Anderson Books

This book is great for people interested in the deep-rooted evolution of Conjure in America. Besides its material of historical interest that reaches back into old Africa, it has some some practical material that the reader can piece together; this isn't a how-to book. It is an excellent resource - I found several other books of interest through it - and it is written in a sympathetic and intelligent manner. It is definitely worth the purchase if you are interested in the whole matter of Conjure.

Insightful! A must read for anyone who is interested in African American spirituality and history.

A thorough, and fascinating, exploration of a little-known facet of African-American history and culture. For both the history buff and the working magician, this is a page-turner. Chock-full of historical information, yet very easy to read.

A couple of tidbits to whet your appetite:

*Zora Neale Hurston's supposedly dubious African-style intiations can be traced to secret-society initiations of the Mande and Krobo tribes

*Spiritual-supply companies often recruited sales agents through churches such as the Church of God in Christ

*"Many root doctors practicing today have become millionaires"

I'm one of those people who places a Post-It at each really interesting datum. My copy of _Conjure In African American Society_ has one on almost every page. I'm just sayin'.

This is a fabulously compiled book chocked full of every significant reference to conjure that is or was available. For those interested in getting accurate knowledge of African American conjure and all things related to it, this is the book to have in your library. I go to this book first when looking for clarifycation and direction. Jeff Anderson has worked very hard to provide a truthful, complete picture of conjure from the beginning to present day. A must have for any serious student of folk lore, folk magic and folk medicine. Its a rootworkers dream reference book...Thank you Jeff! -Todomojo

I agree completely with the reviewer above in that using this book alone almost guarantees a 3. I used it without the courses and got 4's on both the macro and micro exams. Write those note cards for small concepts and study past AP extended response questions! They are all basically the same, so study the graphs and you'll do well.

We don't have economics at my school, but it's my intended college major.

Using THIS BOOK ALONE, I made note cards, went over them, and got a 4 on the Micro exam in my junior year. If I'd put in a little more effort, I'd have gotten a 5 (didn't begin studying until mid-April). I'm going to take the Macro this May.

There is a really clear review of all the concepts you need to know, presented exactly as they will appear on the test. It's concise, straightforward, and explicates the necessary graphs. For extra Free Reponse practice, check the AP website.

I'd strongly recommend it.

I used it when I was studying econ independently and I found this book to be very helpful in sumarizing all of the major concepts found on the ap macro & micro exams. Like one of the reviewers above, I also made notecards, which were very helpful.
I would however, recommend that you also buy an old edition of McConnel & Brue to go with the book as it expands on the basics. For example, the international section lacked depth as did the section on labor markets. The practice tests are very helpful and do a good job in mirroring the actual exams. Other books (like Barrons) have practice exams that are too easy.
Finally, I took the micro & micro exams this year (may 2006) & got a 5 on both tests.

This book is truly the same caliber as the Princeton Review's other test prep books. It shows everything you need to know for the AP Micro and Macro Economics tests and explains the concepts behind the economics. The knowledge gained from reading this book is equivalent to what any GOOD AP course can offer. Thanks (in large part) to this book, I got a 5 on both Macro and Micro Economics- something that hasn't been done at my school for many years. THANK YOU PRINCETON REVIEW!

I found this book packed with useful information that is delivered in a simple to understand format suitable to digest one chapter at a time. I'm a big buyer of business books and found this to be one of the more usefull tools I've acquired. Similar to the Fast Forward MBA Series this is a great value for the money and a book you will read from cover to cover.

Perhaps the best recommendation I can give for this book occurs in one of the many little tip boxes scattered throughout this treasure trove of ideas, tips and tricks of the trade. This particular tip box says simply "Strategy Isn't Technology ...people confuse strategy and technology ... Insist that CRM technologies be referred to as CRM tools. Ask how each tool supports your CRM strategy."

This book provides the best antidote to that tendency we have today to mistake a software application for a full solution. Not only will this book show you how to get the most out of such CRM tools, but it also provides tips and ideas for managing the whole complex and essential business of Customer Realtionship Management.

Despite the tens of millions dollars now being invested in new customer relationship management solutions, customer satisfaction with service dropped almost eight percent from 1994 to 2000, according a study by the University of Michigan's business school. Consultants Anderson and Kerr suggest some reasons why: a failure to distinguish between CRM strategy and CRM technology and a tendency to view meaningless data as useful information. We from getAbstract highly recommend this concise and thorough examination of CRM to all managers and students of business.

I've looked through a number of books on CRM in an effort to get a better handle on the topic and to find a good process for teaching the concepts to emploees in my company. I stumbled over Anderson & Kerr's take on CRM and found what I was looking for. Anderson and Kerr have captured the essence of CRM in a very practical, hands-on way. They have great examples from their lives and (I assume) the lives of their friends that adds texture and a realness that the other books I've looked at lacked. I really thought I understood CRM, but after reading this book I realized that I had missed the whole point -- Customer Relationship Management is about CUSTOMERS, not computers. Well worth the reading if you have anything to do with customers.

Lynda takes her special catering talent and shares it with others in this cookbook! She has always prepared meals for ones in our neighborhood who need a "special pick me up". I just gave this as a gift to my Weight Watcher's friends and they LOVE IT!

There has never been a cookbook like the Daniel's Fast Cookbook! If you are a vegan, or just want to have a heart healthy diet, then this is the cookbook for you. I have personally sampled many of these recipes and they are quite delicious and easy to prepare. I highly recommend this cookbook for anyone wanting to explore a healthier lifestyle. Having high blood pressure and heart problems myself, my wife has struggled with having to make substitutions in traditional recipes. With the Daniel's Fast Cookbook, she can follow the recipes exactly and know that she is preparing "Heart Healthy" dishes. Thank you Lynda Anderson and Grace Bass.

Dr. David A. Butler

The Daniel's Fast Cookbook is an outstanding contribution to a healthy lifestyle. Whether a person wants to use the tasty recipes for religious purposes, a Vegan lifestyle, to control weight, or to insure protection from harmful ingredients in foods, this book will fill their individual needs. My husband and I were in the health club business for 30 years (before it became popular!), and we see the tremendous nutritional value of recipes in this book. Sometimes, it takes real talent to make "healthy" foods taste great...and Grace Bass and Lynda Anderson have done just that.

The Spicy Veggie Sticks is one of my favorite recipes. I use the Spicy House Seasoning found in this recipe on almost everything I eat! And, because the authors included information about necessary cooking tools, I found a tool that makes cutting these sticks a breeze. It's a Progressive Vegetable Cutter, available at Linen's `N Things. I also bought the Vidalia Chop Wizard they recommend at CVS. I must confess that I don't like to cook, but the tips and recipes in this book have certainly given me inspiration.

Jean Dunham
Author, Laugh Out Loud

We've been searching for this cookbook since 2003. What encourages us most about Grace and Lynda's Daniel's Fast Cookbook is that it is endorsed by Elmer Towns, who created the Daniel Fast for Spiritual Breakthrough in his book Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough.

"I believe in Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough, this is a discipline that God has given to the church for renewal, revival, and worship of the Lord. I am so glad that Grace Bass and Lynda Anderson have written this cookbook on The Daniel Fast. I pray that God will use it in the lives of many people."

Elmer L. Towns
Co-Founder, Liberty University
Dean, School of Religion
Lynchburg, Virginia

Their cookbook contains more than 100 healthy, tasty and easy to prepare Daniel's Diet recipes. It also includes helpful nutritional information, practical advice for fasting as a church, list of restaurants that have foods we can enjoy on their menu, list of recommended stores we can trust and products we can enjoy. Grace and Lynda also included a section about food options depending on our own personal spiritual convictions. This is an excellent cookbook for Christians considering a Vegan Diet. Thank you Grace and Lynda!

Arthur McGill is a relative unknown in American theology.

His works have mostly been consigned to the "out-of-print" stacks. A quick Google search for "Arthur McGill" turns up only 1700 results, while Google Scholar weighs in at a whopping 47 and Google blogsearch turns up 7 results, 5 of which don't have to do with the author.

Imprecise measurements of a person's relative popularity, to be sure, but indicative nonetheless. McGill is firmly lodged in the back of the theology closets, piled behind tomes better known thinkers.

But popularity is no indicator of value, and in Death and Life: An American Theology, Arthur McGill has composed a gem that is worth serious reflection by theologians and laypersons alike.

This relatively short work--95 pages--is broken into two parts. In the first, McGill analyzes America's attitudes toward death, where death means not the biological end of man, but rather the "losing of life, that wearing away which goes on all the time." In the second, he articulates what he takes to be the Biblical understanding of death in this broader sense. Throughout, he is poetic and provocative as he works to tease out how American Christianity has been co-opted by a secular view of death and the resurrection.

His first section, while interesting, is simultaneously stimulating and problematic. He argues that the American view of "life" means "having." It is "always optimistic, always affirmative." Death is, in this sense, a disruption, a mangling of the normal. Poverty, sickness, disease and unanswered needs are abnormal and accidental. Wealth is a fundamental state of mind, not simply a fact. As a result, we work hard to become what McGill calls "the bronze people," people who maintain the appearance of life without having the substance of it. In doing so, we avoid the fundamental reality of sin and pain, a reality that is "intolerable." "The world is awful," writes McGill, "but Americans do not usually say so."

McGill is almost right on this point. Reality is not awful--goodness is. It is goodness that we hate and avoid, a tactic which drives us to believe that the perversion is the deepest reality when it is still a perversion. The world is not awful--it is good, but the sort of good that is demands the redemption and defeat of sin. Sin is the lesser reality--goodness the higher.

While equally provocative, McGill's second section is somewhat more successful. Despite continuing his error of making sin "a matter...of our basic identity," McGill demonstrates how Jesus' identity comes from outside of himself and how as Christians, we must "die" and discover that our identity comes from outside of ourselves, from God. We must let go of the "tecnique of having," of possessing ourselves and cultivate a posture of gratitude and acknowledgment that our being is in God, not in us.

What compels us to possess ourselves, our possessions and our relationships? The fear of death, in which we refuse to acknowledge that all that we have is God's, not ours. This fear of death is conquered in the resurrection which "discredits one fearful possibility--that perhaps there is some fatality in the world, or some historical agency, some cosmic necessity or some other power which will disengage us from God's constituing love, which will establish itself as the source of our identiy, and which will thus give us an identity that will be marked by loss, disintegration, and death."

What does having an "ecstatic identity" look like? For one, it is a position of worship to the Father. Because the Father "engenders and communicates life," He is worthy of worship. It is in the death of Jesus that the Father is glorified. John 15:8 claims that the Father is glorified by the bearing of "fruit," which is what happens when Jesus dies on the cross. It is as a result of this self-giving act that Jesus is to be worshipped. When we acknowledge our own position of dependance and need, then we are prepared to worship the Father and the Son, whose "identity does not depend on and does not consist in the life which he holds onto and the life which he offers....Without detriment to his true self, [Jesus] can give away everything of himself."

It is at this point that McGill demonstrates how the message of Scripture is in tension with the spirit of our age. If we are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, we must give out of our abundance to the point where we too are in need, as it is in his position of need and dependance that the Son glorifies the Father and the Father glorifies the Son. In perhaps the most personally challenging part of McGill's work, he argues that the love of neighbor demands the impoverishment of ourselves--that we have more in order to give more away, even to the point of poverty.

McGill's work is never perfect--he is at points repetitive and at other points obscure. His notion of "reality" could be improved significantly by the resources of Augustinian or Thomistic thought. At points I wanted him to be more clear in his writing. But the subtitle "An American Theology" perfectly captures is project in this work. By setting his theologizing in the context of American beliefs and values, he attempts to convict the reader as much as instruct. In this, he is highly successful.

McGill's work seems to be forgotten, but it should not be. By approaching Christianity and our culture through the lens of death, he is able to drive beneath the surface of our lives to the heart of our fears, our desires and our actions. Death and Life: An American Theologyis 95 pages of theologizing that is worth any Christian's time.

This book is absolutely amazing, as the other reviewers have already pointed out. I would like to add that the book is a pretty easy read and does not require a great deal of prerequisite theological knowledge, so it is accessible even to new explorers of the Christian faith. That doesn't mean it sacrifices content; the book offers fresh insights for even the well-educated Christian.

My one problem with the book is that the argument for his diagnosis of what he calls the "bronze people" is somewhat weak and not entirely convincing. The second part of the book, however, where he begins to discuss the idea of a decentralized and dispossed identity, is very good and makes up for all the deficiencies in the first part.

This book offers fresh ways to think about the nature of sin, worship, atonement, and other concepts central to the Christian faith. I only wish that someone would expand on the ideas presented here.

This thin book is packed with unique insights about how American society "worships death" by giving death and growing old the ultimate power over almost everything we do. McGill argues that we must live from an "ecstatic identity," receiving all as gift and grace, even suffering and death. He writes this book like a novel, with multiple references to pop culture and literature to make his point. One of the best, most challenging theology books I have ever read for a general population. Enjoy!

If there is anything negative to say about this book it is its length, which is just long enough to tantalize without fully going into a system of analysis. As the other reviewers have already noted, McGill critiques traditional metaphysics that understand life and being as essentially "persistance," or form (eidos). In fact, though not explicitly mentioned, McGill thinks that systems of metaphysics or ontology that are set up a priori and then used to analyze the cross always come up empty. And rightly so, because if the Christian system is correct, then the magnitude of the ontology of the Cross shows that if "existence" or "man" or "God," are to mean anything, they will only mean what they mean in relation to this event. So that, while we may take a traditional stance and attempt to ontologize the cross with it, if the cross and the crucifixion are true, then they will modify the traditional conception.

This is indeed the result that McGill sees. He doesnt consider "being," or "life," as persistance, or inherently opposed to death, but rather all forms of existence include death within them. That is to say, my existence in relation to God is continual only becuase I continue to recieve myself from God at every moment (what McGill and others like Pannenberg term ek-stasis or ecstatic relationality, essentially recieving onesself from outside the self from others) In fact, the ultimate irony is if I attempt to procure security for my continued existence I break the cycle of continual recieving, and so ironically in an attempt of self-preservation, I have eliminated the very possibility.

McGill takes this conclusion from Christ's life, seeing in Christ's self-consciousness not conciousness of himself per se, but immediately of the Father, so that in knowing Himself He knows immediately God. Christ then comes to die (McGill adopts the Johannine Christic quotation that a seed must die to bare fruit) peacefully giving himself, so the essential power and life of God is in self giving/self-recieving to communicate and engender life. Hence the very basis of self-identity is self-dispossession and constant recieving, rather than hypostatically contained being.

McGill contrasts this to what he calls "The Bronze People," namely those in society who attempt frantically for perpetual youth through beauty products. In this instance McGill rightly notes that the irony of this position is that it is inherently negative rather than positive. What he means by that is "perpetual youth," is not so much a positive attribute (i.e. being actually perpetually young) as much as it is a deliberate self-deception and avoidance.

In fact, this frames what McGill sees as the technique of "having," and the method of "avoidance," that is, when problems arise we attempt to secure our identity against change by taking into our posession goods and things and skills that we have "power," over and so may cope with disaster. Hence part of our consumer ethos is undeniably based upon a type of anxiety that seeks identity as self-posession or inherent wealth (McGill disturbingly notes the economic metaphores that go along even with love, e.g. I must "attract," someone, that is, I must have inherent wealth to be attractive to them) This is, of course, disasterous that we even teach our children that failure is merely incidental rather than essential, so that they themselves engender this idea of trying harder to achieve sucess, or knowledge, or whatever object/idea may be utilized to guard against failure and death.

Even further, he traces an conceptual path that links two commonly held and represented notions of death: 1.) that death itself is a type of hypostasis, that is an entity, obscure and cryptic, that kills and strikes at us, he terms this the "demonic," view of death. Secondly, it seems taking a cue from Niel Postman's "Amuzing Ourselves to Death," that the 2.) view is that death is represented (especialyl by the media) as inherently unexpected and unnatural (hence the bronze peoples strive to avoid perpetual signs of decay...it is telling how plastic surgery, cosmetics, and fashion are at an all time high. Not necessarily that these are bad in themselves or generally, merely that they reflect a certain socio-economic belief system.)

Briefly, I did have some problems with this book. Firstly, as another reviewer poited out, McGill's analyses of the Bronze People is not entirely convincing, and it seems to certain extents that McGill is almost deluding himself as to the actual intensity of his descriptions of this ignorance of death's inherent part of life. This may or may not be due to the fact that it was written almost twenty years ago (at least the original essays) and so media conceptions of death, with 9/11, and the many tsunamis and hurricanes, that death is now becoming more of a regularity in life. There could be other sociological factors as well, but the main point is, is that despite the profundity of the analysis, it must be taken with a grain of salt.

My second criticism is (although based on a minute portion of his book) based upon what almost seems to be a critique of the church's buying into this idea of "avoidance," that the marks of death should be removed and resisted from situations where they are present. Now, in light of the rest of McGill's argument,s this does make some sense, and the church (viz a viz McGills understanding of being and life) should approach other need not with a position of faux "un-neediness" that is, as an entity with all the answers, but rather with humility and expression of its humble need. That said, McGill's criticism is ambiguous at best, and I for one had trouble with mcGill's conception of just what the church should look like. Should we not erase signs of decay? Should we not engender some inherent value? Does not now Christ and His Spirit dwell in us so that despite our neediness we now have a center of inherent value that at the same time is constantly recieived?

This brings me to my third criticism. It seems that McGill has somewhat overstated his position on ecstatic identity, that is constantly recieving ourselves from another. This is, of course, a brilliant theory when taken moderately. However there are certain times when McGill seems to have the person devolve into merely a passive relation of need.

It seems implausible on many grounds that we merely constantly recieve ourselves from God because just who is recieving if the act of recieving is the full extent of our identity? Do we not have to precede this giving to some extent in order to recieve at all? McGill's implicit answer is that since God so irreducibly precedes us that His act of Giving posits us as a being that recieves, so that we would not have to precede the constant act of recieving because our priority over recieving is itself gift that cannot be preceded. This is an acceptable answer that both respects the priority of the person (which must exist to receive, and so doesn't dissolve into the relation itself) while also maintaining the idea of reception and gift (in that our preceding is itself a creation and gift of God as a positing of identity itself), but it then brings up the problem that if our very existence is described as gift in this sense, one has to wonder why merely existing as the identity given (which McGill would reject as a form of concupiscence) is not then a form of receiving? Why, if the basic underlying core of our identity is gift, should not the living of this identity be reception of the gift so that no further reception is needed?

Again, these questions are implicitly answered by McGill's understanding of the crucifixion, that the only true response to gift is not acceptance and self posession of the gift, but rather, taking a cue from Jesus steadfastly setting Himself towards the cross, that the very act of recieving reorients our awareness of identity into a constant recieiving from the gift giver. How radically this would alter how we deal with eachother! That in recieving from someone, this does not nullify my neediness to that person, but sets up continual and repeated neediness to them, and vice versa, those who recieve from me now constantly receive. This on the surface sounds like a violent system of dependency that many Feminists and Marxists would dismiss as empty and inherently moving towards hegemony and struggle. But the beauty of the system is that it basis itself not on our strength (which would indeed lead to hegemony) but on the constant reception of Christ's love, so that our neediness and constant reliance upon eachother is a function of our reliance upon the ultimate Source. So what then is exactly my compaint to McGill? It is that I had to extract this argument, that it, while in some areas a glimmer of its light shines forth, for the most part is vaguely implicit (more explicit in the last chapter, but nonetheless...)

The same criticism is level at his explanation of Jesus' self consciousness being outside of himself. Again I understand and wholly support what McGills apparent intentions were, that we should not draw a boundary around ourselve and label everything else "not me," but rather, "I am by virtue of a constant recieving. My "I am" exists by virtue of a recieving that constantly comes from beyond myself." But nonetheless McGill doesn't outline how this applies to the Father? Is the Father in Himself ultimate source and so the ultimate giver of gifts while Himself being un-needy? Again, the implicit answer given by McGill is that the Father makes Himself dependant on the Son, and so in Giving the SOn the gift of the SPirit, the Father is now reliant upon the Son giving the gift back through a new cycle of dependance that culminates in the cross. But again this is speculative as McGill doesn't go into it.

These are small complaints however, and McGill should be applauded for his enormous contributions. I can only hope that this line of thinking is taken seriously in the coming theological discussions. For more detail on McGill's thought, I recommend his "Suffering, a Test of Theological Method."

The book was recieved in a couple days and in excellent condition. I could not ask for anything more. Thank you...

This is one of my favorite books from my graduate courses. I still apply the principles of the book in my career.

This book saved my company. I am going to get a giant DFM tattoo across my shoulder. David Andersen is welcome at my company or in my living room any time of the year. I started a company with my advisor out of college and we *struggled* for 5 years to get things working. Let me tell you, this book changed everything. I gave a presentation on it that was more of a book report and everybody was on board. The way we choose vendors, the way we work with vendors, the way we ask, obsessively, all the questions up front, before we even commit to a design architecture, has changed our lives and refreshed our spirits. Mockups, vendor phone calls, impromptu team meetings, it all makes sense now. Everything they never taught us engineers in college. They taught us to design for functionality, not manufacturability. He is so right! Andersen "gets it". And there are like hundreds of DFM rules for all sorts of topics in the appendix. Read it, adopt it, present it, print out hte rules and staple them up all over. Things now work right, we screw 'em together and they work. Voila! Thank you Andersen! Buy this, everybody who's been burned by poor design. Buy this.

This is a book I should've had many years ago. What I found interesting with this book is the fact that it supports many of the arguments that have included in the subject I am dealing with. I regret not buying it earlier as I struggled with issues such as DFM and DFA and how they can improve the bottom line of an aerospace enterprise. What I also like about this book is that it goes straight into the subject, rather than going on and on over abstract concepts and theories that are not at everyone's reach. I always say that people in the industry don't have time for long and endless theories, they want the facts and answers on how they can improve (when they realize they need to improve to stay in business). I have to say that this book answers just that.

I think this book was great. It was so great because it told a true story of courage. I recommend it to anyone who wants adventure.

"Distant Fires" was published in 1990 and is the true account of a summer canoe trip from Duluth Minnesota to Hudson Bay Canada by two men in their early 20's. More than anything else, this book speaks to the modern charisma and abilities of the author, who planned and accomplished the journey, then, wrote such a wonderful and humorous account of it. Chapter by chapter, the reader is taken to the water, along the route, and into the perspective of the adventure. This book is testomony to what's in the future and beyond the horizon. It cannot be over-recommended for young and old. Thank you Scott Anderson for sharing your uncommon knowledge and insight of "Distant Fires" on earth and in our lives.

This is an astonishing book about two young men who want so much to have a great adventure experience before they get too old and can't go. So, they set out in their canoe to recreate an adventure 50 years ago, by Eric Sevareid, to canoe 2000 miles, from Duluth, Minn. to the Hudson's Bay. Every step along the way they encounter adversity, bugs, hardship, danger- yet they press on with a determination and will to complete this task, and win. They do so with much humor and dry wit. I found myself laughing out loud in many places. Where else can you read about two young men moving at the speed of a canoe paddle, going upstream, battling headwinds, eight foot waves that could easily swamp their canoe, rapids, portages through dense growth, beaver dams, and of course, mosquitos, mosquitos and more....?

It seems that they must have never been dry or warm over this journey that took them over three months to complete. But they never lost their sense of humor and never gave up, even though the odds were immense.

I greatly reccommend this book. It reads easily, and will be an excellent choice for young as well as older readers who enjoy a good travel adventure. It is a wonderful inspiration to all who read the book.

This is the book I read when I feel "displaced" from wherever the Air Force has me at the present time. If you are familiar with the outdoors lifestyle of northern Minnesota, this book will refresh any memories you have of trips up "The Shore" (north shore of Lake Superior) or the Boundary Waters. The author is a Duluth, MN native who tells his story of an extended canoe trip that started at his home and ended in Hudson Bay. The reading is light, and is enhanced with a lot of local color humor.

A little boy sees dragons everywhere he goes. We should be jealous that we can't see them too! I think this book is a very sly, very cute book. This is a great story and I highly recommend it!

This book is beautifully illustrated. I can't even begin to understand why it would be out of print. I ordered
a used copy, and was beyond happy with what I got. It's a cute story about a boy who starts to see dragons.
He begins to feed them, and brings them into his home, which later he finds out is the last thing you should ever
do. The little dragons make foot prints and brake things that the little boy has to take the blame for. He then
builds a mechanical dragon. He plans on flying the mechanical dragon in hopes of leading all the dragons to
a safe desert home. The story is written simple so that even young kids can enjoy it, and the beautiful artwork will captivate the older kids as well. The art alone puts the book in my top ten most beautifully illustrated books.

I have read literally hundreds of books to my son over the last three years and this is one of the very best. The art is beautiful and the text is very rich without being wordy. Don't miss this one.

I'm sure that the folks who hand out the Caldacott didn't see or read this book since it wasn't even a Caldacott Honor book for last year. As a former employee of a national book store chain who worked in the children's area, I've seen a lot of not so good picture books that get published anyway. I can say that this is one of the best picture books I've seen in a long time. Not only are the illustations done beautifully, but the story is well written. It is not so wordy that you don't want to read it at night and not too short that you have to have a back up book. This book should be a classic.

The King James style english of the current Book of Mormon confuses the heck out of me when I try to read it. I do not understand why, in the reformed Egyptian, it was written that way but I'm sure Joseph Smith had a good reason for putting it down that way on paper when he looked through the Urim & Thumb-um to get his revelation.

I certainly commend young readers who earnestly and sincerely try to read through the Book of Mormon. I know when I had tried to read it in grade school, it was very difficult for me to understand simply because my education to that point had not sufficed for the difficulty level of this sacred writ.

Even though I don't think this book here was meant to substitute for the original, I do think Lynn Matthews Anderson has provided a text that will prove invaluable for telling young readers what The Book Of Mormon says in very elementary English. I've read this and it certainly has the potential to make a world of difference for helping our young readers learn about its teachings.

I'll add a comparison of different Holy Bible translations and what one might consider to be an approximate Book Of Mormon counterpart (in terms of "readability"):

King James Version (advanced readers) - The Book Of Mormon (as translated by the prophet Joseph Smith)

New Living Translation (junior high reading) - A Plain English Reference to the Book of Mormon by Timothy J. Wilson

Good News Bible (children friendly) - Easy-To-Read: Book of Mormon by Lynn Matthews Anderson

I hope this information proves helpful to pursuers of The Book of Mormon - I still advice that one read the original text alongside whatever level of reading (for comprehensive purposes) you are most comfortable with. Blessings to you.

anderson's background in grammer and old english styles allows her to take original text to a more readable and simplistic version. After reading original text you can become a little bogged down in it's old english style, as translated by j. smith in the early 1800's. The new easy to read version of the book of morman does not take any new docterine approaches. Sticks directly to the orginal text but uses english background to bring the message of ancient america home to the comman man. Great work and great contribution to sticking to orginal text and themes.

We are an LDS family who has faithful family scripture study and we encourage our children to also have scripture study on their own. The Easy-to-Read Book of Mormon allows even the youngest reader to actually understand on their own what the Book of Mormon is saying. We have been very grateful for the knowledge, insights and love for the Book of Mormon that our younger children have been able to gain from reading this book. We do encourage our children who are older to read straight from the scriptures. However, when they do begin to, they already have a very good understanding and love for the Book of Mormon that they have gained from reading this easy to read version.

Before we purchased this book, our younger children would attempt to "study" on their own, which was commendable, but in reality, they understood very little of what they read. In contrast, our first-grader is currently reading and understanding the Easy-to-Read Book of Mormon.

We have found this to be a faithful "translation" of what is written in the Book of Mormon. It follows every single scripture word for word, and simply puts it in simpler language. We do prefer the original scripture for obvious reasons. But this book is a wonderful option for a reader who is struggling to understand the scriptures. It is also excellent for a younger reader to use while they study the original text of the Book of Mormon.

Thank you, Lynn Anderson, for this good work!

A good resource for faculty. Well written with nice integrated examples. I always recommend this book to faculty looking to develop rubrics for their teaching.

While it may not seem like it to students, grading is a very complex exercise for teachers and instructors. Anyone hoping to go into that line of work will have to learn about how complex and uncertain the art of grading can be, and this book is a strong compendium of current theory on such matters. An especially valuable aspect of this book is its coverage of the different schools of thought on whether grading is really an accurate assessment tool at all, and how all parties in the education process (students, teachers, administrators, parents, employers) have different conceptions of the usefulness and value of grades. But while this book is hugely informative at the practical level, beware of a few larger theoretical weaknesses. Frequently, certain practices that are currently held in high esteem become overused examples of larger concepts. The most glaring example is the inaccurately-titled chapter "Establishing Criteria and Standards for Grading" which is entirely about just one method, Primary Trait Analysis. At a higher level, this book assumes that all instructors will have the privilege of smaller class sizes, or welcoming administrative environments, in which experimenting with grading methods is possible or practical at all. Meanwhile this book (and many others like it) fails to distinguish between future advancements in theory and the real world in which such theories and practices have yet to be implemented on any appreciable scale. [~doomsdayer520~]

Do you love to teach but hate the grading process? That's where I was when I picked up this book. Very practically written, "Effective Grading" shows you how to choose the proper grading model for a class, how to motivate students through properly communicating your grading system, and how to structure your assignments to increase student learning. All this while drastically reducing the amount of time you need to spend on grading papers. Within a week of reading this book, I've made some drastic changes in my courses which will benefit both my students and myself.

I admit I was skeptical when I started this book--so many pedagogically oriented texts seem to sacrifice content and standards for "feel-good" solutions to education. However, I have found this book to offer excellent suggestions for every aspect of structuring classes to teach and evaluate what you most want your students to learn. In my college English classes, I've used variations of Primary Trait Analyses and Gateway Criteria and they have made a big difference in the levels of thinking and writing in my own students. Giving students specific guidelines allows them to focus on what's important about the assignment, set their priorities appropriately, and makes things much easier for me when the time comes for grading. I highly recommend this book.