Franklin Books

This is the first text book dedicated to mental health and well-being in animals. Its diverse topics include: animal thinking, emotions, pleasure, suffering, boredom, stress/distress, mental illness and their treatment (with and without drugs), and environmental enrichment, and happiness. It will be of interest to workers in zoos, farms, and laboratories, and anyone with a scholarly interest in animal behavior.

What most distinguishes this book from any before it is that large sections are devoted to positive feelings in animals. One chapter presents evidence from rigorous scientific studies showing that animals' decisions are mediated by the prospect of pleasurable feelings. Another examines the concept of quality of life (QOL) for animals, and asks: Do animals experience true happiness? With all the attention given animal pain and suffering (and rightly so), it is high time science began to address positive elements in animals' experience of their worlds, and this volume is a welcome prod in that direction.

As this important volume shows, we already have the know-how to make meaningful and substantive positive changes to the living environments of animals in laboratories, farms, zoos, and homes. The question is not what we should be doing so much as how do we get it done? Thanks in part to books like this, acknowledging animals as thinking individuals with intrinsic worth may someday be rightfully recognized as a critical turning-point in human cultural evolution.

This book, written by a number of contributors, is one of the most interesting I have read in some time. It explores all of the facets of well-being in pets, and as far as I know is the first to acknowledge and discuss mental health in animals. Many years ago when I first learned animal behavior, we were told not to be anthropomorphic. Simply put, animals did not have the same "feelings" attributed to humans. Since that time, new research has shown us that animals do in fact experience in their own ways many of the emotions experience by people. The book is divided into 21 chapters covering a wide array of topics. These include stress, boredom, pleasure, mental illness in animals and its treatment, and the mental well-being of farm animals, laboratory animals, and birds. It's quite an interesting topic and a book that I would highly recommend!

Shawn Messonnier DVM
The Natural Health Bible for Dogs & Cats, 8 Weeks to a Healthy Dog, The Allergy Solution for Dogs

Both More Calf Fries to Cavier and it predecessor Calf Fries to Cavier could have just as aptly been titled "West Texas Soul Food I and II". The books contain an abundance of recipes for hearty, comfort-food dishes which many West Texans, as well as Southerners and those from the Southwestern United States, grew up eating. Both Calf Fries and More Calf Fries to Cavier should be essential in recipe collections of folks wanting to discover a special niche in home cooking. My wife, who is originally a New Yorker, swears by these books and has used them as her basis to a discovery of Texas home cooking.

This book and its predescessor cover the full gamit of traditional home cooking for the South Plains area of Texas. Dishes are flavorful and hearty. They are the traditional fare for the hard-working cotton farmers and cattle ranchers of the area. These dishes are meant to fill up the belly and stick to the ribs. They are recipes from an area known for good food all year round from blustery winter to blistering summer.

Are you a goop? If you're not sure, this book is for you! The perfect for book for children (and some adults) on etiquette. The book is funny and the drawings hilarious. Your children will be fascinated seeing how the goops are naughty, while learning how not to be one! A book that will be enjoyed for years.

This is not a traditional review. It is a comment that I read it Goops as a child when I inherited it from a cousin. My children read it as did theirs! At 74, I can still quote directly ! "The Goops they lick their fingers, the Goops they lick their knives. They spill their broth on the table cloth ,Oh, they lead disgusting lives !"

It is in the group that includes The Secret Garden, Great Expectations, and coming up rapidly, The Mixed Up File of Mrs. Basil Frankweiler.

Now does some one know these lines? "Spring's the time for marbles and Fall's the time for kites.........." That book came with Goops in 1932.

How about " 'Quack', said Jerusha, 'I think I am a duck' "

The fourth generation deserves to know about these,too!
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every neuroscience lab should have one. Deluxe edition is worth it (CD included)!

I am an associate at TSRI in La Jolla. As long as I have worked here, we have used this atlas, and I have not yet found a better one!

The story is well written and easy to read aloud. The illustrations and story are for the older toddler who will appreciate the band of friends and understand the ageist theme. Beautiful illustrations.

"The Musicians of Bremen" as illustrated in watercolor and ink by Niroot Puttapipat is a treasure, a work of art. Most are well familiar with the story of the four aging animals who band together to go to Bremen and become musicians. In this artist's hands the animals look as if they have led long lives, yet they're endearing, each invested with a distinct personality that mirrors the animal's past.

First, we see donkey who is going to be discarded by her owner because she can no longer carry heavy sacks of flour. There she is - silhouetted against a sparse landscape, her tail drooping but proud, her thin legs weary from work.

Dog has fled in fear from a master who knows the dog can no longer hunt - he is still panting from the exertion of running away, and poor cat lies by the side of the road, discarded by a mistress because his teeth and claws are no longer able to capture mice.

Finally, an "utterly furious rooster crowing for all he was worth" because he knows he's on the menu for Sunday dinner. What a quartet they make.

The robbers are the sneakiest, slyest looking bunch you've ever seen, avarice and greed personified.

This is Niroot Puttapipat's first picture book. It's a winner!

- Gail Cooke

These books are not really meant to go together. When she was sixteen years old, Miles Franklin wrote My Brilliant Career, A NOVEL, but was plagued for years by people who believed that this book was an autobiography. Some people continued to insist it was, or even misrepresent it as such even after being personally informed by Miles Franklin that the book was a novel. Finally, Miles Franklin withdrew My Brilliant Career from publication, and in the fifties, wrote My Career Goes Bung as a response to those who continued to believe that My Brilliant Career was an autobiography. My Career Goes Bung is a parody of the literary world, not a sequel to My Brilliant Career, and frankly, if you read it immediately after, it will probably spoil the magic of My Brilliant Career for you.

That said, here is my review of My Brilliant Career:

The is a beautiful and startling book. Written by Miles Franklin in 1901, when she was just sixteen, it is the story of a young girl, Sybylla Melvyn, trying to live her own life in Possum Gully, Australia. She doesn't want to marry, and repeat her mother's life. She'd like to travel, but she has no money. She's bright, but her prospects for college are non-existent. More than anything, she would like to be an artist, but not because she has a passion for any particular artistic expression; she just likes her imagined idea of an artist's lifestyle.

She has a brief respite when she goes to live with her grandmother, and meets Harold Beecham, who becomes her best friend. She also gets to know her Aunt Helen, "neither maid, nor widow, nor wife," who cautions her of the dangers of marrying for love. Sybylla wonders why she should marry at all. If she had a fortune, she declares, she would give it gladly to someone she loved, but "the word wife finished [her] up."

Life has tougher things in store for Sybylla, but she is a survivor, and she begins to write. She masters metaphor: "If the souls of our lives were voiced in music, there are some that none but a great organ could express, others the clash of a full orchestra, a few...the...exquisite sadness of a violin..., and mine could be told with a couple of nails in a rusty tin pot."

Maybe she writes because of what she knows, or maybe she has insight because she writes, but Sybylla, from Possum Gully, to genteel Caddagat and Five-Bob Downs, to the muddy M'Swat farm, and back to Possum Gully, knows classism, demagoguery, democracy, socialism, feminism, and cynicism.

Sybylla is a joy to know. I can't recommend this book more.

It's hard to believe that this novel was written by a young woman in her teens. it's even harder to believe that it was written in the late nineteenth century. So much for Victorian attitudes... Sybylla rages against her parents, shuns marriage in favor of a career, sees classism and injustice as it truly is, and at one point questions the exuistence of God. The result is an entertaining story. Sybylla is a worthy literary sister to Anne of Green Gables, or the March sisters. The story has a little less of the innocence to it, but all of the charm. The description of 1890's Australia are vivid, as are all the people Sybylla meets (and those great Australian geographic names.)

Try and find a copy of this book... and then demand it go back into print! You won't regret reading this, and you'll enjoy it wholeheartedly. (Beware, My career Goes Bung is not a "true" sequel, and can easily be skipped without missing anything.)

This is a birthday/address book, and it's way cool. The top half of the book is where you write down birthdays that you want to remember. The bottom half of the book is the address book. There's space for you to write people's addresses, phone numbers, and even email addresses. The two halves of the book are very useful, because you can go to the birthday section on the top, and see who's birthday is coming up. Then you can go to the address section on the bottom, and look up their address. And you can do all that without having to lose your place! It's so easy, and really cool. At the back of the book, you can find great quotes to inspire you, your own zodiac astrology sign, each month's birthstones and flowers.. and even the history of the names of each month! There are very cute drawings all throughout the book too. Two thumbs way up! :)

This is a birthday/address book, and it's way cool. The top half of the book is where you write down birthdays that you want to remember. The bottom half of the book is the address book. There's space for you to write people's addresses, phone numbers, and even email addresses. The two halves of the book are very useful, because you can go to the birthday section on the top, and see who's birthday is coming up. Then you can go to the address section on the bottom, and look up their address. And you can do all that without having to lose your place! It's so easy, and really cool. At the back of the book, you can find great quotes to inspire you, your own zodiac astrology sign, each month's birthstones and flowers.. and even the history of the names of each month! There are very cute drawings all throughout the book too. Two thumbs way up! :)

I went to Germany 5 years ago and wrote down every detail in this book. Now that I am older I reread it often! I really like this travel diary because it helps me NEVER forget my memories!!!

This book has creative artwork, even on the lined pages for writing. There are also special sections like "best and worst," a map to draw, a spot to tally how many ___(dogs, signs, etc.) you saw, folders, and more. It's fun to fill out (especially on long car rides) and a wonderful way to remember a special trip.

A.T.A.C. sends the Hardy Boys to a youth correction center to investigate the death of one of the campers. To fit in the hardy boys must pretend to be exactly opposite who they really are in a place they other wise would never be.
This book had a really interesting story and surprising outcome. This is a book you won't forget. My favorite part was when Franks in the doctor's after being hurt but the drugs the doctor gave him made him a little loopy.
However in this book when Frank is pretending to be a mean teenager he does say H E double hockey sticks. It is not that bad but if you want to get a pen or white out or something and mark it out it is on page 32 in my book. If our copies are different then all I can say is it is in chapter 4. But ignoring that it is a really great book.

this book was great everyone should read this book i can not wait till the next book comes out

For years, Esther Franklin has researched life at Monticello, celebrated home of Thomas Jefferson and its band of caretakers, many of whom were slaves. It is in Jefferson's close slave relations-which have been all but verified by historians-where the majority of this sophisticated story resides. Continuing from the first book, the Hemmings travel to Washington D.C. in the postwar days of 1815. Portions of the young capitol have been razed. The period detail and backdoor conversations with associates of key historical figures make this an informative and engrossing read. In her bio, Franklin hopes that her book honors the times and the unrecorded lives of those in the past. We say, "yes."

The Others At Monticello, volume II continues the historical fiction saga of volume I in chronicling the relationships between Thomas Jefferson and his slaves, particularly Sally Hemings and her offspring. The wealth of meticulous research drawn from Jefferson's own libraries show through in this novel that strives to illuminate the connections that make human beings human inspite of the overwhelming barriers of cultural attitudes and perceptions. A believeable story all the way through.