Fitzgerald Books

this book gets a D-

it wasn't terrible enough to fail.. but it was darn close.

if nothing else, it's a good addition to the rack of reading materials in the bathroom... who cares if you accidentally piss on it.

I found this book boring. I can think up wittier things to say after two margaritas. Besides, it's all someone else's opinions, and I hear enough of those. If you want funny opinions, look up Mitch Hedburg jokes online.

Now, I'm a huge fan of the website, but I don't let that cloud my judgement. These ratings are hilarious. Plain and simple. Now a lot of you "simple minded" folk out there might not be interested due to Lore's advanced and half made up vocabulary, but to the rest of us it's a great book to pick up and read whenever we need a laugh. Even if you look at it in terms of the website, buy it anyway. It has plenty of new content and you can read it when your waiting to get your teeth drilled at the dentist's office. Overall I give it an A. It would get an A+, but it didn't have all of the ratings. Then it would be perfect.

Okay, maybe not the end, but let me tell you something. Here it is: If you have never read this book or gone to Brunching.com, you are seriously missing out. Of course some people might not like this book. Y'know like the ones who can't read and have trouble with the big words but if someone read it to them, then yes, a drink to nose connection would probably be made if they were drinking something. Which we will assume they were.

Lore does use quite a bit of vocabulary and pop-culture references in his ratings but even if some of them go over your head you're bound to get most. There's even a rating for "References from the last rating" where he rates some of the more obscure or over the headish references he made in the previous rating.

Bottom line: Buy this book. Immediately. That means now. Go. Now.

(If you want to see if the book is for you go to Brunching.com and check out the ratings. It probably is.)

This was my Valentine's Day gift. My girlfriend tells me that I'm so opinionated about stuff that I could have written this book. She may be right. I think I can remember yelling "but Twinkies [are gross]!" while reading the book. Maybe I just thought it very loud. I've never been to the website that this guy rates stuff for, but Sjoberg rates everything under the sun (from the Seven Dwarfs, to food made by Hostess, to national sports, to....well, anything and everything). It's very interesting.

The structure of the book is in two to three page segments, each one covering a topic. Sjoberg picks several aspects of the topic, give a brief rating of each, and then a letter grade (an example of this would be the Seven Dwarfs as a topic, and then each dwarf gets a short paragraph and the letter grade). The book is consistently amusing with some very funny one-liners tacked in there.

I liked this book, it reminded me of high school where we would make all sorts of lists and put them in order of best to worst. This is a better written extension of that.

In the description of this book it says, "-a book that will astonish, entertain, and inform all those interesed in the life of America's thirty-sixth president." John F. Kennedy was the 35th president not the 36th. I was doing a report on JFK and when i saw this i decided i obviously should not use this book!

Excellent book...Still waiting for Mr. Hamilton to come out with his second volume. I highly recommend the movie starring Patrick Dempsey. Mr. Hamilton we are still waiting for volume 2...

JFK RECKLESS YOUTH has only one drawback: It covers only the part of his life up to his election to Congress. Hamilton has promised two more volumes, but they have so far not appeared. That said, it is the only negative that can be said for this remarkable volume, for my money the best JFK bio anywhere (including the new but hardly impressive JFK: AN UNFINISHED LIFE by Robert Dallek). There isn't an aspect of Kennedy's life that goes unexplored. Hamilton, however, did not have the access to JFK's medical records that Dallek did -- therefore he probably did not realize how very serious JFK's health issues were. (Of course, he is writing about JFK's early life, when he was obviously a lot healthier than he was later.)

What is made painfully clear here is that JFK became president not because of his parents, but frankly, in spite of them. It was the force of his intellect and personality, more than his father's money, that made him who he was. Hamilton spends a lot of time in comparisons between Joe Jr. (the heir apparent) and Jack, the second son. According to him, Joe Jr. was ponderous, prejudiced, hardworking but abrasive and often nasty, and in general, simply did not attract people to him as Jack did. Jack, on the other hand, for all his natural rebelliousness (almost certainly fed by his parents' endless hectoring and marital issues), had enormous charm, warmth and endless humor. Hamilton even uncovers evidence of a surprisingly tender heart and his attempts to hide his concern for his friends with sarcasm and wit. His friends note that he constantly looked for new friendships and never lost a friend, even when the friends treated him with less than kindness and respect. He was loyal to a fault.

Hamilton does reserve tremendous ire (and who can blame him?) for JFK's parents, two of really the most awful parents it's possible to imagine. Rose was a mother who constantly went off and left her children with the help, never home even when her oldest children were babies, and was never, never affectionate or even perhaps very interested in them, due to her unending though silent opposition to her husband's abuse and philandering. While she inspected them daily for missing buttons or loose threads, she was completely uninvolved in their interests, games and problems. Their father Joe was, as Hamilton makes clear, good at only one thing: manipulating stocks in order to steal himself a fortune. Every other thing he tried, including banking, shipping, movies, politics and diplomacy, was a failure. (Joe was so unscrupulous that even during his stint as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, he had people buying stocks he had inside information about. It says something that when FDR appointed him the first chairman of the newly formed Securities and Exchange Commission, and FDR's cabinet protested vigorously, FDR's answer was, "Set a thief to catch a thief.") What made Joe rather insidious (and this only in comparison to Rose) is that if he did have a good point, it was his genuine love for his children, misguided as his childrearing experience was. Unfortunately, he taught them to win at any cost and that women were to be treated with contempt and used like tissue. But because he expressed affection and care for them, even dropping his own work schedule to appear at their schools when Rose wrote letters but never bothered to visit her sons even when Jack was deathly ill in boarding school, Joe comes off as, ironically, the much better parent. He was loving and affectionate, though his affection came with a price: That they think as he thought and do as he did, which Jack simply rebelled against.

Hamilton has to be commended for his sense of balance. While never shirking his responsibility to point out Jack's flaws, he is careful also to show from where they sprang -- the terrible, dysfunctional union of his parents and their awful sense of what raising a family meant. The children were socially isolated (partially because of his parents' desperation to enter Boston's WASP society while being Irish Catholics themselves), turning to each other for comfort and thus becoming close, but then separated when Rose decided she couldn't handle them anymore and sent them to boarding school, some as young as age eight.

There is so much in this book that has value, but what I personally appreciate the most is Hamilton's constant underlying (though silent) thesis that Jack's gifts were so many that had he been born to different parents, he still would have been remarkably successful, yet probably been a less tormented and far less complex personality. For Hamilton sees his sexual yearnings as nothing less than looking for the love he missed in his mother, yet unable to express his need for it because of her coldness during his formative years and what that coldness did to his ability to express and receive affection.

I could go on and go (actually, I have), but I do heartily recommend this. It's an absorbing read about the formation of a remarkable and pivotal personality in American history. I'd love to see the next volume -- imagine what he'd do with the marriage of Jack and Jackie? -- but must wait till he gets there. Meanwhile, this volume is a five-star, fifty-carat gem. Don't miss it.

Our fascination with JFK continues. Even now, there are still aspects of his life and career which remain hidden from public view.

This book relies on meticulous research and avoids speculation. It acquaints us with a brutal and psychotically competitive family, an aloof and cold mother of too many children who accomodates her husband's self-centeredness by a peculiarly Catholic form of emotional abandonment. This remove, however, strikes her own children as collateral damage from her intended assault on her husband.

A family of highly competitive people, with singular ambition. The theory is not hard to establish: the ambition is to attain mom's love (which is unattainable) and to impress dad.

The story is archetypal of American in the mid-20th century. We achieved so much because of qualities of competition, ruthlessness and self-interest. We also learned to worship glamour and celebrity. Wasn't Kennedy the best-looking president by far?

I never understood him better than after reading this book. I also believe that he was addicted to sex, and that we knew way too little about how to treat that addiction back then.

Anyone who truly loves John Kennedy (as I do) owes it to themselves to delve deeper into the formation of the character of this fabulously flawed human being. Nigel Hamilton's minutely-detailed "JFK: Reckless Youth," which recounts Kennedy's early through his first run for Congress, is one helluva place to start.

The myth of Camelot has suffered death by a thousand cuts -- shredded by the disclosure of presidential affairs, murder plots and political machinations. But while other celebrities have generated renewed interest and sympathy by openly airing dirt and scandal, the Kennedys have endlessly recycled the Camelot myth of the heroic young president slain before his time. Hamilton's book is the antidote to this pious tripe, serving up a John Kennedy fighting against (and sometimes embracing) forces that should have destroyed him. Young John Kennedy suffered from a mystery ailment that landed him in the hospital countless times. He courted disaster and scandal with a string of amours. He chose to fight the Japanese on a "plywood coffin" known as a PT boat rather than sit out the war in a safer place. He was saddled with a father whose pre-WWII appeasement policies undercut the national interest. Kennedy, from a young age, was one familiar with the knife's edge between life and death, learning to skate the blade with grace and aplomb. Hamilton exhaustively chronicles these episodes using interview material and an extraordinary trove of personal letters to and from Kennedy himself.

It's a shame that the Kennedy family blocked Hamilton's access to additional JFK material. The next volumes would no doubt have shown the moral excesses and almost suicidal risk-taking increasing as JFK grew older. While this material might have threatened the maudlin serenity of Camelot, I would have welcomed the change. Paradoxically, my love and admiration for John Kennedy did not wane as I read the incredible details of his life. Instead, I was amazed that such an extraordinary, compassionate and visionary man arose from the chaos of a life lived as a constant roll of the dice.

Sometimes it is good to revisit a favourite novel or to watch again a film that always brings you pleasure.

J. L. Carr's exquisitely written novella A Month in the Country was first brought to my attention in 1987 when I saw the film adaptation at the cinema in London. The film affected me so profoundly that I went out the following day to buy the book and what immediately struck me was the fact that there were only one hundred and five pages to it. The concise nature of this story does not reflect upon the depth of the prose and, in fact, the author imbues every line with description and dialogue so wonderfully rich that the length of the work is irrelevant.

The book is rich with characters and atmosphere. There is a gentle, bucolic peacefulness and a kind of restrained beauty as the idyllic summer unfolds. But it is the final scene (both in the film and the novel, although they are treated differently) that never fails to take my breath away.

Carr writes: `We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours forever - the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass. All this happened so long ago. And I never returned, never wrote, never met anyone who might have given me news of Oxgodby. So, in memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen. But this was something I knew nothing of as I lifted the loop and set off across the meadow.'

This passage never fails to tug at my heart; the acknowledgement that there are certain moments in time that have passed and will never again be recaptured. It is one of the very few pieces of fiction that never fails to blur my vision by the final line and, for one so cynical, that is no mean feat.

If you have never read this spellbinding analysis of love and art then I suggest you buy a copy immediately. This beautifully crafted and understated story of ordinary people, places and experiences is a treasure to be revisited time and time again.

I really enjoyed this book. It says so much - the beginning of the end of the UK class system & sexual repression; as well as how people dealt with the horrors of the Great War.

The main theme of this charming novel is how important it is to understand the irretrievable passage of time and to savor the good times that come along. The narrator tells the story of an enchanted summer he spent in Cornwall uncovering an ancient painting in a country church. He looks back upon this time (1920) as one of the most wonderful, important periods of his life. He meets several villagers who make an indelible impression upon him and pleas with us to appreciate our own little "months in the country"--those days when things are going well. Such a good, kind, fully-alive character. I was moist-eyed by the final pages (it's a very short novel) and didn't want it to end. Sweet, powerful, and as lovely as a summer day in the country.

This is one of those works of art that falls into a category of its own. Carr's writing is impeccable and it took on a magical quality where the past and future were perfectly brought together through the voice of the protagonist Tom Birkin. I'm on my fourth reading of it.

If you have seen the movie you will love the book.If you have read the book then you will love the movie.1920 England has slowly climbed out of the Great War and many are still finding their way in the aftermath of it all.Tom Birkin is an art restorationist who is called to the North English town of Oxgodby in order to uncover a 500 year old painting in the the nave of the village Church.There he is met with the most unusual likeable and unlikeable characters who are there to help,hinder or confuse Birkin during the hot summer months as he tirelessly and obsessively works to reveal a Judgment Scene that will play as the key to unlock his troubled heart and soul.J.L Carr's book is extremely intimate and personal,told more from the thoughts and observations of Birkin than dialogue from supporting characters.The 1987 film version is incredibly accurate and is extremely good in bringing out the subtleties of the book.I highly recommend both.

This is one of the first books that I read for pure enjoyment. It's about a boy named Dennis O'Mally, 13, in the 6th grade who gets a snowboard for Christmas. When his parents say that they have already done their Christmas shopping, but one of his best friends had gotten him a snowboard. Read this book, it is awesome! (written by Alex, age 9)

Can a skateboard pro conquer the slopes? Dennis O'Malley is tested when it starts to snow, and he has to shelf his skateboard. Dennis is a hard core skater who learns to snowboard. He learns at a school with the help of his friends.

Dennis wants to board, but his parents don't want him to, so he boards on his own time. But when he goes the mountain is divided into two. His experience is tested when he must race on Ford's Mountain, to share the mountain.

Personally, my favorite part is when Dennis catches big air, and has to ride down the mountain to get help, to save his friends, which are stuck, because one decide to try and drop in, but she had no real experience with the sport. This is my favorite part because it shows how strong Dennis's friendship really is. This book is really about a teenage boy who falls in love with a new action sport. The theme of this book is just really about following what you love.

What I personally liked about this book was that it dealed with snowboarding which I love. If I could change one thing though, I would make the plot not so near the end. Anyone who enjoys action/sports books should read this.

Once there was a boy named Dennis who could skateboard very well, but in a few days it would be winter season and he could not skateboard because in his place it would start to snow and he can't skateboard in snow.
So his two best friends Robbie and Tasha said that they would teach him how to snowboard and Dennis said yes. But he had a fear of it also because once he had fallen and gotten hurt. He started by learning how to fall. After that he started by going down the school house hill.
Now whenever he used to start, there used to be a small fright coming up his back and you know why. Then he raced one of his friends down, he did not know but his friend gave him a head start. He was thinking where she was and then she zoomed down and won.
Then suddenly the two school bullies came and challenged Dennis and now they will race at Floyds Mountains and that is the place Dennis fell and Brock his bone now read the book and see what happens to Dennis at the race. I recommend this book to people who like snowboarding or who like snow. I rated this book 4star because this was a very good book to me.

By Ali Soorty
(Pakistan)

The book I'm reviewing is Snowboard Maverick by Matt Christopher. I think this book deserves four out of five stars. It is a interesting book. This book is about a boy who is great at skateboarding, but his friends want him to try snowboarding. He likes it but he gets into trouble. The problem of the story is he gets dared to go down Fords Mountain. I recommend this book to anybody who likes snowboarding.
Emerson, NJ Fifth Grade Student

The book Snowboard Maverick was a very great book.It tell you about a person who loves skateboarding and whenever it snowed he couldn't skateboard cause it was too icy.So all of his friends are snowboarding adn he wants to learn how.Whenever he learns to be pretty good he is challenged buy a big bully who is a very good snowboarder.He is very scared of the bully but his parents encourage him and he takes the challenge.Whenever he showes up they go down the hill and it is the first one down the hill who wins and he beats the bully and quits skateboarding and becomes a snowboarder.Every winter when it snowes him and his friends go snowboarding.This book is one of the best books i have ever read.

My 1st grader hates to put it down, he would rather read Magic Tree House books, than play video games. He even reads them to his class and explains the story for show and tell. In his kindergarten class the teacher would also let him read the Magic Tree House books out loud, not to give her a break, but to promote reading out loud. Great books!

I liked Civil War on Sunday because they helped America's first nurse named Clara Barton. I liked when they rescued the drummer boy from the war. The author did a very good job writing the book. That is why I have a lot of Magic Tree House Books.

THIIS IS A VERY GOOD BOOK MY FAVORITE PART IS WHERE JAKE AND ANNIE SAVE THE DRUMMER BOY.

If you are looking for a book that explain the Civil War and the pros and cons from each side, please go else where. The book has a Northern slant since Jack and Annie as behind Union lines. Book has a different feel to it and gets away from some the fantasy stories lines for a refreshing change of pace. Enjoy!

Civil War On Sunday is a Great book and educational. My grandson and I love reading all of these books.

Flannery O'Connor (1925 - 1964) was a Southern writer and a Catholic writer, the former obvious if you have only read one or two of her stories excerpted in an anthology, the latter apparent as you read a full collection of stories or a novel. EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE is her last collection of short fiction. It is strong and revealing of her considerable talents and themes. The stories included are the title fiction, as well as "Greenleaf," "A View of the Woods," "The Enduring Chill," "The Comforts of Home," "The Lame Shall Enter First," "Revelation," "Parker's Back" and "Judgement (sic) Day."

The title story sets the beat for those that follow. In the mid 20th century, O'Connor finds a south that is still coming to terms with the Civil War and on top of that must deal with the new social imperatives brought on by the civil rights movement. The characters in conflict are often parents and children, one usually trying to preserve the once known world, the other trying to accommodate the new social order and progress, neither ever getting it right. In fact, they often get it so wrong as to the point of tragic loss. Her stories swoop with human comedy and high tragedy in pursuit of a moral vision. There is often incredible violence.

First and foremost about her stories is that they are so very readable. Characters are deftly sketched, her narrative voice is straightforward. Her plots are sturdily built. And if the stories are variations on similar characters, themes, conflicts and consequences, each is remarkably distinct, its own entity. The critical introduction to this edition is by a longtime friend of O'Connor's, Robert Fitzgerald, who provides biographical context.

Most of the stories in this wonderful collection turn on a recurrent conflict, the war between parents and their own children. In this, the titular story is representative; a bratty child with what could be called a Northern higher education is pitted against a Southern parent distinguished by finer, older manners, but racism as well.

O'Connor's treatment of this theme is both hilarious and sad. With wit and delicacy, she exposes "the people gap," that funny but frightening separation even of those persons presumed to share great intimacy. Her vision in this regard coincides with the witty paradox of George Bernard Shaw who famously declared, "There are no greater strangers than parents and their own children."

Flannery O'Connor's novel is a blending together of nine short stories, all independent of one another working together to achieve a common goal. In my opinion, if I have read 155 books in my life, this book does not make the top 150. No single story was very appealing, making it nine slow starts and nine mediocre finishes. To give a more objective view of the book, it was written in a third person omniscient point of view. O'Connor takes a somewhat cynical approach toward each of her characters. In their descriptions, the flaws of each character are pointed out rather than the virtues. These are some of the more obvious styles that O'Connor uses. In the stories, various devices are used. Among these are flashback, imagery, and hyperbole. Each of these individually contributes to the overall story. Without these devices, the point O'Connor was trying to make would not be as solid. The overall theme in the book seen throughout the stories is a need for personal change. Each protagonist goes through a series of events and detailed descriptions of what is wrong with everyone else, only to point the finger at themselves at the end. The moral of this is that rather than trying to pin our problems on others, maybe we should take responsibilities for our own flaws. If from what I have said you still wish to read the book, by all means, go ahead. Many people have liked this book, but I am quite convinced, it is not my style.

I confess I had never heard of Flannery O'Connor until recently perusing a list of National Book Award winners (for her posthumous 1972 collection, 'The Complete Stories'). I wasn't even sure if Flannery was a man or a woman, American or Irish. After reading just one of her short stories I became a devoted follower.

Flannery O'Connor is one of great American writers of the 20th century, a Southern Gothic stylist of the first order.

O'Connor sets her stories in the rural South and populates them with twisted characters - this is not the imagined noble, glorious, and chivalric South, but rather the real South of the poor and middling whites of the 1950's (race is mostly in the background). She catches the nuances of human behavior. Her stories have powerful, unexpected and disturbing endings.

Pick up a story and read just one paragraph and you will be hooked.

"Asbury's train stopped so that he would get off exactly where his mother was standing waiting to meet him. Her thin spectacled face below him was bright with a wide smile that disappeared as she caught sight of him bracing himself behind the conductor. The smile vanished so suddenly, the shocked look that replaced it was so complete, that he realized for the first time that he must look as ill as he was..."

Absolutely the highest recommendation.

For her first collection of stories ("A Good Man Is Hard to Find"), O'Connor gathered an assortment that had been previously published in magazines; the result was a fascinating, but unsystematic, potpourri of experimentation and originality. As she prepared the stories for "Everything That Rise Must Converge," however, she instead developed each selection under a thematic framework. (Only the last two stories, which were literally rushed to completion as she lay on her deathbed, seem to stand a bit apart.) The collection as a whole, even more than her previous fiction, emphasizes the absurdities and monstrosities of everyday life and the tension between the demands of the self and the mystery of the divine presence.

One of O'Connor's primary mentors for her approach to fiction was, surprisingly, James Joyce (and, specifically, "Dubliners"), and his influence is nowhere more obvious than in this book. In one story ("The Enduring Chill"), she pokes fun at Joyce's worldview in an exchange between an artist and a priest. She was surely alienated by Joyce's un-Catholic sentiments, but she acknowledged his influence in her essay "The Nature and Aim of Fiction": "The major difference between the novel as written in the eighteenth century and the novel as we usually find it today is the disappearance from it of the author. . . . By the time we get to James Joyce, the author is nowhere to be found in the book. The reader is on his own, floundering around in the thoughts of various unsavory characters."

"Unsavory characters" are, without doubt, O'Connor's specialty. Yet, is O'Connor effectively able to remove herself from her narratives? Do the stories in this collection succeed, as she intended, as a thematically linked sequence? And, aside from her stated literary goals, are these stories really that good?

Well, on the first two counts, the results are mixed. In spite of her intentions, O'Connor's presence crowds several of these stories. In "The Lame Shall Enter First" (my own favorite), a vague didacticism is obvious both in O'Connor's not-very-subtle manipulation of events and in the story's portrayals of the juvenile delinquent Rufus Johnson and his mentor Sheppard, a Good Samaritan wannabe. Yet O'Connor steps back just enough to allow the story itself to convey the depth of Sheppard's moral collapse. The less successful "Parker's Back" (one of the deathbed stories) concerns a "trailer trash" husband who, much to his wife's dismay, gets a tattoo of Jesus Christ inked on his back. It's one of O'Connor's more brilliant scenarios, but the psychological sermonizing of the omniscient narrator is a bit heavy-handed. The author is everywhere to be found in this story.

As for the collection's coherence: O'Connor moral vision is certainly more easily discernible in this book than in any of her previous works. But, like the "Lives of the Saints" she so cherished, O'Connor's hagiography of sinners, read back to back, occasionally suffers from a certain formulaic uniformity and predictability. Still, each story, enjoyed at random on its own, has the potential for being your "favorite O'Connor story"-and it's hard to find two readers who will agree on which stories in this collection are best. As a collection, then, it's a bit tame. Individually, however, the stories really are that good.

Throughout her career, O'Connor invented a gallery of memorable reprobates and unlikely prophets. Whether read separately or as a cycle, these nine stories add much to her unique legacy. And the collection will also help clear the air for readers (like me) who had always been enchanted by O'Connor's works of fiction but perplexed by critics who stress their theological and symbolic underpinnings.

Just as Junie B. Jones can't resist the lure of opening her new lunch box decorated with pictures of baby birds, despite the rule against opening a lunch box outside the cafeteria, you won't be able to resist buying this new Barbara Parks novel.

Our favorite kindergartner is back, but now she's in the first grade with a whole new set of challenges and problems. Will she learn from all her misunderstandings and mistakes? If you're a fan of this series, you know that ultimately she will, with lots and lots of laughs along the way.

Just the thought of Junie B., First Grader: Boss of Lunch is enough to tantalize young readers to zip through this fun book and gobble up many more.

Recommended!

I have read many of the Junie B Jones series. As a teacher, the students can relate to Junie's silliness and uncertainty. Even I laugh out loud while reading with the studnets and I really can't wait to see what she will be into next.

Our 6 yr old granddaughter is a big reader now and loves the books and the series. Only objection I have is to using some words such as "stupid" which she is not allowed to use in her school.

I read Junie B. Jones Boss of Lunch. I think it is really funny! You should read it! Junie B. wanted to be a lunch helper. She gets all these lunch things like plastic mitts and a hair net. This is one of my favorite books.

by Madi, age 8

Both of my children, aged 6 and 8, just love Junie B. and Boss of Lunch was one of the funniest yet!

Lunch Walks Among Us is the debut adventure for one of the most interesting and well written child characters to come along in a very long time. Franny K Stein is an interesting character who doesn't follow the stereotype little girl who plays with dolls, has tea parties with stuffed animals and the like that many authors seem to want to write about. No Franny is a very intelligent girl more interested in bats, snakes, spiders, monsters and her number one passion, being a mad scientist. Interests that gel with many a real life boy or girl these days and lets be honest, always have.

In her first adventure Franny starts in a new school but due to being different finds that the other children avoid, and are even afraid of her. Her teacher knowing of her unique passion suggests she looks at making friends as a she would a science experiment. Franny studies her classmates and the differences between them and her and decides to reinvent herself. However when another child throws some unstable industrial waste (as most kids do) into the school's bin which having not being emptied for a number of days also contains one of her former lunches, the inevitable happens and a giant monstrous fiend emerges, grabs her teacher and heads for the school flagpole. As other kids run around screaming and wetting their pants, Franny will have to decide if she is going to bring out the old Franny K Mad Scientist to save the day, or keep being the more popular fake version who can't really help.

A very funny, fast paced entertaining story. This book has some differences from the rest in the series in that it also has pages that can be cut in three making various flip monsters and so forth. The length of this book is fairly short and take my word for it these books are so good you'll probably want to get a few of them, if not the whole series. They seem to be a lot cheaper buying as a box set which seems to retail for about the same price as just two Franny K. Stein books.

Want a chapter book to really start a young reader on his or her way......go no further. This series is excellent and will infectiously get a shaky novice chapter book reader to read more and more. My grandson read one then another and now is Franny Stein's Number One fan. I am a believer in getting children to read on their own and love reading. Here's a great start in the chapter book department Thank you Franny and that amazing laboratory in your house. You worked a magic potion on my grandson and made him an avid reader.

Franny K. Stein is a mad scientist who prefers all things spooky and creepy, but when she has trouble making friends at her new school so she takes notes on what the other kids do differently so she could do them and make friends. Untile one day she threw her lunch in the trash can and another boy threw chemicals in the trash can to and the food and chemicals combined and formed a monster nobody knew what to do. Except for Franny and so franny did an experiment and made a nice monster out of bolonga. The nice monster threw the bad monster all the way up in space and eveybody were happy and they all started liking Franny and they all made friends with her even though she was different. The nice monster became a janitor for Franny's school.

My 7 year old daughter checked this book out. We, (my daughter, 8 yr old son, and me) think this book is great. It's funny and encourages children to be who they really are and not to try to be something phony just to fit in. There are parts that make you just laugh out loud. That's rare for me when I read children's books, and I've read a lot of them.

I didn't purchase this book but I just wanted to give it my support and endorsement. We've requested the other 4 books from our local library. I hope Benton keeps writing about more intelligent, funny, original and strong young girls. Benton should get this made into a Saturday morning cartoon & get rid of the boring Bratz-esque junk that our girls have to look at.

Sugar and spice and everything nice? That's NOT Franny K. Stein! Franny is a little girl who is also a mad scientist, one who loves bats and monsters and crackling electrical gizmos. But, Franny is tired of being the outsider at school and so she takes on making friends as an experiment. Oh, but deep down, Franny is still Franny...and that is a good thing!

This fun series of books is aimed at young readers, like Captain Underpants or Ricky Ricotta. And, like those other books, it's a sure fire hit with most kids. It's got a nice lesson, but it's got a light touch, never losing sight of the idea that the lesson must be told by an entertaining read.

Yep, this is a great book, one that your young reader is sure to love. Buy it!

The Master Puppeteer is a very suspenseful book about a boy living in a puppet theater as an apprentice. His family is very poor and they are just trying to stay alive. I recommend this book to anyone. It may not be your favorite book but it won't be your least. The book really makes you predict what will happen next. The only part that was hard to concentrate on were all of the Japanese names, other than that it was an easy read. Everything in the story had a purpose in the end. There wasn't a single piece of information that could have been left out. I personally have always enjoyed reading about life and death situations or any type of action and adventure book. If you like reading adventure books you will enjoy this book.

Jiro, a spirited yet clumsy boy, goes to the theater to work as an apprentice to get money to help his family. An old blind man, the reciter Okada, tells him he can stay. Here he meets a cast of interesting characters.
Yoshida - A harsh and short tempered man. He is the head of the puppet theater and a master at controlling and giving life to puppets.
Kinshi - The leader of the boys at the theater. He is an optimistic, funny, and good-natured boy loved by the other boys. He cares about the night rovers (poor people who riot and attack places to get food) and tries to help them.
Minoru - a fat boy who loves to eat.
Tehji - A rather timid boy who is good at working but shy and talks with a stutter.
Wada - An older boy who is rough and thinks he is the best.
Okada - A blind but kind man who recites the plays in the theater.

Jiro gets suspicious and sees a connection between Yoshida and Siboru, the very famous Robin Hood-like bandit. Soon the theater becomes the start of an adventure of hopes and losses, and even life and .

Over all I think Paterson had unique characters. The story really shows what life was like in Japan at that time. She does an amazing and beautiful job of describing the art of puppetry. The climax is also very exciting. I recommend this book to anyone.

This book called The Master Puppeteer is about a poor boy name Jiro. Jiro is trying to help is father, so the family won't starve to death. The family needs money to keep alive because back then, things were not that well. A lot of people were in hunger, it is up to Jiro to help out with business. Jiro and his family are in the city of Osaka, that is in Japan. Jiro tris to at a theater and make puppets for the a theater, but sadly Jiro is too clumsy for the job.

There are also friendships and courage along this story...I enjoy reading this book, because he shows me more about Japan and the people who lives there...

This outstanding book takes place in Osaka,Japan. The main characters are Jiro, Yoshida, and Kinshi. Jiro, a thirteen year old young boy, is determind to find out who Saburo is even if it takes risking his own life! Saburo is a mysterious robber who robs from the rich and helps the poor. Meanwhile Jiro is learning puppetry. Kinchi is the master puppeter's son. The master puppeteer is Yoshida who tutors Kinchi. When his sheltered life at the theatre is ruined, Jiro stumbles into a dangerous and powerful secret!

The Master Puppeteer is a mysterious thrilling book about a bandit named Saburo who robs the rich and helps the poor! There also is a boy in the story named Jiro who devotes his life to learning puppetry.Meanwhile the puppet theater crashes by a mob of rioting peasents.Jiro becomes aware of his responsibilities greater than his craft.He schemes to safe his friend Kinishi and his parents.While he does this he stumbles upon a great and powerful secret.

"The Reason Why" by Cecil Woodham-Smith and written in 1954 came as a recommendation through a friend of mine who is currently a major in the British Army. My familiarity with the Charge of the Light Brigade, which occurred during the British, French, and Turkish campaign against the Russians during the Crimean War up until reading this book was lifted from visual snippets from my childhood when my dad would watch the 1936 Hollywood production with Errol Flynn, by the same name, but taking place during the wrong war for the wrong reasons with all the wrong characters, and the often quoted Tennyson poem from which the title originates.

"Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred"

I'm glad I read this book and straightened out my truly twisted sense of British history on this one. I also learned a great deal more. This book is a masterpiece and I will feebly attempt to explain why. To understand what really happened during the Battle of Balaclava, Woodham-Smith starts to illustrate the political and military culture within Britain starting just after the turn of the Century and then directly after the British victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. It is very important to understand that British officers did not attend formal professional military schools nor did they move up through the ranks, they bought their commissions and either learned in the field, engaged in self-study if they were interested in subjects such as warfare, or they lead and managed men based on instinct. Officership was entrusted to and required of only the upper social strata -- those who had a stake in the country were those best fit to lead the military, and more importantly were those less likely to turn the military against the social elite, themselves. This was how the stability of the British aristocracy was balanced and maintained -- in peacetime it works -- the military is not going to over-throw the country. During times of war -- it also works since the military with it's sabre now unsheathed, is typically sent abroad. When sound military leaders emerge and victories are secured, the system is self ratifying. When defeats occur abroad, however, the facts can be easily distorted to hide the incompetence of the officer elite and then too the system ratifies itself, or the aristocracy quietly takes care of it's own. The reason why, not the title but the reason the Light Brigade trotted ceremoniously, not galloped, into the valley of death had everything to do with why the British system of officership was a failure and must be changed.

The book is a masterpiece because it combines the domestic sagas of a Jane Austen novel complete with social circles, sex-scandals, and racial prejudices into a great discription of the reality of a military campaign in progress. Not just from the tactical descriptions of the battles as they were set-up and ensued but the logistics of supporting the infantry and the cavalry to get to those battles. After she describes in great detail the unlikely British victory at the Battle of Alma she quotes the Duke of Wellington who said, "Next to a battle lost, there is nothing more dreadful than a battle won", and from her descriptions of the pain and human suffering inflicted on both sides, the Duke was right. Yet Woodham-Smith adds even more to this book, the pure high drama of military incompetence at it's highest as Lord Raglan unwitting observes a battle unfold from his perch deep behind Russian, the enemy, lines. And of Lord Lucan, who want's to be in charge but is never in the right place at the right time. And to the Charge itself, when Captain Edward Nolan, who carried the charge order to Lord Cardigan, and who in a moment of his own clarity, the coup d'oeil that he himself had written about in the calvary manuals he had penned, gallops to the front of the charge to correct Cardigan's fatal misinterpretation of the charge and is ironically cut down by canon fire just before being able to divert the Light Brigade's direction away from the valley of death. High drama, ferocious battle, scandal, intrigue, incompetence, and an outcome that would forever change the way we train our military officers. A must read for every member of the military -- grunt to general officer, for every history buff, and for those who just like to poke fun at the British way of doing business or to understand why it is they do business their way.

I'm a student of history, both with a B.A.degree and a continued hunger to learn more about such events that brought about the Crimean War, 1853-1856. The book The Reason Why reads like a suspense novel. Only in this case the story is true and told with good accuracy. I don't believe there is a better book on the subject of the true characters and personalities of the officers who directed and fought in the Crimea War particularly The Ones that were part of the Charge Of The Light Brigade. Hurdrey-Angus Jordan

The actual events of the fatal day are covered in a chapter. The first few hundred pages set the scene. She spends a lot of time discussing personalities and the lives of 2 of the principle characters...but neglects other important characters and disregards any discussion of other interpretations. If you want to read a lot about why Lord Cardigan was disliked, read this book. If you want to know what happened, red 'Hell Riders'.

Outstanding. An in depth look at the actual people involved. Everybody knows what happened, here's how, or why if you will.

At the battle of Balaclava during the Crimean war, two incompetent, megalomaniacal aristocrats led a brigade of cavalry into a deadly gauntlet of Russian artillery. The charge of the Light Brigade has been immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Cecil Woodham-Smith seeks to explain how such a tragedy occured.

Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan were brothers-in-law who detested each other. Each possessed deep character flaws. To make matters worse, neither had led as much as a single soldier in battle and were completely unfit for command. Yet, British army command was based on social rank, not experience, thus these two supercilious fools were to attain positions of power that inevitably led to slaughter.

Lucan was appointed divisional command of calvary while Cardigan received command of the light brigade. Two people completely incapable of working together would comprise a superior/subordinate relationship. Woodham-Smith provides interwoven biographies of both which culminate on that fateful day of 1854.

The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade is an excellent book. Swiftly-paced, well-written, and suspenseful, Woodham-Smith's effort contains that quintessential British literary charm found in historical works of mid-20th century and earlier. It's a charm which lends itself to extended and pleasurable reading. As a history buff, I can't get enough of it and appreciate the abundance I found here. 5+ stars.