Interactive Books

This is a super nice little book for the value.perfect for glass painting or a layout of angels.im glad I took a chance on this one.you cant go wrong.B.W.

Belinda's voice is the icing on the cake on this wonderful cd about the angels. I've probably listened to it a dozen times already. And the book is so inspirational.

We love this book! We got it when my oldest was 4. She spent hours looking at the pictures then and still spends hours now. It has helped her develop her love of animals into a fascination with animal habitats.

Three years ago, my father gave me this book on Christmas Eve when I told him that at the age of 27 I was already for a career change. I was already a CAD-man and I wanted to do more then just industrial wire frames. I was ready to take my work to new levels and other worlds. Someone in the know suggested this book to him.

This book goes through everything a new comer to Computer Animation and world building needs to know when starting out: What to look for when buying a computer, how software packages stack up against each other, and how functions work.

I read this book that Christmas Day and agian the following weekend there after and have referred back to it ever since. It's one of my most treasured possessions, reminding me the enormous faith my father has in me. And, it's a nice resource...

This is a good book to get someone started and a refresher for 'old timers' like myself. This book in invaluable!

This is a pithy and well-presented little book for people familiar with traditional hand-drawn animation who are just starting to venture into the realm of computer animation. Beginning with useful reviews of the leading software packages, Griffin walks you in detail through all the main steps involved in 2D computer animation, from initial planning through to film output, without getting bogged down in program-specific details.

This is not a how-to manual. It doesn't teach any secrets or tricks of computer animation, but gives the animator an excellent understanding of the process from start to finish. The illustrations are well-chosen and enhance the text.

The only criticism is that the accompanying CD is not highly useful. It contains only 2 short sample animations, and the rest are computer program demos, most of which are available in newer versions on-line. A simple list of links would have sufficed and the CD left out to keep the price down.

If you're just venturing into 2D computer animation, this book is an excellent place to start.

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We all love mazes, children especially.

This book takes mazes to a new level. We are presented with 12 different natural environments ranging from the desert to the Arctic.

In each of these ecosystems there is one or more animals which must navigate through a hazardous world to find their way home. Typically, what they must avoid, are other species of animals which are their hungry predators. For example, baby turtles must try to escape to the sea before being eaten by swooping gulls.

Children will learn about the relationships between the different species and the local ecology.

The appeal of this book is in the subtle messages that come from solving the mazes. They are:-

There is always a path to safety..... The pleasure in being united with family at home ...... The reward is worth the search.... Confront the hazards of life and find a way around them

One of the best tricks in solving the mazes is to try and focus on the goal and the starting point at the same time. When you've got that, try and simultaneously view the big picture, looking at all the possible paths. With luck you'll be able to see the solution without having to trial-and-error down each possible path.

Each maze contains up to 21 different species of animal. At the back of the book we are shown the solutions to the mazes together with a detailed paragraph on the characteristics of each animal that features in that maze.

This book is the perfect combination of a game together with a valuable learning experience. This book is in the same class as Graeme Base's "Animalia" and deserves a wide audience.

In an age where children are coaxed by Sony Playstations, and the wintery outdoors; it's hard to find something simple that they can cuddle up with in the corner and quietly explore.

The story of Annabelle's Wish seems to facinate both younger children and more experienced level reader's.

Because its from Golden Books interactive series the child could "sound off" characters at any point in the reading. The book offers large bold illustrations, a clever plot twist, and original narration.

As all Christmas classics remind us, this book does make you think about the reason of the Season, and try to make your Heart feel warmer. It builds on the folklore of Santa giving the farm animals "voices" once a year on Christmas. And the friendship that builds between a mute boy and the calf, Annabelle, born on this Holiday.

Although Tommy and Annabelle are its main characters, the storey is about more than the "special" gift they exchanged. It was about how others around them put aside their personal differences to come together in Friendship.

Your child can easily relate to the animals and the frienships found in the storey. And if they understand what is being shown by "unselfish giving" recreate for your Family a special and powerful magic.

Joel Deane's Another is a book that pulls hard and instantly on its reader. Pick it up and start flipping through the pages, and you're suddenly drawn into the intense intimacy of its narrative. Don't fight it. This is an important novel and worth sacrificing a few meals for. It draws a very soft line between poetry and prose, blurring the timeframe between past, present and future, and taking us as deep below his character's skin as it is possible. Toby and Suzie are the two key characters in this story that takes place in a suburban nowheresville between McDonalds and subdivisions built over human bones. The violence that permeates this book grows into a spiral which neither Toby and Suzie can escape from. They are both victims and culpable, and the readers sympathies are torn between dislike and the need to distance, and sorry for the trap that these characters find themselves in. It's a painful dead-end existence which Deane captures perfectly. Both characters are deeply scarred, internally and externally. The parallels between them are striking. Both have been abused by their parents. Both are struggling to come to terms with that mixture of hatred, guilt and love that this kind of abuse creates. And both ultimately fail. Their doomed Bonnie and Clyde plot could be bleak, and is certainly rich in pathos at times. But it isn't bleak at all. It's redemptive and beautiful, because of Deane's narrator. Joel Deane has written a lyrical, powerful novel that is, in equal parts, utterly political, and rooted in that realm of human emotion which is above politics. It is a call to action for the atrocious world we've given our youth, and at the same time, a celebration of the beauty of humanity. It is easy and fast to read, and the kind of deep, intense experience which will stay with the reader for a long time.

Magdalena Ball is the author of Sleep Before Evening

My 4 year old loves this book. The books greatly detailed map of the whole ant village and associated greater detailed rooms in the village provide hours of treasure hunting. Make sure you read it with ample lighting or you will strain your eyes. Will look for more by Philpot.

if you want to learn apl, make every effort to get a copy of this book. it is a classic, and certainly the best introduction to apl ever written.