Seasons Books

See my lengthy review under the Seasons End, the last book in this series of three. These are rich and fantastic books, dark but full of thrills and chills!

This is simply the best cookbook I have and I've got 60 of them! Her recipes are creative, easy to follow and unfailingly wonderful. Bery can make even a novice cook into a gourmet chef! I'd personally be lost without her.

Odette is a talented Chef,Author and this book is right next to my most referred to cookbooks, Kamman, Childs,
Joy, Cohriher. I love the recipes and just today made one of the crepe recipes, that inspired me to write this
glowing review...Do what it says and the results are superb...In the past, this has been the book I refer to many times for a recipe or idea. It is one of my most favorite books out of the collection of a few thousand cookbooks
stored in my woodsy smelling attic! My favorite cookbooks are in the kitchen and the most favorite cookbooks are exactly where I can see and get to them quickly...This cookbook of Odettes is one of those.

In this "Miss Spider" story, based on the television story by the same name, Squirt just wants to play and doesn't want to help out with getting the Cozy Hole ready for winter. When he talks with the lazy ants Ned and Ted, they tell him that they're not worried about winter --- their "ant-tuition" has told them that winter isn't going to be coming any time soon. In fact, they decided to throw a huge Summer's-Never-Ending party and they're invited everyone in Sunny Patch to come and celebrate the continued warm weather.

Squirt learns that it's not a good idea to follow a hunch. Miss Spider and Holley show him that there are objective signs that prove that winter is coming, no matter what Ted and Ned might say.

The lesson of this book is preparedness and like many other "Miss Spider" books, this one teaches its lesson well. If you or your kids enjoy the television series, then you'll love this as well. This is book # in the "Miss Spider" paperback readers series of books based direclty on the television stories.

I love alphabet books and I love all things referencing nature and life in the northern woodlands. This book has various elements that are unique to an alphabet book. First, the A starts off with January and goes through the year with Z ending with December. This is noted at the bottom of the page and the month/season is depicted in the illustration. For example A for Antler shows a snowy landscape in the back. Another example is August showeing the time that beavers build a dam in their Pond (P). I love the seasonal element especially since I feel our young children are growing up with only commercial holidays as the indicators of our seasons (locked inside air conditioned buildings away from nature, etc.). The illustrations are woodcuts that were then colored with paint and they are beautiful and fun. (Can you tell I am also a woodcut admirer?) The illustrations are sometimes lifestyle representing such as E as Evening depicting parent and children reading and writing by lantern-light and Q as Quiet near the edge of the pond. (These illustrations are not purely animal or nature references.) Some modern day machines also are represented by G as Grader and O as Outboard (boat motor) so this is not purely an old-fashioned or timeless depiction. Letters are represented in woodcut with both capital and lower case print style and the word features woodcut as well with the first letter of the word in capital and the rest in lower case. A short paragraph of usually two sentences describes the scene and often times includes personal experiences of the author.

Reminds me of "A Farmers Alphabet" which represents old-fashioned life in Vermont for its lovely woodcut illustrations and clearly marked letters that are good for teaching young children the alphabet.

This author has a similar book on counting which I plan to read and buy in the future called "Gathering". I am hoping it is as wonderful as this book.

Having spent my childhood and a few special years of my adult life living in the Blue Ridge Mountain, I can honestly say there a few places more beautiful than the Southern Highlands of Appalachia.

Jerry Greer's book captures this region from a variety of areas and seasons. From Janes Bald to Mount Rodgers, his camera captures the essence of this very wonderful place.

Living now in Oklahoma and so very far from my mountains, it is a small comfort to have this volume on the shelf and in an instant return me home.

So if you are in exile like myself or planning a trip to visit, grab a copy of this book and share in the wonder of mountains so beautiful they make your heart skip a beat.

This book was a great inspiration in my life. This book has very simple principles to meet every true man and woman of God needs for growth.

ARMY OF DARKNESS was Sam Raimi's sequel to his EVIL DEAD flicks which had long been fan favorites for their horror and for their cheerful abuse of the film's leading man Bruce Campbell. There were those fans, however, who were unhappy with the change of tone in ARMY and the way the gore and horror of the DEAD flix had been all but abandoned in favor of a more family friendly comedy/adventure approach. XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS was a groundbreaking tv series that ran for six seasons in syndication. It featured the strongest, smartest, most independent female hero ever to grace the small screen, and for at least four years of its run the series was wildly successful with its mix of comedy, action, and adventure, before it took a wrong turn and started taking itself way too seriously. Both these enterprises had the same production companies in common so it seemed inevitable...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Both ARMY OF DARKENESS and XENA have gone the comic book route.Topps published over 60 issues of their Xena title before it closed, and later Dark Horse published two separate Xena series themselves. Dark Horse also did an adaptation of the film that coincided with the release of ARMY OF DARKNESS, but let it go at that. Fans were left waiting for the comic adaptation of EVIL DEAD as well as the further adventures of its hero Ashley Williams until Dynamite Entertainment latched onto the titles a few years ago. Ever since that day Ash has not had one peaceful moment. They've yanked him back and forth from the past to the present and the present to the future and the future to the past so many times that he has a terminal case of temporal whiplash. He's faced off against everything that the redundant Necronomican Ex Mortis could throw at him including legions of your standard face munching undead, Herbert West, Freddy Kreuger, Jason Voorhees, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the personificatons of the seven deadly sins, and Satan himself--not to mention a whole slew of zombified Marvel Super Heroes! In short, they've worn the poor guy ragged!

But just when you think they've run out of ideas--they offer us this one. The story they proudly proclaim: No One Asked For. Well, if we didn't its simply because we didn't think of it! But as I said earlier, it was inevitable. ASH IN XENALAND!? Its a wonderful idea rife with possibilities. For example what happens when our ruggedly handsome hero Ash encounters that ruggedly handsome thief Autolycus?

Issue #1 of what was to be a 4 book arc is even better than I could have hoped! Each issue has 2 available covers, which is the minimum these days I suppose, with art by either the Udon Studios or Fabian Neves. The interior artwork by Miguel Montenegro takes some pains in the first issue to resemble the actors but lets that slide as we progress. But the story! The set up alone is near genius, and I'm not about to give it away either. The story is written by John Layman in issues 1-3, with Brandon Jerwa taking over in issue #4 which has a "To be continued" at its end! Will Ash simply pop into another reality or will his newest screw up of the magic words, "Klaatu Barada Chick Show", cause Xena and Gabrielle more problems as well? I can't wait to find out!

Is this for you? Sure, if you're a Bruce Campbell, EVIL DEAD, or XENA fan its a must have. Would it be possible to enjoy this with no prior knowledge of either of these franchises? Probably not.

My kids and I love this book. It is a great read and has lovely art work. It is a great way to explore the seasons and the beauty of nature inside then take that outside and really see it!

Heather mom of 5

I've known the author since we were boys, and I've been familiar with Jim's poetry since we took a class together from Richard Eberhardt at Dartmouth in the ever-more-distant 1970s. This book is a tiny iceberg-tip...Jim is a truly remarkable guy, a fabulous, deeply gifted teacher, and he has poured himself into the life and culture of poetry with dedication and love for decades now. What you'll get inklings of in this book--twinklings, I'd rather say--is a guy with a very deep and utterly sincere heart, altruistic to the core, authentic, and wise, and long in love with words.

Between us, I've always been the guy who liked stories and he the poet, but the stories I love tend to shade toward the poetic and, although I think Jim would say that poetry is "language condensed," he's always been more than a bit of a storyteller, too. These poems are dense in language, rich, but there are rivers of narrative in them too.

Jim's had a lot of professional and personal success. He writes poetry book reviews that function as superb mini-essays on the art, he's been featured in NEWSWEEK's "My Turn" feature, and he's had his poems read by Garrison Keillor on his radio show (and included in Keillor's book "Good Poems" which I'm sure you can still find on Amazon). He's given up wider fame to commit to living on a co-op "off the grid" on the back side of a remote ridge in Vermont, and he's had to fit writing into small chinks in a very active community, work, and family life. Still and all, I think this book is a genuine success. It's rich, yes, requiring an active reader, but it's relaxed, too, with a fine pace and varied moods. I'm prejudiced, for sure, but I very much enjoyed the read, and I recommend the book warmly, especially, but not exclusively, to those who read and love poetry. Of course, I would recommend any true reflection of my friend to anyone; but then, you can take that into account.