Bartholomew Books

I liked this book and I'm trying to find the second and third book that goes to this book. I love to read about time-travel. This book is about a boy name Neil Lacy who runs away. His older sister, Jeanette, finds him in a cave. When she gets to where he is, Neil disappear in front of Jean's eyes. Jean follows him to a differant world. That's where they meet Jesse. When they try to go home, Jean, Neil, and Jesse finds themselves in the future. I liked this book because it has a lot of action in it. Barbara Bartholomew writes a good plot. If you want to read the other two in the trilogy here is the titles: "Child of tomorrow" and "When Dreams Cease To Dream".

I know that the general consensus is that there is no one out there that is able to take the crown of the best Medeival mystery author since the death of the estimable Ms. Ellis Peters. I have to agree that she left big shoes to fill, but my opinion is that Susanna Gregory has slipped into those shoes while no one was paying attention. Her books are much longer than Ms. Peters' and there is a lot more murder and mayhem in them, but they are wonderful. I am a long term lover of her Matthew Bartholomew series, and this latest in this collection is another winner. This is the thirteenth book in this series, and I highly recommend that anyone thinking of reading these books should start at the beginning and work their way through. This is the only way to get the full benefit of Ms. Gregory's wonderful writing. She uses true historical figures and happenings, and builds her stories around these. In this book, set in Cambridge in the spring of 1357, someone appears to be going around killing academics, and Brother Michael and Matthew are trying to unravel the mysteries. At the same time the city of Cambridge is under great unrest and the division between "Town and Gown" is very apparent. The situation in the streets is explosive. These books are authentic, and the characters are real. It feels like you're right there in the middle of the action as you read.

the text plus illustations communicate the point of the story very effectively. What irritates me about much christian children's literature is irritating illustrations - too irreverent, too reverent, too condescending, or otherwise poorly illustrated. This avoids these pitfalls. My kids demand this story to be read again and again. This is my favorite children's bible story book.

This book of Short short stories is perfect for the bathtub or to read while standing in line. My favorite was Desert Interlude, which had a Twilight Zone flavor. Each story is a little different, ranging from tender relationships, who did it murder mysteries, to unusual happenings
The author uses a wide variety of down to earth characters that capture the essence of the American west.

There are plenty of books that describe the politics of rebellion in Asia, but none other that I know of that takes you inside the experience of being a rebel as an ordinary person. Falla's achievement is to take quite everyday events such as meals and show how every aspect of the lives of the Karen has been moulded and influenced by forty years of insurgency. Also, the grander rituals - weddings, funerals, national days - come to life. The details are colourful and bizarre: for example, meeting camouflage-dressed soldiers in bamboo huts in the rainforest who put their feet up on the back porch and sing propaganda lyrics to John Denver tunes. The book is both personally moving and very thought-provoking, and strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in Asian politics and/or anthropology.

This book is a must read for any Vietnam vet who thinks he's alone with his nightmares and pain; it's also for the woman in his life. It's one man's struggle for his own self-worth; something anyone that has been touched by this war can easily understand. PTSD is a problem that has had many different names and Rick details the symptoms of PTSD and where you can go to get help. Most important he lets you know YOU ARE NOT ALONE -

WECOME HOME it's way past time you heard this!

As Dr Boxer points out [below]: " ... these lithographs also remind us of the responsibilities that come with the stewardship of our land." We need to re-double efforts to protect the environment so that "our children and our children's children will not be able to see in these fifty plates anything more than a past as remote and fantastic as Eden." Boxer's observation- and Kidd's work- brings to mind the reflections of Philip Henry Gosse [1810-1888], one of the great mid-19th-century British descriptive naturalists, of "the unwearing delight of those months that I spent in beauteous Jamaica" in the Bluefields area on the south-west coast. [See: "Gosse's Jamaica 1844-45," Ed. D B Stewart] More than a hundred years later, veteran journalist Evon Blake was still seeing much of what Kidd and Gosse saw, when he rhapsodized: "Nature's beautiful gifts are to be found everywhere. In every land, in every clime, at every time of year." "But there is no place on earth where Nature has lavished so much enduring and incredible beauty as the Caribbean island of Jamaica." "In the grandeur of its blue-tinted mountains ... in the variegated splashes of colour that are its lush green valleys ... in its picturesque plains of waving canefields, golden-green banana plantations and gently rustling grasslands ... in the unbelievable blue of its fathomless lagoons, bluer than the fleckless sky above or the encircling sea ... in its world-renowned bathing beaches of purest white sand ... in the artist's dream that are its golden sunsets ... in the sparkling sunshine that transforms its waterfalls into silvery cascades ... in these and many other ways Nature's hand rests lovingly on Jamaica, giving the island breathtaking Beauty in Depth and to spare." - Evon Blake, "Beautiful Jamaica" Views of [Beautiful] Jamaica comprise 50 high-quality reproductions [17.75x20.00 ins] of Scottish painter J B Kidd 's hand-coloured lithographs of Jamaican landscape and flora in the early 19th century, published to commemorate the centenary of his death [1889]. Here's more background on this exquisite book, extracted from the Introduction by Dr David Boxer, Director Emeritus and Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Jamaica: "The Jamaican art that dates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was essentially the work of itinerant artists, British and American, who travelled to this "fairest isle" to seek out new and exotic landscapes. To a certain S. Robins we owe the six views of Jamaican harbours, the so-called "Spillsbury Prints"; to George Robertson, the six views of river-laced lush interiors; and to James Hakewill, the twenty-one sensitive miniatures etched to accompany his "A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica." Fine as they are, none of these series however quite prepare us for the magnitude of the pictorial essay of Jamaica undertaken by the Scottish painter, Joseph Bartholomew Kidd." "J B Kidd was a prominent founding member of the Scottish Academy of Art where he was a regular exhibitor. Inspired by descriptions of the island of Jamaica, given him by his brother Thomas who had settled in Falmouth, Trelawny, J B Kidd visited the island in 1835. By April of the following year he was able to insert advertisements in the Falmouth papers inviting the public to his brother's house to view his paintings, "all," according to a press report, "elegantly framed in the woods of the country." This exhibition, credited as the first in the island, contained Scottish as well as Jamaican landscapes and a collection of portraits of local patrons and their families." "Kidd's paintings found ready purchasers, and with the success of his Jamaican works he was prompted to embark on the work which to this day remains the most ambitious art publishing project originating in Jamaica." "The overwhelming success of the five plates which made up Part One of Kidd's "Views of Jamaica," led to the translation over the next four years of a total of fifty drawings and paintings created in Jamaica, into lithographs. All the lithographic drawings (reverse drawings on lithographic stone) were done by Kidd himself and it is quite likely that Kidd also carried out the hand-colouring required for each of the plates." "The subjects of the series are varied, giving us a comprehensive view of the Jamaican environment in the last days of the pre-emancipation era. From individual studies of plants and trees to vast vistas of townscapes and estates; from much admired "beauty spots" to the unusual views of Kingston "from the Commercial Rooms," we have been bequeathed a visual essay of our land of quite extraordinary breadth and beauty. If we fault Kidd at all, it is perhaps in his reticence in dealing with the human element in this essay of Jamaica. We know that he was a superb portraitist, and there are records of sensitive drawings of slaves and of his empathy with the black population of Jamaica, but we must be content in these lithographs with the tiny vignettes of bathers in a river, occasional pedestrians, a rider or carriage passing by. It is an idyllic spell he weaves, a portrait of an ordered society; the winds of change which were already sweeping the land were not permitted to disturb the essential serenity of his vision." "Jamaica, of course, has changed considerably over the 150 years since the creation of these lithographs. Jamaicans themselves now have proprietorship of the land Kidd drew. But these lithographs also remind us of the responsibilities that come with the stewardship of our land. The rich fertile land that Kidd saw and drew is steadily slipping away and unless we adopt a more caring attitude towards our environment and unless we treat our historical structures with more respect, then our children and our children's children will not be able to see in these fifty plates anything more than a past as remote and fantastic as Eden."

This is definitely the best-researched book in existence concerning the Jamestown Colony! You really get a sense of the events that caused the English to set out for the new world to begin with, and the terrible troubles that they endured after landing. It should be noted that in 1607, "Virginia" referred to all of North America claimed by the English, including much of Canada, so the book isn't just about some regional explorer, but rather the leader of England's hopes in all America.

Who knew that the first democratic election in the country that prides itself as the seat of democracy took place under British corporate rule? And who could name the first American President? Washington was the first president of the United States, but Wingfield was the first President of any kind elected here, over 400 years ago. Wingfield's name was sullied over the years by the accounts of a very bitter Captain John Smith, who was never again employed by the Virginia Company after some rather disastrous decision-making. If you want to read the other side of the story, this is it.

No doubt teachers & professors will find this book an invaluable tool in discussing America's beginnings as an English-speaking land. I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

Elizabeth "Bitsy" Margolies nee Blankenship, a high maintenance airhead from high school calls private investigator Stella Valocchi and her beloved business and bedroom partner Jake Carpenter, pleading for their help. Realizing nothing has changed with Bitsy since she last saw her years ago as the woman is near hysteria, Stella agrees, but before she and Jake can do anything; their newest client apparently dies in a car explosion.

However, to their shock, Bitsy still lives and their case turns screwier. The CIA suspects that Bitsy is involved with chemical weapons and Eastern European spies believe that Stella and Jake know more than they say so plan to use deadly tactics to obtain the information. Stella believes she is the center of all espionage activity in the world as spies from everywhere converge on her in their quest to find Bitsy and from her the chemical weapons.

When Stella gets in the groove almost at the onset, the reader requires wearing a seatbelt as the story line turns ultra fast-paced. Stella and Jake are terrific as the effort to help Bitsy starts out of control and then chaos ensues. Aunt Lucy adds some humor with her seemingly psychic abilities (at least according to an amazed Jake). Nancy Bartholomew has another winner in her Stella What readers want Ms. Bartholomew provides with this fine private investigator thriller.

Harriet Klausner

This is one of Joy Berry's "Survival Series for Kids" books and I have to confess that my son Devon and I like them all. I've had them in storage for years, way before Devon was a twinkle in my eye, or my gal Sara's, and I'm glad I saved them.

In this one Ms. Berry, with excellent illustrations by Bartholomew, demonstrates to your toddler, or a child just a bit older, that overdoing it with video games is a bad thing. However, that doesn't mean video games are bad, only if you spend all your time playing them, ignoring family, friends and real life. She points out that video games should not take the place of your child doing creative things or learning. Video games, she says, are just games.

Though this book was written over twenty years ago, it still stands up. The excellent comic book type illustrations will keep your child interested as you read along with him or her. And for the life of me I don't know why these books are not easier to get. Joy Berry is good for children, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. If you can get a hold of her books and share them with your child, you'll both be better for it.

Jack Priest, Dad in Training