Parks Books

We always know that when we give books by Skurzynski & Ferguson, the young readers will soon be engrossed in the interesting characters and their adventures. Just gave three of OUT OF THE DEEP to 3 different age youngsters. All a hit!

Jack and Ashley Landon love to travel with their mother, a wildlife veterinarian, who is often called to solve animal mysteries, and their father, who hopes to have a career as a photographer. This time they are on their way to Acadia National Park in Maine to investigate why the marine animals are beaching. But Jack and Ashley have a problem. Bindy Callister, the 14- year-old temporary foster child who has just come to live with the Landon family. Bindy is a liar, or at least Jack thinks so. She claims to know the reason for the animal behavior, and the kids find her near a beached baby whale. Bindy slips away during the rescue operation, determined to prove she know why this is happening, and Jack and Ashley get themselves in deeper than they planned for.The mystery is fascinating reading and an educational experience all rolled into one. I think it's the best one yet in this series for upper elementary or older readers. The mother/daughter author team never fail to teach about science, geography, and human behavior.

Collaboratively written by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson, Out Of The Deep is an exciting mystery novel for young adults which is set in the beautiful Acadia National Park. A baby whale among other marine mammals has beached upon the park shores, and it's up to the intrepid Landon kids to figure out why. Out Of The Deep is a genuinely captivating story that blends adventure with respect for nature and wildlife. Also very highly recommended is another Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson title in the eleven volume "Mysteries In Our National Parks" series from National Geographic Society, Running Scared (0792282329).

Even though I was not adopted, I enjoyed reading this encouraging success story of perseverance and love. This is one of those books you hate to put down, because you can't wait to see what happens next. I like the way the author put a copy of her birth certificate and written letters into the pages, instead of typing them into the text. Those things put me 'at the scene' of what was happening in her life. Plus, all the pictures of the people spoken about; that really made me a part of all their lives and included me in Jane's search for 11 years to find her birth family. I'd higly recommend this book. We all come in contact with adopted adults who would be enlightened and encouraged by reading this book.

I was completely unprepared for the emotional impact of this story even though I have known the author for 50 years and even though I helped in a small way in preparing some of the images included in the book.

Reading Jane's book had me in tears over and over again. Not tears of sadness but tears of joy and happiness. I was constantly taking off my glasses and wiping my eyes, then waiting for the tears to stop so I could put my glasses back on and resume the story. It was a most difficult afternoon indeed.

In this book you will not only read about the search by a woman for her origins, but you will also read of the creation of a whole new family in the combination of her mother's family and her father's family. These two families were completely unaware of each other prior to the author's successful search for them. Not only was a new family formed but the two existing families had some of their own fissures and injuries mended. I believe the reader will be especially affected by the words of many of these family members as they described the impact that their new big sister had on their lives.

This story not only has a happy ending, it has a happy beginning and a happy middle. It will lighten your spirit and bring you joy in the knowledge that there really is good in the world and that those who seek it can find it.

This is a wonderful true story of a woman's tenacity and determination over a period of eleven years in a search for her biological roots. It will definitely touch you emotionally as she struggles to find these people. But, just as importantly, there is another story here as well!! That is the story of what happens to the lives of the seekers and the sought once the connection is established. This then becomes the story of new relationships that move the participants out of their usual routines and into new experiences of growth in their own lives. Length of time in relationship is not as important as intensity and the author has obviously done her utmost to "make up for lost time". Everyone is a winner here!! This is one of those books that is hard to put down or that keeps one up late at night!! Many thanks for sharing this wonderful experience in life with the rest of us!!

I like how this couple presents their information. The book is full of useful data. I have purchased this in preparation for our journey to Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon and Northwest Territories. It does a superb job of helping you understand what to look for, where to look for it, how much things cost relative to other areas. Excellent job.

Having lived in the Pacific NW for many years I know lots of places for camping and RVing. I found this book accurate and very resourcefull. With rising fuel prices, we are all looking for closer to home places to "get away" and this book is a required resource to help find them, and determine their suitability. The only criticism I have is the way its organized. A little hard to find individual places since it is organized based on tour routes.

I bough thtis with the MOON bok, and am using both of them , this one is helpful with trip ideas, and the best of the large campgrounds, a very usefull book.

I was greatly moved by the life story, poems, and art of this remarkable person named David Chethlahe Paladin in "PAINTING THE DREAM".

Through his colorful life, suffering, and cultures; he brought me to an understanding of our inter-connectedness with one another and the universe.

It is relevant that we learn from his knowledge base, in order to live better, healthier, and a more harmonious exsistance. We must understand that there is so very much more for us to understand.

David opens up a window you have never looked through before.

No matter who you are, where you came from, your sorrows and joys of your life experience; there is no way that you can walk away- after reading this book and experiencing the essence of this exceptional human being- that you won't be positively inspired for the rest of your life.

I bought this book after hearing Carolyn Myss's version of Paladin's story. I was surprised to read Paladin's version which is quite different; Myss seems to have invented some facts. All that aside, this a deeply moving book. You feel what it is to be a shaman, and visually it is beyond description. I wondered why a paperback was so expensive, and then I saw the 31 plates. I would be thrilled to have any of this art in my home. The back of the book says you can buy it. If I had the money I would. This is a stunning book for anyone interested in healing.

I always come back to this book. It contains more than magnificient paintings. It contains wisdom, peace, light, dreams. An incredible perspective of life. Everything in this book is made with beauty: the words, the thoughts, the paintings, the stories. It opens our eyes to the world of the chamans. And, strangely, it also opens our eyes to our own inner world! Magnificient.

In "The Paradox of Tarheel Politics", veteran reporter Rob Christensen, of the Raleigh News and Observer, provides a stellar addition to the pantheon of North Carolina political works.

This book is a must read for any politician, journalist, activist, observer or just plain interested party. Christensen deserves a medal for making the subject matter approachable to the layman. As an historical work, the book ranks among the most active and engaging stories in recent memory.

Perhaps a testament to the editors Christensen has had in his career, the prose is engaging and full of energy. There is hardly a weak spot in the entire book. Whether the reader is on vacation with hours on end or a casual nighttime bookworm reading a few pages a night, "The Paradox of Tarheel Politics" is sure to capture and hold their attention.

Read the full review at my personal website, or via this link:

[...]
Jeffrey Sykes
www.jeffreysykes.com

The most complete account of North Carolina political history I've ever found in one book. All the major players for the past century are here with lots of great stories. A great read.

The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections, and Events That Shaped Modern North CarolinaThis is a wonderful read by one of the best newspaper reporters in the State. I would highly recommend the book to anyone who has an interest in the history of modern day politics in North Carolina.

O. Max Gardner III

This is the best source book for the architectural projects and site concepts produced during the 1930's for the Works Projects Administration (WPA)and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Albert Good's narrative provides insight into the motivating forces that employed thousands of out of work architects, engineers, skilled craftsmen and laborers to produce projects that now form the core of our national and state park systems.

Most of the work produced under this program is enjoyed by today's tourist as the premier and most desirable destinations for outdoor experiences. Few new park facilities can duplicate the environments created by these dedicated workers on superbly selected and planned sites during the darkest days of the "Great Depression". The hand crafted, and sometimes intricately decorated, architecture and natural landscape planning evolved from talented designers and often unskilled laborers who lavished their work with love that only the lack of deadlines, the motivation of an empty stomach, a belief in the benefit for their fellow countrymen and the need to build with on site materials can produce. These buildings are truly "green buildings" before the term and recent politically correct notion became fasionable.

Any architect, engineer, conservation and environmental supporter or depression era historian can benefit from this publication which brings one in contact with a nation faced with financial ruin and the effect on the hopes and spirit of its citizens. It demonstrates that when given a chance, the work ethic that has and hopefully will always exist in this nation produces fantastic results..........that we can roll up our shirt sleeves and pull on our boots to produce marvelous and lasting accomplishments even under great adversity.

I recommend this book not just for the professionals whose vocations it represents but also for those who wish to understand the mountains that can be moved with a little sweat and perseverance.

This is a beautiful book and an excellent reference. It is a reprint of the three volume set published in 1938. "Patterns From the Golden Age" is a cheaper reprint of the same thing - but the quality of the photos in this version is well worth the extra money.

The golden era of handcrafted log construction was 1920's and 30's, and this wonderful book details, in project after project, the structures that had been built in America's National and State parks during that time. Cabins, lodges, visitor centers, even bridges, drinking fountains, fire pits, outhouses, and log benches-they all get photos, drawings, and commentary in this encyclopedic work.

Albert H. Good wrote several books as Architectural Consultant for the National Park Service, and 3 of them are bound into one huge book here--it is the size of a library dictionary. More than 600 pages, and countless photos and drawings, the publisher used high quality paper and library binding. It feels like an expensive book!

For me, the drawings are the gems. B&W photos must be difficult to scan and reproduce from the original, and some of the photos in this book, while generally very good, have suffered just a little. But this is nit picking.

This book is a treasurehouse of handcrafted stone and log structures--these were craftsmen working at the peak of their abilities. And the designs are superb-they have the human scale, the warmth, and the charm that current architects could learn from. Great log homes don't need to be 4000 square feet, or have 20-foot ceilings. This book is proof of that.

Save up and buy this book. Use it when designing your own log home or cabin. Share it with friends. I have been building log homes, and writing about log home construction, for 23 years and each time I browse this book I learn something new.

Robert W. Chambers, author, Log Construction Manual

I was a bit skeptical when I first bought the book. A friend of mine had recommended it and pressured me to buy it since I wasn't having much luck in the dating scene. I was having a hard time getting the courage to speak to women. This book is all about gaining the confidence you need in life. It speaks about women's minds and how to interact with them. It really helps to establish yourself in the dating scene, becoming a confident man, and gaining control of your life. I see myself meeting the kind of girls I always wanted and I am really starting to enjoy life because of that!
MM

Art's book takes no prisoners and cuts to the chase. I didn't realize how easy meeting women during the day time can be. Meeting women at night clubs and bars was always a turn off for me because of the fake and unfriendly atmosphere. This book helped me to start meeting women that I want in the day time with no BS. I got it in bundle with audio (which i highly recommend), and it was worth every penny.
Just to give heads up, this is an ebook so there is no physical copy, the benefit of it is, i got my book 5 minutes after i ordered it.

My friend recommended this book to me. He was going on and on about it. I didn't believe him at first. But he meets girls all the time, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

This guy actually tells you how to approach women and enjoy it.

It really works. I just met a girl in line at Starbucks and got her number.

BEWARE!!! This is an e-book not a physical book or CD-ROM.

I've had to park twice in Manhattan in the last month and saved 10 dollars both times by using Park It. It also helps knowing where you are going to park so you can drive straight there.

This book is a fantastic resource for anyone that drives in New York City. If you're sick of overpaying for parking and tired of wasting time circling the block looking for a space, you will be thrilled with this guide to all of the parking garages in New York City. Find the best deals and the most convenient spots near your destination and learn how to avoid getting ripped off.

I am glad I have two of these books - one in my car and one in my apartment. I had a friend coming to visit with a car and because I forgot to look at the one in my car before I parked it, I got my apartment one out, researched the best choice based on location and price and found a great garage for him. This book is easy to use, well laid out and well worth the cost.

The book is so well laid out and easy to follow. It made finding a garage near our appointment location super simple. The format also let us pick and choose which garage to use based on cost and safety. Additional features like extra charge for SUV and the full range of rates helped us also make a choice based on finances instead of guessing like in the past.

Ed Kienzle does an awesome job in Partners in the Wilderness. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. I can't think of any part of that book that was slow. The John Coulter thing was a great way to express how great the wilderness is. This book teaches people life skills that they can hold onto for the rest of their lives. I highly reccomend this book not only for wilderness lovers, but for anybody who wants a thrilling adventure!!!

.....Partners in the Wilderness.There are good lessons in this book for everyone. When you brag about hunting you probably won't get anything.When you imagine somebody you might want to take his/her advice. Travis imagines John Coulter the mountain man. Coulter gives him great life saving instructions. If you like to read an action book Partners in the Wilderness is the book for you

Partners In The Wilderness: Travis's Choice by Ed Kienzle is the engaging story of Travis Driskoll, a twelve-year-old Wyoming boy whose adventurous hunting trip turns into a nightmare when his father is attacked by a bear. Befriending the spirit of a legendary explorer, Travis learns independence and survival skills as he undertakes the perilous quest to save his injured father's life. An engrossing adventure from cover to cover, Partners In The Wilderness: Travis's Choice is highly recommended for young readers ages 12 through 18.

I am another of the the thousands of students whom Kerry Wood taught during his 37-year high school teaching career. My past acquaintence with the author inspired me to pick up the book, but its literary artistry and perspective made it one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking reads of my year. I recommend it with enthusiasm to anyone who enjoys good writing, and would like to experience vicariously the life of a man of uncommon intelligence who chose the path of a public high school English teacher.

The book is full of linguistic delights: short stories, varied experiences recalled with tenderness and ironic wit, and in particular the skillfully rendered verse. One favorite was a tender poem recalling a moment when it struck the author that his young son saw in him unlimited capacity to fix any problem - to reach the sky and retrieve a lost helium balloon - and his poignant reflection that over time in the eyes of his son he would only "grow shorter." On a lighter note, I loved the playful double-dactyl rhymes capturing the author's affectionate tolerance for the idiosyncrancies of students - with flowing meter, pleasing alliteration, and gentle humor. Some of the lines keep coming back for the sheer pleasure of allowing them to roll off the tongue ("Writes his reports with a powerful pen," for example). I can't recall enjoying language this much since the bedtimes years ago when I used to read Milne to our children (when they were young).

I was by turns amused, touched, and entertained by the well-told accounts of hilarious events (the letter from a 9-yr-old son at summer camp, admonishing his parents to "get up here pronto" and rescue him, is side-splitting), a poignant story about how the author discovered that an elderly neighbor whom he and his cousins had teased mercilessly in fact had been a secret benefactor all along, and how he was able to use his grammatical skills to turn what otherwise would likely have been a grim tour of military duty into a safe and sane experience. It is a joy to take a walk through the latter half of the 20th century with such an interesting, observant and literate guide.

What has inspired the most thought for this reader, however, is the fresh perspective that the memoir provides on the life of its author, until now known to me only from the remembered viewpoint of an admiring student watching him teach each day (well, let's say most days) during my truancy-plagued final year of high school.

To his students and faculty colleagues, Mr. Wood was a colossus: a man of staggering physical and intellectual presence. Commanding a prodigious vocabulary and bearing the physique of a greek god, he clearly did not belong in our mediocre midst at Woodside High School. His soft-spoken and bespectacled demeanor and dutiful attention to the details of classroom administration were clearly a façade - a mere act adopted solely to enable him to move among us, Clark Kent-like, without constantly blinding us with his brilliance. Instead, that brilliance came out only in tantalizing glimpses, when he let his teacher façade slip momentarily to engage in some word game in which he instantly obliterated all competition, or to toss off some quickly scribbled composition the quality of which none of us could hope to match with years of sustained effort.

The memoir reveals, however, that Mr. Wood saw himself quite differently than we did. To him, the four year old Kerry Wood, peering out from the window of his catholic military boarding school as he tearfully watched his parents drive away, was as a recent memory. The Kerry Wood in his mind was a younger sibling and cousin, rushed into school underage and continually feeling less experienced and socially capable than his peers. When his intellectual gifts earned him admission to an Ivy League college - making him a pioneer both in his family and his school - he enjoyed the intellectual stimulation, but also felt a measure of inadequacy due to the less sophisticated preparation he had received relative to his socioeconomically advantaged classmates. As he proceeded with a teaching career, he continued to carry with him a sense that he was less than he actually was. He was genuinely surprised when educated people were awed by his vocabulary and literary skill. He was self-conscious (perhaps even on occasion self-doubting) when students and dull school bureaucrats failed to appreciate these gifts, or treated him with less respect than he deserved. And he was genuinely flattered when colleagues asked him to pen commemorative verse - not fully realizing himself, perhaps, how his artistry was light years beyond what any of them could hope to produce.

So I have been sifting through these conflicting perceptions: my remembered youthful perception of Mr. Wood as a larger-than-life persona, and the more informed understanding I have now of a man who (as we all do) actually carried the baggage of uncertainties and doubts born in childhood. One might suspect that the effect of these discoveries would be akin to what the poem predicted for the author's young son as he grew older: a realization that the colossus was growing shorter! But that is not the case. What I see now is the humanity - even the nobility - of a man who before was a mere icon.

Reflecting on this man's career in the classroom, I am reminded of a favorite contemporary poem that a dear friend once shared with me: The Labors of Thor, by David Wagoner. In truth, the language of this poem (indeed, of any of Wagoner's work) is less pleasing to me than much of what I have just read in Wood's memoir. But I love the message. In this poem, a young hero of legendary strength is given several seemingly trifling challenges by the ancient Ice Kings: lifting a housecat, drinking a tankard of mead, and wrestling an old woman. In each effort, he struggles and barely produces any noticeable results at all. The Ice Kings yawn in apparent boredom. Convinced that he is an utter fraud, Thor flees and lives out the rest of his life in shame. But as he leaves the halls of the Ice Kings, they themselves are secretly trembling in awe because they have seen a mere mortal hoist the cat of the entire world and raise one corner, drink from a cup that ends in the seven seas and lower them all by a full inch, and go toe to toe with death herself and match her blow for blow.

To the unperceiving eye, the career of a public school English teacher like Mr. Wood may at times appear to be simply marking time with inattentive and marginally talented students. But, in reality, Mr. Wood went toe to toe with some of the most awful adversaries of a generation: ignorance, sloth, preoccupation with the mundane. Like Thor, Wood may not have perceived that he accomplished much; despite all his efforts, ignorance, sloth and mundane concerns ruled on in the lives of his students! But there were moments - perhaps many moments - when he kindled in them the opposite virtues: an appreciation of language and fine writing, a desire to achieve worthy intellectual goals, and a realization that there is more artistry and beauty in the world than they knew before he touched them. These accomplishments are reflected in the tributes that appear in the heartwarming notes from former students memorialized in chapter seventeen.

This book will entertain and inspire all thoughtful readers. Cheers to Mr. Wood for a memoir well written, a life well lived, and generations of students well taught.

This book offers the good, bad and the ugly of a life well-spent. I enjoyed the variety of style and felt especially touched and encouraged by Mr. Wood's description of his stroke and the courage and persistence he had to overcome it. As the parent of a teacher, I will be passing this book on to my daughter. Who knew a career in education could lead to such an expansive life? Photos increase the pleasure of reading Past Imperfect, Present Progressive.

I am one of the cousins Kerry kindly mentions in this engrossing work. Though our two families socialized frequently when we were kids, over the years time and distance slowly separated us. However, because of a shared interest in the English language, we did maintain occasional contact. Still, when first he mentioned that he was writing his memoirs, my thought was, "What in the world does he have to write about?"

Well, I've found out. How about running with the bulls in Pamplona, climbing Mt. Kenya, golfing all over Europe, and more? I knew, of course, that he'd taught English in Istanbul for years, but most of the rest of it was news to me. He's led a full and adventurous life, and I admit to some envy.

These memoirs will be of special interest to anyone who knows my cousin or his family-or, for that matter, my family. Beyond that, it will reward anyone who appreciates colorful, frank, intelligent, and absorbing writing. It's a thick book, but I finished it in two days.