are, too.
We all enjoy reading these stories and In the dark is a keeper.

This was my second copy of the book. My kids wanted to give a copy to their teacher.

If I could give this book 6 stars I would. My children love this book and it is so much fun to read. The story is very interactive as the kids shout out "Salsa!" and "Ole!" etc. I have read this to my own children and groups of children and it never fails to capture everyone's attention (even the adults) and make everyone laugh. I don't think there has been a single time that I have read this book that I was not asked to please read it again, and again, and again..

Chicks and Salsa is a delight! Our little ones loved the story, funny names for familiar southwest food (Quackamole), and especially the refrain: "Olé."

Great gift book! We bought two as gifts for grandchildren, then two more for other friends, and finally one for the kindergarten teacher, along with a grocery gift card, since her classroom's certified for cooking. She loves it too. Chicks & Salsa's so ... "Ooo, la la!"

Wonderful read aloud. Illustrations are super and so is the vocabulary. You can't go wrong with this one. Wacky farm animals who are tired of the same old, same old. They are cooking up some interesting recipes. My daughter loved it and so did my 5th graders.

I picked this one up at the library because the title caught my attention. This book has been read every day since we checked it out, and had to buy our own copy. Wonderful illustrations and the cadence of the story is fun and easy for kids to get in to.

A pig can eat only so much slop. Fowl may need to part from their feed. Even a duck might tire of fish.

This is the premise of "Chicks and Salsa," a celebration of culinary diversity in general, salsa in particular. The "salsafication" of the farm animals is the brainchild of a rebellious rooster, although there's a rat (literal, not figurative) who--behind the scenes--supplies the ingredients. The rooster is the face of the salsa revolution, but the rat, lurking stealthily on most pages, is the muscle.

Like a great chef or musician, Aaron Reynolds riffs on salsa within a structured format. AS the zest for salsa spreads from one species to another, the recipes change. The rooster and chickens pick farm fresh (naturally) onions and tomatoes, the ducks dine on cilantro and garlic, and the pigs go for beans and chopped chilis. Paulette Bogan gives these mischievous animals distinctive personalities and emotion. She draws a bored chicken like no one else. A pig turns fier red after eating chilis, while another pig proudly juggles them. Bogan's seems to thrive on low-light scenes; the animals become luminescent, and their glow warms the barn and surrounding farmland. Her shadows and shadings use unusual color combinations, and the fiesta preparations are vivid and rich.

Sadly, the fiesta never takes place, as the humans, who finally wake up and smell the animals' spices, seize all the ingredients for a tamale entree entry at the state fair. The conclusion is a little bit abrupt, but it's clever: The rooster sneaks into the kitchen, and with the rat's help shifts from one cuisine to another, becoming a master at crepes. The fiesta turns into something of a salon, and--zut alors--the animals done "French" clothes, a bit of attitude, and share the hors d'ouevres. "Chicks and Salsa" is delightfully entertaining, with mugging animals and other silly stuff alternating with keenly observed humor. The very talented Bogan gives the reader a visual feast on every page; the animals look as welcoming as teddy bears. 34 pages long, with a book cover that can be made into a poster, and three recipes to try: "Hog Wild Nachos," "Quackamole," and "Rooster's Toasted Salsa."

Robin Jarvis's Dark portal is an exiting, action filled thriller.Some might say it is a weird and an odd topic,but the characters being mice and rats gives the story an extra push, rather than cats and dogs.Everybody reads about cats and dogs.I like this book mainly for 2 reasons:1.there is lots of violence and action. & 2.when you read certain parts where she refers to other events it kind of makes you reread the event she is talking about so you can completly get understand what is going on.
Children 10 and younger probably shouldn't read this book because of the major violence and gore(fighting and blood).

I really enjoyed reading this book and found it nearly immposible to put it down and I would think about it during the time I wasn't reading it. I don't generally enjoy books about animals, but this one was fantastic. The society of mice and bats and rats were fantasticily conciveed by Jarvis, who clearly delivered all aspects of the story. I plan to purchase the second one as soon as possible!

it is the first book in the trilogy and is a great book. the end leaves you thinking that there isn't anymore, but just wait till you read the Crystal Prison. anyway, this is one of the best book having talking mice and other animals. way better than what i have read of the Red Wall series.

The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis is 5 stars for excitement and survival.
Albert's life is on the line and his daughter Audrey would risk her life to save him. Albert is very kind hearted and is near death in the scariest place that any mouse would want to go! Will Audrey be able to save her father or will they be eaten by those horrific rats?
I life this book because it shows us that mice have a life that is just like ours.
This book is recommended for all kids that love excitement and really dark places.

I just don't like rats. They are vile and digusting creatures. I don't like planet Jupiter either. It is a dumb name.