Space Books

I love the illustrations in this book! Florian's paintings are beautiful, wacky, and full of details. The poems are awesome, as well. His poems are full of fascinating facts and they are fun to read. Love it!

I think Douglas Florian's new book, 'comets, stars, the moon and mars' is his most expressive yet.

Beginning with the poem "skywatch," two children look at the sky. The next poem is "the universe."

Die cut "planet" holes move the reader deeper and further through space. From "mercury" to "venus" to "the earth" to "the moon" the poems continue in order according to their distance from the Sun. Comets, black holes and the mystery of what lies beyond are also addressed. Florian's ability to weave facts and fun are on full display here.

The bright color palette echoes the amazing views from the Hubble space telescope. This generation of kids has grown up looking at Seymour Simon's books about the solar system and the Universe. They have seen the colors that are out there.

Check out the Harcourt page about the book and download Florian's Poetry Kit. The "Practical Poetry Pointers" are some of the most best tips for writing poetry with kids that I have ever seen.

You have Gotta-Have-It.

It's the best Commander Toad book! I like them all. They all are great. The monster in this one was cool.

Commander Toad is a delight. He's "bold and bright", though not quite as bright as he thinks. His crew (an amalgam of loose takes on Star Wars and Star Trek characters) puts up with his prideful ways, because he is, after all, a good leader. Together with his mixed-gender crew he gets into and out of a wonderful series of scrapes. This book is the first in the series.

Jane Yolen writes for kids. For example, when Commander and crew are threatened by a sea monster who makes it clear that they're about to be lunch, I asked my 4-year old what he thought would happen.

"Shoot him with a ray gun," he answered.

"I don't know," I said. "I think that they'll find out that the monster's just lonely, and they'll make friends."

Turn the page, and BAM! Lt. Lily, Toad's female weapons master, is blasting away (to no effect). Thanks, Jane. Only you could make a story about a bunch of space-explorer frogs be true-to-life.

Jane Yolen also writes for the adults who read books to their kids. There's nearly a pun a page, and the Commander's ludicrous solutions to problems have a germ of genius unrestrained by the laws of physics that will have you shaking your head over his cleverness.

Buy this book, or regret the lost opportunity.

This book shows just how tortuous has been the struggle in physics (and science in general) to arrive at and comprehend its fundamental concepts. The very first paragraph in Einstein's foreword is worth the price of the entire book, if one truly understands what Einstein has said. Most of us came into physics via ordinary textbook courses, where unfortunately most of the approach was to quickly master the equations and their methods of application. Somehow we never understood that the very foundations of physics are still very much at issue, and our teachers either did not realize this themselves, or considered such musings trivial, or were just too busy to enlighten us. Most of us think that things like space, mass, time, charge, field, potential, zero, and unity are obvious, and it can come as a major shock to one's system to find out that they are not. Most such fundamental concepts still do not have a satisfactory definition. Jammer's book, while cumbersome by its very scholarship, does give one a grasp of just how difficult the foundations problems -- such as the nature of space -- really are. If one is seriously interested in this sort of "deep" problem, then one must discover the literature oneself. Jammer's book is a must. I gave the book a 9 instead of a 10 because of its overall ponderous nature, but highly recommend it to anyone who is deeply interested in the foundations concepts of physics, how we got where we are, what we did along the way, what we may have yet missed, and just how firm or shaky are our concepts today. We also recommend Jammer's other studies of the concept of force and the concept of mass.

A very deep book, filled with excerpts in native languages from ancient Greek to modern German, French, and Russian, and with tensor mathematics and other such nonsense. If you want to have your concept of space and time ripped out from under you and your horizons dramatically broadened, check this one out!

(BTW, I gave this a 9 instead of a 10 solely because of the weightiness of the material.)

The classification of this book in this section is quite misleading, since it has nothing to do specifically with "SPACE" in the astronomical sense ! I think it would find a better, more appropriate and useful setting under : "Books > Subjects > Nonfiction > Current Events > Disaster Relief" probably. The five stars above have no meaning in this context, and feel free not to publish this commentary which has only an editorial purpose ! Best regards.

This text is the perfect tool for those preparing to teach confined space rescue or develop a technical rescue team. The information is relevant, precise and real world. It points out the "why" rather than just "how" a team should be developed. I plan to use this text as required reading for students of the courses I teach. And will recommend that the Division Chiefs of my Dept. read it to help justify our rescue teams existence. Thanks Chase..

Although only 31 poems, "Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes" takes the reader in a million different directions as author Linda Addison ponders life, death and the love between. While some of the poems in this book are disturbing, like "Mourning Meal", others are so personal that the reader may find themselves feeling like they are looking into a mirror more so than reading the words of another.

"Consumed..." has a dark energy, not to be confused with being evil nor depression. Darkness in the sense of being the opposite of ignorant bliss. For example, there are poems of love that are not lighthearted in nature.

Linda Addison composes these poems in a way that explores the depth of emotions that can be conjured when you give yourself up in totality to another person. "Before You" is such a poem. The relinquishing of the subject's independence is what we all experience on some level when we enter deeply into a relationship.

There are other poems in "Consumed..." that exposes the curiosity of the writer. Poems like "A Bare Tree in February", "Turning Edges" and "Breathe" ponder the origin of human existence in a way that only Linda Addison can render.

"Consumed..." is a personal collection of poetry that is timeless in its approach to be an offering of one's soul. The level of introspective creativity will call the reader to come back to the poems in this book time and again.

Joey Pinkney
C&B Books Reviewer
"Need your book reviewed?"
cbbooksdistribution.com/joeyreviews

This wonderful poetry collection is broken down into three sections: Things Gone Bad, In Between and Transformation. It's an emotional reading experience, and an important work by one of her generation's greatest poets.

I loved this book. It offers so much concrete proof on the subject of UFOs and visitors from space. It is hard to ignore the evidence. It is really simply written and the kind of book you can quote to people.

I was fascinated by this book. I have always been interested in the concept of advanced intelligences living on the other planets and visiting mankind. However, this book gives evidence which is very convincing. It also explains that there is a huge Cosmic plan of which we are part that really makes sense. I think anyone who thinks about things would be interested in reading this book: it really is unusual but very believable.

When I was a graduate student at Stanford in the late 1970s I took a course in stochastic processes from Sid Resnick. Patrick Billingsley is an excellent probabilist who has written some very clear texts on probability theory and measure theory. In studying asymptotic distribution theory for independent or dependent data convergence in probability is a very important problem and Billingsley was the master at explaining it as well as the other major probability convergence criteria. So we relied heavily on Billingsley's two books on the convergence of probability measures. This text was in its first edition and was referred to as Big Bill because it was the more detailed of the two books. The other which came in paperback was simpler and more concise. That one we called Little Bill. Although we tended to find what we needed in Little Bill, Big Bill was useful also.

A classic, will survive through the ages as long as Real Analysis and Probability are studied by students the world over. You need it to get a fundamental grounding in Probability Theory

I really like how the book gave information. I also know someone featured in the book and I think it is really kewl that they wrote a hole book about how womens role in the work forces

Cool Careers for Girls in Engineering is an early career guide for teens advocates engineering jobs for girls, including lists of skills needed, salaries for different jobs, physical and mental demands, and the amount of leisure time provided by jobs. Girls receive an early, basic education on how they can consider engineering positions and fit them into lifestyle and family concerns.

Wow! I just received a copy of "Cosmic Dust" and I must say that I am extremely impressed at how well this book is written. The author Richard A. White is an excellent wordsmith and does an outstanding job at choosing just the right word at the right moment. A very enjoyable read indeed. Most highly recommended!!!!!

The book is extremely exiting and entertainng; never a dull moment. The humor is clever and witty, and Robert Smith -- main character -- is a standout!

This book is a nice revision of history from big bang to the end of everything

Cosmic Legacy by Gregory F. Reinking is a book everyone can read and enjoy. I was delighted to be reading a science book that is easily understood and interesting as well! A word of advice, however, you should approach this book the way you would sample a serving of chocolate mousse. You must take small bites and roll them on your tongue for a while before taking some more. You will feel a lot more knowledgeable about the orgin of the universe after reading only the first ten pages; and most of you will feel confident that you could explain what you have read to another person, pretty cool, huh? In short, I would recommend this book hightly for anyone interested in reading about the mysteries of the cosmos. Enjoy!!!

Lisa Shaver
Lay Scientist
Boston, Massachusets