Brooks Books

Great for school and work. This book will be used over and over again while you master the craft.

This book has some intense information on how to maximize an interviewing process. I will definately use it's techniques in my Naturopathic Consultation Practice.

I've been using this book for years in the MA program in counseling at NYU in our intro counseling skills course. I use this book to supplement the IPR video tapes by Kagan. My students have really enjoyed using the book. It allows real practice of counseling skills. Each counseling skill is broken into chapters: A client makes a statement and then there are three possible ways that the counselor can respond. It clearly explains why the one answer is correct and the other two are not. (I have my students cover the answers so they have to guess which one is correct.)
If you are looking for a book to practice counseling skills, I highly recommend this book.

Cogent, lucid, concise, this book promises to be a fine choice for both psychology and business majors. The comprehensive evaluation of answers to interview questions in each chapter invites students to develop effective listening skills as well as help them perfect successful questioning techniques.

The chapters on attending behavior and questioning are especially well done, providing a wealth of applicable techniques. Also, the emphasis on ethics is an especially cogent addition, given our current cultural climate.

I highly recommend this book for any course in counseling techniques.

Kathleen Barlow, Ph. D.
Associate Professor of English and Communications
Chair of Academics
College of Professional Studies
Indiana Tech

Having a real meteorologist educate you on the fundamentals of weather, makes this book a real joy!

I loved this book! Get all the information you need to get started in meteorology, but what works even better is having the teacher/instructor who has the passion and knowledge to guide you.

This is a wonderful book to teach to Junior High kids. I bought it though for my Meteorology class at the Junior college I attend.

I taught an online class this semester on meteorology, and this was the textbook I was given. I always hold my breath a bit concerning textbooks, because I've taught chemistry, physics, cell biology, and meteorology...and my background includes two degrees in neuroscience. I never stop reading. As a deaf person who doesn't listen to music, go to movies, or watch television much, reading is my source of relaxation as well as involved in my work. I tend towards either nonfiction or classical literature lately, and much of my reading involves science and specifically weather. Global warming is such a hot topic now, and I've wanted to stay on top of this also because of my interest and ethical work as concerns deaf people in catastrophic occurences.

Anyway, this was definitely one of the better textbooks. My students didn't start having problems until the fifth and sixth chapters, which were way too technical on air pressure and wind for an online course and for students who were taking this class with no prior physics. Since physics is deeply involved in weather science, it would have been much easier to teach those chapters in a classroom, though I am now exploring avenues to teach these very things online.

I felt that the author of this textbook was speaking to the students this time instead of writing to his peer group (which is how many textbook and journal articles write today). The information is interesting, and thorough, and the textbook can definitely be adapted to younger classes or beginning science classrooms. It would just take some time to adapt it better and unfortunately, the university I taught at just changed their online program which everyone was required to learn at the same time they were expected to also do classwork. I also had to cut down the amount to be learned because it was an eight week course, instead of a semester course. That also complicated things...but I thought on the whole this was a good book, and I am continuing to read the rest of it for my own personal understanding.

Karen L. Sadler
Pittsburgh, PA

Sense Ability is a wonderful book that changed my life for the better. As a graduating college student, this book has better prepared me for the changes in life that I am about to encounter. I recommend this book to all people who would like to make the necessary changes in life to eventually become better people.

All I can say is I will do my part to recommend this book to as many people as I can. Even if a small portion of this book is taken to heart, it will make a substantial difference in the lives of the readers. I can only hope it reaches millions of readers around the world, and they tell two friends...and so on...and so on...

If you want to be a good person -- responsible, moral, ethical and enjoy all God and life has to offer -- you'll want to read and reread this extraordinary book!

Learning to be more aware of ourselves allows each of us to be more autonomous, notes Doris Wild Helmering in "Sense Ability", her most recent book. She uses her vast experience as a therapist with individuals, couples, and groups to identify practical strategies we can each use to expand self-knowledge and tackle tough issues.

Whether you've wondered how to control your anger or how to be less critical, how to cope with disappointments or conquer depression, how to be more successful at work or how to improve relationships with those you love, "Sense Ability" will provide methods and techniques for thinking about life differently. The stories and anecdotes help bring the theory alive, while questions, quizzes, and suggested activities challenge you to analyze your thinking and try something new. This book will provide support, information, and guidance to anyone interested in journeying to a new level of self-awareness

My daughter loved this book. One of the best books Ive seen in quite a long time. The illustrations are bright and colorful and the poetic text is perfect for children.

This book is very creative. I enjoyed reading it. The detailed pantings are wonderful. I loved how the illustrator drew the fairies and flowers together. Another thing I liked is that the author used descriptive statments. Over all this was a really good book.

This is a fun and magical story about fairies for children of all ages. It will spark your childs imagination and encourage them to dream. It's an awesome adventure full of dancing and singing. I especially like the colorful illustrations and the incorporation of the cute animals, plants, nature, and the outdoor setting.

Written by Stephen J. Brooks in a lyrical rhyming prose, and featuring colorful illustrations on each page by Denise Seah, "The Fairy Ball" is a 32-page picturebook story of a young girl named Madelyn who tiptoes out into the night and dances with the fairies under the full moon. An especially ideal choice for bedtime reading by parents to their youngest children, "The Fairy Ball" is conceptually original, sweetly imaginative, highly entertaining, and particularly recommended for ages 3 through 6.

Oh, I too am a rush hour cook so this cookbook is a great addition to my cookbooks. I love the fast easy way of cooking that Brook has given us.

The Rush Hour Cook series is a collection of small books that are designed to easily fit into a purse or briefcase without taking up much room. In the "Family Favorite" book you can expect the usual categories of soups, sides and starters, main meals, and desserts. One of the requirements for a recipe to make it into the Rush Hour Cook series is that the ingredients must be easy to find in just about any grocery store. So if you plan on preparing something from the book you can drop it into your purse or carry it along and pick up the ingredients on the spot.

Various tips are also scattered throughout the book. At the end there are five days of suggested meals as an example of meal planning and the shopping list that would be needed to prepare all of these meals. These are practical, easy to prepare, and quick recipes that include several I remember as a child. Some of the favorite recipes include popovers, chili, Dijon chicken, chicken and rice, chicken cordon bleu, pizza pockets, stuffed shells, apple crisp, and cinnamon streusel coffee cake. This is a great gift for the novice cook or the person who just wants to make a quick meal and get on to other things.

I heard about this book on the radio and can see why this book has gotten so much press coverage. I love it! You can fit it in your purse and it includes complete grocery lists so you can grab all the groceries you need for a week quickly and easily. I bought the set of 4 and also bought a bunch to use as Chrsitmas presents and they received rave reviews! I think this book is a relief from those huge cookbooks with tons of useless recipes. My family has loved everything I have made so far!

"My life is a zoo of insanity that allows very little time for cooking let alone making frequent trips to the grocery store." ~Brook Noel

Brook Noel has a busy lifestyle, and like most moms, she tries to find ways to nurture her family, while getting out of the kitchen fast. She enjoys jogging, writing, running her publishing house and coordinating a 24-7 support web site. She needs recipes that work.

In this cookbook, you will find:

Sides, Soups and Starters - Some of the recipes include chicken dumpling soup, quickslaw, potato and broccoli bake and sugar carrots.

Main Meals in Minutes - Tantalizing Taco Salad, Must-Have Meatloaf, Mexi-Casserole and many more.

A Sweet & Happy Ending - Banana Cream Pie, Baked Cinnamon Apples, Fanciful Fruit Dream.

Etcetera - Making edible finger paints, timesavers, click to save, etc.

This cookbook might help you save money after you look for coupons online, make your own finger paints and teach you how to throw ingredients together and make casseroles like a pro.

Most of the recipes in this book have a short list of ingredients and the instructions are easy to follow. I liked reading the fun facts. Who knew Americans eat an average of 51 pounds of chocolate a year.

You might also like:

Effortless Entertaining
Presto Pasta

~The Rebecca Review

This book was one of a kind. A real pageturner!! It really paints a perfect picture on how life really was back then. A must read!!
-A big fan

I was pleased to read a story that was true to life.No phony characters or make-belive ":wise guys".The author knew what he was doing A great read.Can see this as a movie.

Absolutely outstanding book! I found myself immersed in the characters' lives because of the author's incredible attention to detail. The characters were very well developed and it incorporated aspects of business, the underworld, and family in a realistic portrayal of Mafia life. The plot kept me guessing... I couldn't put it down! Very highly recommended as it is now one of my favorite books!

The story takes you through a realistic portrayal of what it was like to be a wise guy in South Philly. The story flows well and the characters are well developed to give the reader a visualization of the story. The author is currently unknown, but won't be after people get a copy of this book. A must read!

Barbera Brooks has also created an online flower wire service to send flowers all around the world. She has over 500 florists. I have sent succesfully flowers to London, Colorado, Wyoming, New York, Washington DC, Massachusetts, California, and other places.

wow, this book is so great. I'm also very excited because Barbara is now running a high end flower wire service called B Brooks Fine Flowers, simple and easy and my mom REALLY loved her flowers I sent for her for Mothers day. www.bbrooks.com

As a connoisseur of flowers, this book is an invaluable source. It has made gift giving easy. People call me and rave about the flowers I send.

I used the first edition of this book for many years. I found her comments to be accurate and her recommendations to beat FTD by miles. I have used this book to send flowers all over the US. Each and every time I use someone she recommends I get a call back asking,"How did you find such a beautiful florist?". I am looking for the updated editon, as some of the people she knew in 1989 have gone out of business. I am looking forward to an expanded and updated list, as I'm betting that many more cities are covered.

When I first saw the FallingWater House, I saw that FLW was really an special person. This book shows us that all his masterpieces were just a clue of what he was able to do, of the buildings he could create. In FLW Drawings, you can see many perspectives representing his newest toughts and ideas, and proving that he really would have changed the world of architecture if God had givven him 30 years more (as he used to say). article: João Paulo Salgueiro

Wright designed over 1000 buildings, of which about 500 were actually built. This book includes 300 drawings of his most important projects. Wright was mainly a residential architect, but many of his most important civic and public buildings are here, too. Wright was a great draughtman as well as a great architect, and there is no better way to appreciate his genius than to study his drawings. And this book contains many of his most important projects.

Even the greatest of architectural monuments still start out with what might seem relatively ordinary floor plan and elevation drawings, but it is the really the first concrete step toward creating the final building, and Wright was a master draughtsman as well, which this book beautifully illustrates. Also, the floorplan is the only way to visualize the entire internal structure of a building at one glance--even after it's built--since you'd have to remove the roof to see it at that point. :-) Very beautiful and detailed miniature models are often created by architects of important projects, but even those are less common now due to the advent of architectural drawing software, but the original drawings are still a critical part of the overall design process.

If you love Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, this book will give you a bird's eye view of many of his most important works.

That Frank Lloyd Wright was an artist is of course no surprise -- however, we often forget that, as an architect, he had to have quite an eye and ability for drawing. To be able to commit an idea down on paper is the first, and sometimes most crucial step, in designing a project, particularly when one has to convince another party to pay for it.

This book by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, who began as an apprentice with Wright at Talesin West, and directs the FLW archives at the FLW Foundation, is a masterpiece of the artistic design of Frank Lloyd Wright. It has more than 300 illustrations, nearly half of those in full-colour plates, in a wide-page format that makes this a great gift book, coffee-table book, and guide for those serious in the arts. An expert with the craft of draftsmanship as well as creative with flair for the artistic/aesthetic side of his buildings and concepts, these images show an astonishing range through the 300 concept pieces, plans, elevations and perspectives contained herein.

Pfeiffer puts these drawings into different categories:
- Residential Designs
- Religious Structures
- High-Rise Buildings
- Civic & Cultural Centers
- Hotels, Inns & Resorts
- Commercial & Educational Buildings
- Architecture & Engineering
- The Imperial Hotel
- Graphic and Decorative Designs

There are fold-out pages, such as the pages that show Wright's concept for the Mile-High Cantilever Sky-City; such designs are unlikely in today's terrorism-conscious culture. Some projects were never completed, such as this, but others, such as Fallingwater and the Imperial Hotel, were completed. Pfeiffer explores the pictures with history, concept, and Wright's own personal ideas included.

A wonderful book!

I got this book last x mas. I still read and look at it every month. I think it's a great review of a very special person who really knew how to draw !

I was prejudiced against Bean's fifties incursion into space after the tedium of "Freddy and the Space Ship," but "Men from Mars" proved to be a surprisingly strong title. My six year old son laughed a lot and was thrilled when one of his favorite villains showed up. A good one!

Walter R. Brooks Is witty and intellegent he makes wonderful books and this is wnderful and i think it should be rated ten stars!!!!!



It is so Cool.

I love this book and i think it is one of the best by Walter R. Brooks.
I love Walter Brooks and i love all of his books including Freddy the Pilot, Freddy The Cowboy, and Freddy and the Egnormous.
I highly recomend his books to people of all ages.

Freddy the Pig and his friends from the Bean farm have come a long way from their first trip to Florida in 1928. Now they have a Farm Animals Republic, a bank, a newspaper, an atomic powered car and even a rocket ship. But, despite the prestige and renown of being Bean farm animals, their basic nature had remains the same - they are honest, forthright, and darned funny.

Things bode ill for the Boomschmidt Circus when Herbert Garble (who has never had an honest day in his life) joins them with six strange looking men from Mars - each a foot high, in red pajamas and wearing red fluffy whiskers. Freddy is sure there is some fraud involved, but the Circus is making a ton of money and the last thing the farm animals want to do is hurt Mr. Boomschmidt. Freddy, Jinx the Cat, Uncle Ben and Mrs. Peppercorn head out to investigate.

What they find is pretty fishy, or rather, pretty ratty. Mean old Simon the rat and his family are up to their necks in trouble making, and Garble's Martians are just the start. If the rats have their way the Beans will be forced off their farm and Uncle Ben will lose his rocket ship. Drastic times call for drastic measures as the animals prepare to go to war.

If things are strange with fake Martians, they get stranger when a flying saucer full of real Martians shows up to investigate. Soon there are rats pretending they are Martians, rabbits pretending they are rats pretending they are Martians, and real Martians stirring the pot. As Freddy nearly is sent to Montana to become pork chops and bacon, everything hangs in the balance.

As always Walter Brooks' tales combine humor and suspense with a natural sense of values that apply equally to animal and man. If the science in this book is a bit silly it is still engaging enough for its intended readership. And the simple lessons of friendship and doing what is right never grow old.

What else can I say? Yet again, my 7-year-old son and I devoured another Freddy the Pig book. This guy knows how to write and how to tell a great tale while slipping in tidbits for all ages.

Despite the title of the book, and despite the title of this review, this sixteenth volume in the Freddy the Pig series is much less about football, and much more about the Bean farm animals saving the day once more. This time the antagonist (Freddy readers like learning new words) is the dishonest Mr. Doty. He's so dishonest that Doty isn't even his real name. Animal-hater Mr. Garble recruits Mr Doty to pretend he's Mrs. Bean's long lost brother, to whom the Beans owe a large amount of money. In order to prevent the Beans from paying him, Freddy steals all the Beans' money from the bank. Where he hides it is for you to find out when you read the story.

There's a great deal to learn in this volume, including why spiders like to hang from the ceiling (try it yourself, the author suggests). A child will also learn many new words: felicitous, sanctum, recumbent, transgression, malefactor, culinary, pecuniary, habiliments, prejudice, hackneyed, and speach impediment.

We also find out that none of the prisoners in the Centerboro jail got through third grade, and that the prisoners love to play hopscotch. And we learn that under the laws of a free people, everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty.

There are also some fresh new Freddyisms here, as when Freddy states that Mr. Bean "is one of the best people in the world at not saying anything." And when Mr. Bean says to Freddy that he knows "you're not guilty, but don't do it again."

The principal audience for the Freddy the Pig series is 7 to 10 year olds, but they are also very fun for adults to re-read, too.

Walter Brooks begins this sixteenth tale of our indomitable porcine poet with a great stir on the Bean Farm. Mrs. Bean's long lost brother has been discovered, and is coming to the farm for a reunion. When Aaron Doty makes his appearance, it is with mixed reviews. He is generally nice enough, although he has a marked affection for telling tall tales, but he has a suspicious mean streak. In the final analysis, the animals come to suspect that he is a fraud, taking advantage of the fact that Mrs. Bean's brother left when she was quite young. When they find out that Doty is conspiring with sneaky Mr. Garble from Centerboro, they are convinced.

But what should they do? The Beans owe Doty half of Mrs. Bean's inheritance. $5,000 dollars that long ago was put into the farm. They will have to borrow the money from the bank, and that means the Bean's will be near destitute. Even when the animals trap Doty in one lie after another, Mrs. Bean is adamant. No matter how rotten the man is, as long as he is her brother he is entitled to the money. Freddy will have to go to unheard of extremes to make this problem come out right.

One the lighter side, Freddy manages to be drafted into the Centerboro High School football team. It seems that pigs make superb tackles, and the Centerboro team is in sad shape. To make matters worse, their archrivals from Tushville have several players on their roster who are old enough to be teachers. Whenever Freddy can make time, he is either in classes of at football practice. Hopefully he will be able to help the Centerboro team improve their hapless record.

As usual, Brooks and illustrator Kurt Wiese manage to recreate one of the strangest fantasy worlds ever put into children's books. Animals talk, often making more sense than do their human counterparts. Freddy is part poet, part banker, part newspaperman, and now, part left tackle. Spiders go for trips to California, and the Centerboro jail is better than most four star resorts. Through it all come positive lessons about friendship and support, honesty (well, sometimes), and an abiding belief that a determined effort will turn things around. Hard as it may be to believe, you can do a lot worse than learning your values from a pig!

As usual, Freddy gets into trouble and into the adventure by trying to help his friends. In this case, Mrs. Bean's long-lost brother turns up and wants his share of the inheritance, something that will bankrupt Mr. Bean and possibly ruin the farm. At the same time, he is needed to help the Centerboro high school football team beat its rival, Tushville, who has ringers playing on their team. The action is fast and furious, and a delight to read. Brooks and his Freddy books are a godsend to parents who read to their children.