United States Books

This book introduces jazz to a young audience. It explores the sounds, rhythms, and emotions of the genre through colorful pictures and rhythmic words similar to the beat of "scat" singing.
Lots of the words are there just for the sound of them. By focusing on the sound words, students could develop spelling strategies that help them move from phonemes, the sounds they make, to graphemes, the written representations of those sounds.

This book is excellent. The illustrations and musical text allow for early readers to really enjoy and learn from this book. Perfect for preschool and kdg age. I used this book as the basis of a jazz unit, it worked wonderfully.

"Charlie Parker Played Be Bop" was my son's favorite book when he was two and nine years later we still have fun reading it. I now purchase a copy for new parents to read to thier babies. As a speech language pathologist, I want to share to magic of words and the music they can make! This book is an absolute MUST read for all children.

I wasn't sure how my little one would respond to this book even though I love it. If I ask, "Do you want to read about Charlie Parker?," she lights up and starts literally starts to bop. The baby digs it. Just more evidence that the jazz is a universal language. I like the introduction to poetry, rhythm and randomness ("Never leave your cat alone"). I bought two other copies and gave them to my friends for their babies.

I am an elementary school music teacher with students ranging from pre-K to 5th grade. I read this book to all of my pre-K and kindergarten through second grade classes and sometimes the mood strikes me to read it to older students. There is something in here for most every age. Everyone loves it.

So why does Raschka draw chicken feet in such odd places, e.g., on overshoes, alphabet letters, pancake flippers?

Well, rumor has it that one day Charlie Parker was driving back to his boarding house and, as luck would have it, he hit and killed a chicken that had run out into the street from someone's front yard. Such chickens are called "yardbirds". The alleged events include Parker doing the unthinkable, namely, backing up his car, picking up the dead chicken (aka "roadkill"), taking it to his landlady (hey, it was fresh!), her cooking it, and him eating it. When friends heard this story, Parker was known forever after as "Yardbird", which was eventually shortened to just "Bird".

If you didn't catch the part about the chicken feet on your own, don't feel badly. Insiders like Rachka and myself know it and now you do too. Rachka has done a terrific job in providing a lot of feeling about some very notable personalities. Plus he does it with humor, some of which is very subtle.

My students probably have as much fun going through Parker's history as with the book itself. But all of that is just the preliminaries: I then have to read it several more times with the students reading and acting out the story. We have a rockin' good time.

I've used this book so much over the past 2 years I may need to replace it soon. While the rating system took me a little while to figure out (the numbers do NOT represent the ranking, just the location on the map), the book is very user-friendly. In addition to giving accurate directions to each campground, it directs you to the correct page and area in both the Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer and Colorado Recreational Road Atlas. By rating Scenery, RVs, Tents, Shade, and Privacy, the book helps you locate the campgrounds based on what is important to you. The elevation info is great if you have young children who might not appreciate waking up in the snow and I love that the book tells you which tent sites are the most popular since we tend to reserve campsites well in advance of trips. This is a great book.

The book is a very good reference on a large number of campgrounds. It has a strength in that it provides pictures, unlike for instance the Moon guide. In my opinion, the book would be better if it covered the CGs more evenly: the authors' choices of "best" very often coincide with "most popular" (read: "most crowded") and the quieter campgrounds do not get the coverage that may be of interest to readers.
Another annoyance I found is numbering of campgrounds. They are not numbered and listed in a logical order that would allow reading about closely located ones in a sequence. Instead, you can read on one and the adjacent one on the map is fife pages down, yet the next one in the text is 50 miles away. This makes one go back and forth between the map and the text if you are trying to get impression on CGs in a certain area.
However, all this notwithstanding, I think this book is well worth having.

We have camped in Colorado for years, but this guide gave us new campgrounds to explore and try. We like the idea that the author includes ratings on both tent and RV "friendly" places, as well as including shade and sun, spacing and privacy aspects.
Love the pictures!
We find the format easy to use and the organization by regions is good, too, although the San Luis Valley should be kept separate from the Eastern slope.
This is the first summer we've used the guide, but will keep it in use for many years.

I do not own an RV, but noticed that the book is full of campsite info from all around the state, and includes whether the sites allow RV's, tents, pets, if they have hook-ups, ect.

We used this book to determine every campground we'll stay at in CO.
The pictures were wonderful and the ratings were very useful. We are tent camping so it was nice to find a book that not only catered to the RV campers but the tent campers as well.

While I knew most the basics of Northern states' slaveowning and its eventual phaseout, and that, pre-1807, Northern shippers/sailing captains made plenty of money on the slave trade, the post-1807 info, as well as the way this book pulled so many things together, is still very good.

That includes the financial tentacles of the New York Cotton Exchange and the economic impact of cotton itself, with the South producing 2/3 the world's cotton and exporting half of that total. Those two tidbits alone should help readers understand more of why Southern fire-eaters held out hope either that the North wouldn't oppose their secession or that Britain would intervene.

Hypocrisy in interdicting the slave trade is also exposed. The British had taken the lead in this, but Americans charged they were hypocrites because British traders still brought goods to Africa that were important in the slave trade. Meanwhile, the U.S. government had negotiated a deal with the British that only the U.S. Navy could interdict U.S. ships off the coast of Africa. Unfortunately, until just before the Civil War, the U.S. Navy didn't actually do much interdiction.

Beyond that, though the fact of the North having slaves was known to me, the authors still do a good job of illustrating details of slave life, slave purchases, advertisements for slaves and more.

Also, a slice of the North's antebellum intelligencia is found highly complicit in the pseudoscience of racial studies, including the 19th-century fad of phrenology.

And, for those unfamiliar, the authors show just how much of a minority position abolition was in the North.

Finally, this book has several helpful maps, illustrating the triangular trade, where all in Africa slaves came from and more.

Three journalists from the Hartford Courant attempted to expand a series of newspaper articles into a book-length examination of `the North's' complicity in slavery. They partially succeed. The book's early chapters explore slavery as it existed in the North, the connections between Northern industry and Southern slavery, New York City's particular role in the slave trade and the `triangular trade' (involving the US, Europe and Africa), and a `reverse underground railroad' involving the kidnapping of free blacks and their sale in the South. These chapters all supply useful information to fill the interstices of history, although much of it struck this reader as much less surprising than it did to the authors.

The book first goes seriously off its rails in the concluding chapters when it ventures into the stories of Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown. Their familiar stories are so well known that they seem out of place in a book that strives to deliver journalistically fresh content. Certainly nothing new is added to the reader's knowledge about these men and the hatred they generated North and South.

A chapter about the 19th century Philadelphia scientist Samuel George Morton who developed a `scientific' theory of the `races' that `proved' the inferiority of Africans and their descendants adds less than it might have and seems like an afterthought, a rather disorganized one at that. The chapter reaches its nadir when the authors elect to cherry pick quotes from Rev. Theodore Parker and Abraham Lincoln affirming the superiority of whites. They might have at least added Parker's quote predicting the success of abolition: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one... And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice."

The book's final chapter is also its oddest. It concerns the undeniably horrid consequences of the ivory trade especially on the African slaves forced to transport the tusks long distances. The tusks were particularly used to make piano keys. Undeniably, Northerners made pianos and played them, but they were hardly alone in these endeavors. Like the preceding chapter, this one seems like it was added in order to satisfy the publisher's idea of how long a book should be.

In a brief afterword, the authors assert that America's `extraordinary ascent into the world arena' would have been much delayed had the country, North and South, not benefited from the unpaid labor the slaves. This assertion is necessary to undergird the author's next assertion that the North was complicit in allowing this to happen and benefited from it. As a matter of labor economics, the authors' assumption that the US economy would have suffered if it had had to rely on free labor is doubtful. Indeed, the assumption flies in the face of the `free soil, free labor' ideology of Abraham Lincoln's nascent Republican Party, which argued that free men would work harder in a free labor society and that slavery undermined the free workers of the South.

The authors also disavow any intent to `debunk the myth of a virtuous North'. Perhaps so, but to this reader their failure to place the undeniable negative facts about the North in a broader context gives the book an unbalanced sensationalism. A reader might be excused for thinking that the only abolitionists were the few heroic leaders and not the thousands of members of a Northern mass movement. The authors cite statistics that New York State still had 20,000 slaves within its borders in 1790. True enough, but the authors neglect to relate that Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina each already had over 100,000 slaves while Virginia had over 290,000 slaves.

`Complicity' fills in gaps in general knowledge about specific ways in which many Northerners benefited a little and a few Northerners benefited enormously from slavery. The book at least implicitly suggests an equivalency between the North and the South in responsibility for slavery that the facts do not support. The South was a slave society based on and defined by slavery; the North was not a slave society (and likely would have prospered without Southern slavery), but the North did benefit from slavery indirectly in large ways (e.g., large-scale manufacture of textiles that employed thousands) and directly in more limited ways (e.g., slave-trade shipping that benefited relatively few Northerners).

The book's tone ironically undercuts a nuanced reading of history that an appreciation of the relative roles of the North and South in slavery yields. The reader might better spend his time with Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)Edmund Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom, Eric Foner's Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War With a New Introductory Essay, or even The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox by Stephen Budiansky.

No matter how much of this book is true, it certainly doesn't tell the whole story. The abolition movement in the North was very powerful, especially among certain Christian groups. Thousands of the men in the North who volunteered, and they were all volunteers at the beginnning of the Civil War had the moral purpose of ending slavery in mind. But with modern historical revisionism, all white men are bad, all persons of color are good! I've seen this time and again in current "histories" of the period. Certainly you can find racists anywhere you go in this world; the world of today and yesterday. Dwelling on the perceived evils of the past, committed by some, but not all, will not solve the evils of today. Therefore, what is this book worth to our modern society?

To say this is an important book is an understatement. Understanding of the issue of slavery and how it functioned and who benefited is broadened to include the North as well as the South. For many of its readers this book is revelatory, imparting knowledge that is new and mind-expanding. One's innocence that might claim lack of participation or material reward from that which is called the peculiar institution is banished. This book is essential reading for anyone willing to grapple deeply with how that institution has affected the core of American society and the world at large.

Complicity is well researched and documented. It is investigative journalism at its best. The content is difficult to read for human suffering is painful and powerful stuff. The authors shed light on a staggering hypocrisy that existed then and continues to exist to this day for the truth is shamefully hidden in the dark corners of the North's history. Do as I say...not as I do; perceptions of moral superiority based in depravity; speaking out of both sides of one's mouth; greed and avarice. The purveyors of moral ethics in our society have long excoriated the South for its past dependency on slavery and never hesitated to remind us in the most insidious ways of that association; it pervades our country's cultural history. The authors of Complicity do not exonerate the South for holding to the institution of slavery, nor should they, but they do demand that the North shoulder the burden of guilt. I doubt that will ever happen. An analogy kept running through my mind as I read story after story of how many of the great financial empires of the Northeast were built in large part on the profits of the slave trade: The addict becomes helpless and dependent on his addiction; the dealer perpetuates the addiction for greed. While both are morally reprehensible I think the dealer is far more evil than the addict.

I just bought this book based on the reviews and will be returning it. We live in Sausalito and the Marin Headlands are essentially our backyard. I bought the book to find new areas in the Golden Gate area to explore but when I looked at the area I know well, the Marin Headlands, the information ( map and route description ) were inaccurate and misleading.

This book is excellent but readers should know the authors have recently revised it for 2004/2005. They've added more maps and photos and a section for family outings. The easiest way to find the new edition is to click on the authors name. Note the title has changed slightly too. It's now Golden Gate Trailblazer: where to hike, walk, bike in San Francisco and Marin.

My vacation to San Francisco lasted three weeks. I bought Golden Gate Trailblazer when I arrived and walked many miles with it as my guide. Treasured memories are Limantour and McClures beaches at Point Reyes National Seashore which I never would have found on my own. There's so much more to the Bay Area than Fisherman's Wharf and the cable cars and traffic. This book excels when it comes to organization with maps in every section and a very detailed index. I highly recommend it to hikers and walkers who have never visited this part of California's coast. Like me, you'll probably be surprised at all the places these local authors have packed inside.

San Francisco was only a brief stopover and this book opened up all the possibilities. It turned my vacation upside down with all its trail recommendations. The book is so well written and well researched. I've loved using it and recommend it to anyone who wants a bit of history along with their exercise. The restaurant recommendations were too cool. These guys are real pros.

Simply said . . . wow. What a find! High on my list for seeing all the offbeat and major sites around the City and along Marin's rugged coast and bay wetlands. For years I've been the chauffer when guests come and stay. Now I just hand my friends a copy of Trailblazer and tell them to begin at trail #1, The City. For trails in the Golden Gate National Recreation area and Mt. Tamalpais, this is the most detailed book. You really get a feel for northern California and its history by reading it. Maps are A+ too.

You gotta have this book if you're a Bruce fan. Great history and old photos. Great back stories and nostalgia. I was a bit dissapointed with the reproductions - both in terms of relevance and also the quantity of them, but all in all it is well worth the money. I mean, people actually paid $50 for the Madonna book a few years back. Puh-lease.... there is only one BOSS!

I recently took my 10 year old to a Springsteen concert and he is hooked. At his urging we went to the local library to see if they had a book on the Boss..we found this one and he loved it so much I ordered it..the great thing about it was that I loved it too !! Nothing better than something you can enjoy with your kids. I give this a thumbs up !!

My daughter got this book for me for X-Mas,
and it's the neatest thing !
Great chronological history of Bruce and his
various bands, along with the cool artifacts
placed throughout the book, including 2 great
posters !
Great bargain and must-have for any fan of the Boss !!

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give a Springsteen-fan. It holds the hole story from start til today and includes som replicas of tickets and posters

I bought this book not knowing what to expect. Talk about a labor of love. I highly recommend Greetings From E Street to any serious Bruce Springsteen fan. It's chock full of nifty things and some good information, as well. I was very pleased with this book. It has replicas of tickets, backstage passes, concert posters, and other memorabilia. The writing, which is fine, is secondary to the entire package. Just a real treat. If you have a die hard Springsteen fan in your house, he or she would love this book.

This book provides invaluable info for individuals, business and organizations who want to protect themselves from identity theft. And if you happen to bu among those unlucky people whose identity has already been stolen, this book will help you recover (and quickly) from the damage. Easy to understand and yet detailed enough to cover all the bases - from emerging threats to ongoing scames. Also tells readers how to plan effective anti-theft policies and systems. Well worth your time!

This book is quite timely and very thorough, going from defining the problem to providing solutions. Everyone should take note of the valuable information provided to avoid this growing problem. From a professional standpoint, I was particularly impressed with some of the technical solutions Mr. Vacca provided.

This book is right on the money. I personally experienced an identity theft to the tune of [$$$] on my credit card. Everything described in this book is consistent with my experience and information shared to me by the bank representative and the detective assigned to my case. I strongly recommend that anyone who conducts electronic commerce (who doesn't!)to read this book. This book clearly describes the many elements of personal risk and the controls one can demand and implement for security and peace of mind. Highly recommended.

With current advanced technology across the world, crime is also changing in most countries and more sophisticated counter measures are required. John explores the main victim of crime, which is our own identities and it's vulnerability to theft. He gives a full account of how it is done and how to avoid it. Another great book by John.

How many times have you disposed of items containing personal information (e.g., credit card statements, Electric Bills, etc.) without destroying them first or utilized a personal computer in a public place (e.g., Airport, Train Station, etc.)? After reading Identity Theft you may think twice. John Vacca presents an informative text that enlightens the reader on current methods employed by identity predators and how to protect yourself and your business. Mr. Vacca also addresses the Internet environment and the increasing use of E-Commerce, and exposes the dangers that exist both from the user and developer perspectives. For the IT professional, Identity Theft offers many informative essays on the use of digital signatures, Smart Cards, Optical Cards and Encryption as protection methods. I highly recommend this book to anyone!

I enjoyed the book very much but not as much as my 18 month old grandson whould have if he could read. He is all Jeff even looks like him. This is not only my opinion but a lot of other people as well. Everything in his room is Jeff Gordan. He even has a Jeff uniform and wore it for hallowween. Took Third. If I had an address I would send a picture of my grandson Levi. He watches just about all your races with his mother as he doesn't have a male role model, just me. A race car enthusiast from Sioux Falls, SD

This is a great book not only for the pictures but the text is also very great. It's just an all around great book!

this was one of the best books that i have read on Jeff and i'm reading it over and over. I only wish it was bigger and that i was in it.

I am a big fan of Gordon i have mostly ever thing of Gordon. If you are a racing fan these sould be your first book!

I am a huge Jeff Gordon fan and I will be the first to tell you that this is a wonderful book! I have been a fan for a little over 4 years and this book goes into detail about everything that you would ever want to know! Very well written...if you are a Jeff Gordon fan this is the book for you!

Wow!!
This is a book for everyone and anyone that loves the muppets and its good for all ages, coffee table or for propsmakers.
Top choice as a present for muppets lovers

Fabulous. So many other reviewers have expressed the feelings this book gives you so much more eloquently, so I will leave mine with just that one word. Fabulous.

This book is fabulous. I ordered it from America to come to England as the current exchange rate made it cheaper to buy this book new than to buy it second hand in England, and the wait for shipping was worth it. There are some brilliant anecdotes from people working with Henson, and beautful pictures illustrating everything that ever went on in Jim Henson's studios, right up to unpublished notes that Henson wrote for a book.

This book is beautiful, and really interesting in looking at the work of Jim Henson.

Complete with full color pictures, as well as black and white photos of Jim's early years, this book is not only a great read. -It's fun to look at too! Even young children can sit and appreciate the magic of Jim Henson's creations through the artwork and photo-journalistic shots throughout.

This book contains a great deal of biographical information on Jim throughout his life, and includes a great deal of his earlier forrays into the world of experimental art and design.

Definitely a good buy.

It's hard to believe Jim Henson has now been gone for over 16 years. Christopher Finch's book stands as a great testament to Henson's amazingly prolific work and his larger-then-life existence. Despite Henson's natural shyness and reticence and quiet manner, the thing that strikes you in the book is how many lives this guy touched. He bestowed livelihoods on literally thousands of people. Their gratitude is expressed in these pages time and again in fervent, emotional recollections. To say Jim Henson inspired devotion only begins to get at what this guy meant to his family, friends and employees.

My hat is off to Christopher Finch for this wonderful collection, which is still available here as a beautiful and hardily-constructed first-edition hardback. Mr. Finch gets an extra level of respect for the decision (of which he no doubt had a say) to keep his name off the dustcover front. He's graciously stepped aside to let the lights shine warmly on Jim Henson.

This is a sweet story but I found the narration by Jimmy B. and his daughter a little lacking. I'm a Jimmy Buffet fan no doubt. I just don't think voice overs are his thing. It is cool to hear him doing something with his daughter though. Like I said, it's sweet but I don't think we will pull this one off the shelf very often.

When I read the initial literary review, I had to laugh. The story is not weakened by the Jolly Mon's lack of efforts! Hah! The story is about the Jolly Mon's total surrender to his own destiny. He sings, the fish jump out of the sea, a musical instrument comes his way, he tries to play and makes a discovery. He trusts nature. He takes the opportunites that come his way with faith and grace. He uses the gifts he was given to the best and highest purpose. He does as he is asked to do. The book is a metaphor of faith and surrender. Besides that, it is beautifully illustrated, the music is lovely and my 2 1/2 year old son asks for it again and again. And, yes we are all parrotheads...

Anyone who is familiar with Jimmy Buffett understands ~ fantasy and fun are important parts of life.

This book & CD get the dream underway...

When I ordered this book I didn't realize it was a children's book. But when it arrived I read it then mailed it to my grand daughters. So it didn't go to waste and it was at least read/heard by three people in my family. I have loved the other Jimmy Buffett books and songs.

The quality of the printing, the beautiful 'semi-true story', the bright and well done colorful pictures and the bonus CD of Jimmy Buffett's song, aka The Jolly Mon, make this an excellent purchase for anyone with young children in their lives. It can lead to laughter, clapping, dancing and giggles!

The Lightworker's Way: Awakening Your Spiritual Power to Know and Heal

I really appreciate the author writing this book. She truly details all of the little life defining moments and the events in her life that led up to where she is now and how she slowly accepted her healing and intuitive gifts. I appreciate her honesty; this book has been extremely inspiring to me. I will suggest this book to any open minded person who wants to write their own book or for anyone who is very intuitive but do not have anyone they feel safe enough to share it with. Thank you, Doreen Virtue, for doing your life's work of healing and encouraging others to love and heal as well.

A powerful book that I just would not put down. I had many "aha" moments.
Higly recommend for those "living in the light". Worth a read. :-)

As the author of The Second Virgin Birth, I enjoyed The Lightworkers Way. I found it different and interesting.

I ordered this book again, after I read it years ago and gave it away. It was great the first and second time. Doreen is a profound spiritual teacher, clairvoyant and life educator. If the word Lightworker rings true to you, you MUST read this book. Doreen is a PHD psychologist AND a healer, intutive, so you get an overall way to heal that is loving light and soulful and practical knowledge. She talks about her history of having gifts and struggling against them and then embracing them. I have seen her numerous times and met her in Los angeles and she is the REAL DEAL. She beams an angelic quality and knowledge. I can't say enough how much her books have helped me on my path. I am a spirtual healer and psychotherapist, so I resonate with her being bold enough to speak her truth.

This book is very uplifting in a world of so much negative energy. Though the author is christian, what she has to tell the world applies to pagans also.

the explanation of the ego; how God is all about Love; how the metaphysical does have a place in religiuous belief;... all of this was so insightful.

as a prior christian, I knew that the gifts of prophesy, of dreams, of visions, of discernment all were part of the early christian church and very much a part of the OT also. But along the way, these things got dropped and overlaid by a patriarchal not a dual mother and father beliefs.

we all, no matter how we see God, what we call God, how we honor God, we all have a stake in what is to come. Love can be present without hate. Peace can be present without war. Light and shade is a natural part of this world but it does not need to be part of the emotions. God is all about love, not about which belief is right or wrong etc. God is not judgemental.

anyone who reads this book knows that we have a mission to achieve. to spread the light and the way that we will be ready for the physical and the emotional shift coming. The heaven on earth so to speak that is possible if we can only liberate away from the doubt, anger etc.

the path that the author has travelled shows how it will not be an easy path but one that you and I will be guided on if we only listen to God and the angels and nature. beautiful

from what I learned it deserves a 5 star