Interactive Books

This book is not only about creating music, but it's also about the business of music. From tips on buying instruments and equipment, to finding practice space, to touring and promoting your music, Michael W. Dean crams his book full of useful information. Plus it contains pearls of practical wit and wisdom, including: A musical use for used pantyhose; a simple workout regimen for drummers; and how to be invited to stay at someone's house for as long as you want, rent-free. Overall, I learned a lot, and the book was a very enjoyable read.

Michael has done it again. Reading both $30 Film School and $30 Music School back to back has definitely given my confidence and knowledge a jump-start.
With the $30 series and the documentary DIY OR DIE, Michael W Dean has created a foundation to start your own artistic journey and equip you with enough knowledge to survive in what can be a very cutthroat environment.

It is time to wake up, take control of what is left of your life and make an impression to last the ages. The $30 series is here to help prevent you from making the mistake of living old with regret.
For $30 you get way more than what you pay for.

The book's OK, but it's not about music: it's about running a garage band -- which is very different: in music school you study your instrument, solfege, harmony, and counterpoint; in a band you need to know how to find gigs, how to fight with your bandmates and come on top -- every time, all the time, how to deal with the gear, etc. With this in mind, the book is a good read for a newbie (but if you have a couple of years' experience in that area it is unlikely that you'll find anything you don't already know).

What's next for the author? I'm hoping for a $30 Brain Surgery School book, why not. After having starved in the company of beautiful women, one realizes that a man's gotta eat. ;-) God bless.

The title of this book caught my eye and I bought it after reading 1 page. It is well written and informative without being dry. Along with the practical advice given on purchasing gear, dealing with bandmembers, club owners, recording and other facets of getting your music heard, integrity and win/win situations are stressed throughout it. I have already applied some of the info presented and have undergone some major attitude adjustments (positive ones) toward my music and my musical goals. Although there is a lot of humor and an easygoing style about this book, it is very serious in its focus on how to get your music out there. Anybody who wants to pursue music further than garage band status should read this book. People who want to be big rock stars would benefit from $30 Music School, too, as it may prove to be a reality check for them.

Michael's writing style realy makes this an enjoyable read. This how-to for garage banding covers everything from managers and road managers and bookers to the handful of guitar and keyboard chords you need for rock 'n roll to tutorials for various software packages. Hmm. Like a boyscout manual for punk rockers. Lots of anecdotes and real-world advise.

Sure the program comes with a PDF manual but having a printed reference can make learning so much easier. This is not a book on technique, it's a book on features, functionality and workflow. I primarily use Final Cut Express, thankfully most of the tutorials contained in the book are applicable. There's nothing terribly exciting about the book itself, the information is presented in a no-nonsense fashion. If your looking for anecdotal storytelling, humor and opinion you'd do well to consider another title. I keep it handy at all times, it's saved me a lot of time and frustration...well worth the money.

I like Lynda's personal publications best but anything bearing her title "H.O.T." is worth having. Very practical and useful. Norman Borge

When looking for a book on FCP, I just read the various reviews. Even though some others looked quite interesting, I chose this one and am glad I did. I wanted a specific type of instruction because I have some expert-level chops and ignorance at the same time. I'm new to video but am a professional recording engineer by trade. I'm fully conversant on the Mac and non-linear audio programs so I needed a book that got both completely simple (for video concepts new to me) and also provided some depth at the same time.

The type of instruction in this book is having the user execute step-by-step, starting at the most basic level but progressing into more complex stuff fairly quick.

I forget the wording but there's some Chinese proverb........something like
You tell me, I hear
You show me, I see
I do, I learn

That's me and this book suits my learning style nicely. I'm sure there are other books as good but I doubt that any are better, hard to see how you could go wrong with this one.

I consider myself to be a "seasoned user" of Final Cut Pro. I have been editing with FCP since the original release of version 1.0 and have worked on numerous documentaries, features, commercials and episodic television.

I learned about this book from the Apple website. This is the official textbook used for Apple Pro Certification (FCP Level One). So I decided that I would "forget" everything I already knew and begin with Lesson 1. I'm very happy I adopted that attitude because there are so many neat little tips that I picked up in the first few lessons. Now I wonder how I ever survived without them. Those tips have already saved me a lot of time. I have only completed one-third of the lessons thus far and I can already see an improvement in my productivity.

Every chapter of the book is a "hands-on" lesson. The files and media for each lesson are provided on a DVD-ROM (included). You will first copy those files to your hard drive and then open each lesson file and then follow the step-by-step instructions in the book.

I'm looking forward to getting my Level One certification with the help of this book, and I can't wait to continue onto the Advanced Level certification with the second book.

Please note this is essentially the same book as the the "Final Cut Pro HD" book. The DVD is the same and so are the exercises. I had a chance to compare both and noticed only only one minor detailed (a detail is now circled on a screen shot) and, of course, there could be some that I missed. Even so, the back cover of the HD book acknowledges...

"This book was previously published under the title "Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 4. If you previously purchased this book, there is no need to purchase this revision: All the project files and exercises in the previous edition can be used with Final Cut Pro HD."

Bottom-Line: Newbie or Pro? It doesn't matter! This is a GREAT book to own if you use FCP.

Until I purchased this book, I had owned FCP4 for six months. I had learned my way around the software well enough. I felt comfortable, but not necessarily proficient. In order to improve my editing time, I went ahead and ordered this book, also with the intent of getting my Apple certification, as this is the same text used in their classes. Normally, I am the type that I will skip sections that discuss things that I'm certain I know, but I went ahead and followed every step in the book.
What a difference! Each chapter takes approximately 30-45 minutes to complete, using video clips on the included DVD. After 3 days and 10 chapters, I was hardling touching my trackball. Not only had I learned quite a few shortcuts, but the book helped me understand the editing process itself a little better. I feel that this text is very well laid out, easy to understand, and can be done relatively quickly with a sharp learning curve. I highly recommend this to anyone new to Final Cut Pro. With a little time and effort, you'll be flying around the video editing, the soundtrack design and the Live Type titling package. And, after you have completed this book, go ahead and buy Apple Pro Training Series: Advanced Editing and Finishing Techniques in Final Cut Pro 4, you will not be disappointed.

This one is perfect for reading out loud. The language doesn't condescend to children. The book is funny, funny, funny. We loved it at two, we love it at five, and when cousins come visit, they love it on up into the eights and tens. Of course, I love it, too.

The book is Amazing! Astounding! Perfectly written for reading out loud. Well illustrated. Engaging. And funny!

Enjoy it with your favorite people today!

Loved it loved it loved it....oh yeah and so did the kids. What a treasure to find a book that adults can enjoy as well as the kids. And the rhyming text makes it easy to read and attractive to listen to. Highly recommended.

She spoted it while walking around and had to have it. Says something for the art as she has not learned to read yet.

It's a cute little story about a mouse how makes up a terrible creature to scare off a fox, owl and snake. In turn his "fib" comes to visit him.

So far for two weeks I have had to read it everynight.

The author does a good job with her slight rhyming as I have noticed it helps my girl fall asleep especially when she really listening.

It is worth a read and I am going to look into the authors other works.

The Gruffalo is a delightfully irreverent story about a mouse and an imaginary monster, sure to please grown-ups as well as children. This is a case where you CAN judge the book by its humorous cover, and you won't be disappointed. Axel Scheffler's brightly colored and too-silly-to-be-really-scary illustrations set the tone for this light-hearted romp through multiple layers of comic irony; and Julia Donaldson's marvelous doggerel perfectly realizes the mouse's sprightly character.

It's much more than great fun, though. The Gruffalo also has tremendous resonance with familiar elements of Western culture. This is a story that Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell all could love. It's a perfect little Hero's Journey: it's got "the deep dark wood," a confrontation with the Monster Within, and a victorious return to the ordinary world where a nut is good. Had this been a fable of Aesop, we could expect our hero to be eaten right in the middle, and we would be left with some such lesson as "Don't be too clever for your own good." Instead, our mythical mouse makes his Eternal Return bearing a subtle wisdom that echoes the teachings of the world's greatest mystics.

The very structure of the story is classic, reminiscent of the great repetitive folk tales, such as "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," "The Three Little Pigs," or "The Little Red Hen." The mouse's encounter with a dangerous predator is repeated with slight variation in the wording three times (yes, three times, as in three crows of a cock, three days in the belly of the fish, three temptations under a bo tree...) then, after a dramatic climax, the story works its way back with another set of three variations as the mouse retraces his steps on the path toward the real climax.

The Gruffalo's greatest fun for grown-ups comes from its heaps of irony. First, there's the expectation of an Aesopian fable. That expectation is thwarted. Second are the characters of the animals: they're all wrong. The mouse is not meek and fearful; he's bold and confident, a real smart aleck, in fact. Then the fierce predators turn out to be wimps. Not only that, these are the exact animals that always represent intelligence in Western folk literature -- the clever fox -- the wise owl -- the subtle snake. Here they are all outwitted by the least of animals. Third is the basic irony of the mouse's meeting with the gruffalo -- maybe the mouse is not so clever, after all. Fourth, the terrible monster.... Fifth, he went through all that for a nut. Sixth, that story was a profoundly archetypal tale in goofy rhyme, with cartoon pictures. Seventh, I actually wrote this review, and you actually read it. What's next? Am I going to tell you that Harvey Potter's Balloon Farm is a model for education reform? (well . . . yes!)

Finally, The Gruffalo really is a fun and loveable book. One of the best for sharing with your kids.

My cousin, a preschool teacher, bought this book for my 19 month old son. I thought it was probaby too old for him, and too scary for my 3 year old. How wrong I was! My son loves this book so much that he makes us read it to him at least half a dozen times daily! He walks around the house saying "Oh no! Guwwawoh!" My 3 year old loves it just as much, and the 2 of them jump out on one another screaming "I'm a Gruffalo" (Guwwawoh in the younger one's case).
We've had this book only 3 weeks and it's the biggest hit ever!

We have enjoyed many hours playing our own way of I spy. Thank you for your promt delivery.

Recieved this for christmas and Believe it or not my 2 year old loves all the I spy books. She is very good at them and loves to just ask what everything is and then find whatever I ask her to look for. Illustrations are great.

Thank you to the earlier reviewers.... I (as well as my husband, father, and mother--not to mention my five year old!!) have been going CRAZY looking for the striped cat!!!

These books are just incredible--my son is well on his way to collecting ALL of them! And, we already have ALL of the CD-Rom games--he's solved them all several times. These are the perfect books (and software) for kids--and has occupied more than a few hours of my time since I discovered them. Even my 18 year old daughter has been challenged and frustrated by these books! There's not much out there that can entertain (or drive crazy) both kids and adults.

There are small differences in the books and software--some kids like the spooky motif of this book--while other kids seem to prefer the space or school motifs--but, all-in-all, any of these books and software are WELL worth the $$ you put into them. Enjoy!!! (Dang that striped cat! LOL)

The bat on page 19 is a baseball bat, held by the boy in the picture glued to the inside right door (just above the word "workshop").

The I Spy Spooky Night book is one of many 'I Spy' books our family has enjoyed. We have the 'I Spy Extreme Challenger!',
'I Spy Super Challenger', 'I Spy School Days', 'I Spy Treasure Hunt' and the 'I Spy Mystery' book just to name a few of them. They will entertain no matter what your age. Our children and now our grandchildren have pulled these books out many times. They are like magnets and will draw in whoever is around to your side to help find the hidden I Spy items. Here's a hint. If, no - when, you have trouble finding any of the objects turn the book upside down and that just might help. The I Spy Spooky Night Book in combination with the Boo-opoly Game will provide some frighteningly good Halloween entertainment. ~ Mrs. B.

I bought fours books of the series thinking mostly on my daughter, I thought my really boy 6y son (who likes Ricki Ricotta kind of books) wouldnt want to read them. I was so wrong!! We read two tonight and he is taking the other two to class tomorrow to share with everybody!!
I absolutely loved them.

All these books are amazing. My grandmama read them to me; and I read them to my children. All four of us (including Grandmama) loved these precious stories. I love the moral at the end; it helps me and my three year old talk about how the moral applies to the story and our lives. The large text and beautiful pictures help children with shorter attention spans stay engaged in the story; and it helps young readers read on their own. These are classic stories that should be on everyone's shelves.

This book made a huge impact on me as a child and I've never forgotten it. There was something about the combination of illustration and story that made this very memorable. As my daughter reached the age where books with a moral lesson became more relevant I was thrilled to find that these books by Stephen Cosgrove were still in print! If you read my other reviews you'll see that illustrations are very important to me -- a book has to be visually interesting to appeal to small children. The illustrations in this book are so crisp and just plain cute! Also the story is a fun and easy night time read and has several great messages. The story of a unique pink creature named Serendipity promotes individuality, self esteem, and a sense of social responsibility.

I absolutely adored this series as a child. They share timeless messages and morals that I think we have lost as a society. My mother gave me the book that contains 7 of the stories and that made me really want to track down and find them all again. I was so excited to find them on Amazon.com after not finding them at any other book stores. I plan to begin a career of working with nursery school children and these books will provide the perfect stories just before nap time. Anyone who has never read these stories is truely missing out on a gem of children's stories. I highly suggest collecting the entire series, I know I'm going too!

The book contains a morale about beauty can bloom anywhere, I think it might be Lady Rose but not sure. Its a Serendipity book for certain. There is a rose that blooms on ice or iceberg I think. Does this sound familiar to anyone if so then please E-mail me at Arcimedes8@yahoo.com . I really want to find this book. Please help =)

My neice got this book as a present from her mother-in-law and after viewing it I just had to get myself a copy. If you are from the Caribbean and especially if you are black you must get a copy of this book. It's good for young ones for history and it is not boring, very interactive with replicas of the slave ship, etc.

It's a wonderful piece for the coffee table as a conversational starter.

I ordered this book because I am very proud to be of African decent, and want to make sure that this story is shared with generations to come. I feel that it is important for our children and their children to have a historical reference to connect them to our heritage.

This is truly a piece of living history. As a 5th grade teacher I know the value of primary sources. The artifacts in this excellently crafted book bring to life the black experience in the early history of this nation. My students don't only read about the past but can actually touch it, read it, experience it.

I particularly enjoyed Ms. Thomas' use of the terms 'my people' and 'my ancestors'. I too am African-American. The book treats those enslaved as individual people rather than a mass to be studied. The photographs and documents in the book address the individual and group experience in slavery. The three dimensional maps, slave ship, and documents bring history to life. I recommend this book for every African-American family, particularly those with children still at home or for their grandchildren.

"Lest We Forget" is a totally unique book. As the subtitle suggests, it is a three-dimensional, interactive book on the history of African Americans from capture to emancipation. With photographs and documents from the Black Holocaust Exhibit, it provides a tactile, touch and feel, show and tell sense that no other book can offer. It is like a visit to a museum in your own home.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction , Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.

My 8 month old son loves this book so much! He turns each page and loves to feel each and every bug. I think this is great for someone looking to get their child interested in books!

This was my son's favorite book when he was a baby starting at 4 months old. He is now 9 years old and still remembers the bug books. Now that I have a newborn, I am looking to buy another one...and my older kids can't wait to read it again!

Buy this book for the textures, not the text. Unlike prior Bug books that we own, there are no clever popups and little that is clever about the text. There are a good variety of unusual textures and for my son, that is enough. Note that the sticky bug page was disappointing. After the first reading, my 17-month old had stripped two of the four Peel Me stickers from the sticky bugs, who now have shiny white bellies. These criticisms are purely mine--my son enjoys the book.

My friends passed this book (and other Bugs in a box Books) along to me after her son regretably out grew the context of the books (age 7). I know he didn't really want to give away one of his favorite books but soon submitted to his mother. My daughter and I (she is 1.5 yrs old) read this specific book every night. She loves it! It is the greatest feely book we have and we have quite a few. It is well constructed and has a variety of textures for little hands. I alos like the size of the book. It is easy to sit on the bed with her on my crossed legs and have the book in front of us on the bed. She gets so excited when it is bed time because she knows we will be "reading" the Feely Bug book. Thanks Miranda and Simon for giving up one of your treasures to become one of ours.

Want your children to learn at an early age? "Feely Bugs" by David A. Carter, could be helpful to you.
Through this book, children will be able to identify different textures. I would recommend "Feely Bugs" to a younger audience, like 6-12 months.
If you're looking for a storybook that your child will be able to have fun with, "Feely Bugs" may be what you are looking for.
(...) this book appeals to my senses. It is a book that I would enjoy reading to small children.
I would rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I bought three books to teach myself how to produce DVDs. The Erica Sadun book is for advanced users and was not helpful to me. The Bob LeVitus "Little iDVD Book" is probably one of the most poorly organized and edited books I've ever come across on any subject.

Pogue's "Missing Manual", on the other hand, is comprehensive, clear and well-organized. I've produced about half a dozen DVDs since reading (and re-reading) Pogue's book and it clearly made a huge difference in what I was able to construct using iDVD.

In my opinion, this is the only book you need to read to learn how to produce movies using iDVD.

Beyond teaching readers to work with iDVD, Pogue also offers loads of helpful suggestions about editing in general. This book is outstanding.

I love this book! I was ready to give up trying to use iMovie because of a small glitch that was incurring. After browsing thru the book the very first time I opened it, I came across the trouble I was having with iMovie. Mr. Pogue directed me to the correct settings and I am now having a great time editing my DV movies.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone attempting to use iMovie. There is so much more to this program than Apple addresses in the help file. Mr. Pogue's writing is concise but not out of reach for the average Mac user.

I have many books by Mr. Pogue and I would recommend any of them if you are stumped and need a well explained how-to-manuel.

Can it get any simpler !! ha ha ha ha ha
I found this book to be extremely informative and easy to understand (especially since i am yet to purchace a mac and digital video cammera ).. I will have no hesitation now to go out and purchase a Mac and a Digital cammera .. and feel confident making my first feature film or "Home Movie " LOL

It's OK. It has about the same amount of material as the "iMovie 2 for Macintosh Visual Quickstart Guide" - The missing manual is fatter because it contains additional stories and things that a reader might find amusing, but that are not particular relevant to the topic. The section on movie making basics is very good. For an expanded view see "The Five C's of Cinematography". I thought I would find more information in this book since it is fatter than in the VQG, but it ended up that they are about even in content.

First I have to give props to David Pogue and his Missing Manual series. As a bookseller and computer geek I've long favored the Dummies books as the best entry-level source for third-party information on software. However, O'Reilly made a smart move when they turned their attention on that market and grabbed Dummies standby Pogue to headline the new series. The Missing Manuals (and their mutant-dogcow mascot) are a credit to O'Reilly and a must-have... assuming, that is, that they cover the program you need. The series is still too small, but I'm sure it won't stay that way.

Now, to the book itself. If you need to do something with iMovie, it's in there. That pretty much covers what I need to say in this review, but it doesn't cover everything the book has to offer. Remember back in the 80s when the Mac made desktop publishing a reality, only to unleash a torrent of wretchedly amateurish graphic design? Well, Pogue spends much of the first couple of chapters attempting to prevent that from happening. This book starts off with a very basic primer on video production and how to use your equipment -- assumed to be a typical consumer-grade MiniDV camcorder, but it covers other options as well, particularly video bridges and the like.

The meat of the book discusses iMovie 2's capabilities, including discussions of its weaknesses and how to work around them. Effects, titles, and transitions are discussed in detail, including some useful information on crossfades (never fade straight to black -- instead, you want a black stillframe). Conversion to other formats is also an issue, and a significant part of the book discusses postproduction using QuickTime Pro. Directions are given for converting your work for DVD or VCD as well.

The issue I have with the book is largely its focus on iMovie in MacOS Classic, and the bugs that are present in that version that might not be in the OS X version. Screenshots all come from 9.x, with the only Aqua material being the interface of iMovie itself. I don't mark down for this since the program operates more or less the same, but an inexperienced user may have trouble. (I might note as well that the book works just as well for iMovie 3, which has a superficially different interface but handles more or less identically.)

So, yeah. If you're doing video production on iMovie, this is the book to get, hands down.

ISBN 0763607525 - Lift the flap books, in general, suffer from one flaw - the flaps themselves. If you decide to buy a used copy, it's a good idea to make sure that all the flaps are intact, since they tear off fairly easily. That aside, this book is a great one for little budding readers.

The reader is told that Maisy is going to hide (it shows her picture, so you can identify her, in case you're one of the five people in the world who don't know what she looks like and couldn't spot her on the cover). On the following pages, you look for her in various places by lifting flaps - and finding all of her friends before finding Maisy!

The illustrations are admittedly not world-class stuff, but they ARE standard Maisy. They are basic but full of bright colors and, combined with the lift-the-flap aspect, a lot of fun.

My daughter is now 17 months old, ever since she started being interested in books (as early as 11 months) she has always loved this one. She gets more and more excited as we get closer to the end and she loves looking behind the door. I noticed all the little kids at the daycare also just stopped whatever they were doing when I read this book to them once. The best 'Peek-a-boo' type book we've seen.

If your child loves Maisy, they will love this book! My 20 month old never tires of "looking" for Maisy under the flaps and will sit for 15-20 minutes at a time "reading" this. Even her older sister enjoys it!

Both my son and my daugther LOVED this book from the age of 6 months on. It keeps them in rapt attention, and my daugther loves to "knock" on the door.

My daughter loves these books. They are simple, quick & colorful. She turns the pages & loves it. She is under 1 yrs old & has been reading theses with me for about 6 mo. Stays focosed since it is so fast, not so wordy!

It is definitely the best book I have ever read, and I read many great books throughout my life. I read it about six times, the first one when I was little. I still remember. Now I got it for my own children. It has amazing principles, and wonderful teachings. I wich we could all see life the way "El Principito" does. What a great lesson!

A BOOK THAT INFLUENCED MY LIFE

The book that has influenced my life is "The Little Prince". This book iis basically about a little blond boy that meets an adult with who he will become friend, somewhere in the world, dunno where.He discovers, during a trip, adults, who will allow him to understand adults world and life on hearth In the begining of the story, the pilot crashes in a desert and thers were the story begings.This story has many characters, but the two main ones are the pilot (the narrator), and the little prince.One of the main settings are the dessert were the pilot meets the little prince, and the planet were the little prince lives, but this story has many settings.

I read this book because my mother told me that every kid must read this book, so she gave me the book and i read it when i was almost 12 years old. This book has influenced my life in many ways. Every time i read this book it makes me think, about pepole and friendship, it makes me cry, laugh, and be a better person and a better friend. It also makes me be more pacient, and this is a thing that im not so good at, but every time im in a cituation were i have to be pacient, since i read that book, I have teach myself to try to understand people, and why they are like that. This book is in a prose/chatter way written, in this way it was easier for me to understand the meaning of the words. This book you have to read it more than once to get the meaning of the words.











By Avira Arreola.

Creo que uno de los libros mas lindos que he leido. Es un libro que podes leer a cualquier edad, tendo 18 años y recien lo lei.
Es una aventura muy linda que algun dia espero poder leer a mi hijos :)
Les recomiendo este libro a todo mundo.

It's been one of my favorite books since I was in 6th grade, great life values in this story! Great for kids! and people of any age.

This is a lovely story, and I wanted to own the book to follow while I listen to the story in Spanish on my ipod. Children's stories in Spanish are a delightful way to study for the mid-level student.

T.William Waltrip, M.D.