Johnston Books

I loved it! I planned to read a chapter or two before bed and ended up sleep-deprived because I read the whole thing. I couldn't put it down.
I loved:
- The narrator's strong voice - I felt as if I'd sat down next to a fascinating stranger who was filling me in on the juicy details of a story I'd read about in People magazine.
- The setting - Manhattan is brought to life through specifics that will make a non-urban reader feel as if he's a part of the action.
- The story - It's filled with suspense and great twists experienced by likeable characters.

I highly recommend it for kids and adults - fun read!

The authors of this book are real storytellers. Once the action begins it never stops until its over. Kyle and friends are on the job even when they're not. And the ending? What a surprise. It seems as if anyone can write a book these days, but these two authors tell a story. Hats off and kudos.

"Secret Agent" by these talented authors is a favorite book in our house, so we eagerly awaited the sequel, "Secret Agents Strike Back."
We were enthralled again. It's another clever adventure in New York City with smart, funny and caring teenagers who reflect those real qualities in kids. The portrayal of strong relationships between parents and teenagers is realistic and touching. And the adult friend of the secret agents, romance writer Percy Percerville, is hilarious. Don't miss this or anything else Johnston and Spizman produce.

Teenager Kyle Kyle Parker pulls his group of junior detective friends together again to solve another mystery. This time it conerns the mother of his friend, Lucinda Winston, the brainiac who secretly adored Kyle in the last book. In their search for clues and answers to the mystery Kyle and his friends scour New York City, and the book pulsates with the sights and feel of the big apple.
While it's quite amusing, the subject matter is not: a stolen formula which might cure cancer and the plagiary by an unscrupulous collegue never is.
A sure-fire hit for young readers.

Absolutely wonderful book filled with gorgeous photographs and enlightening text about making the award-winning film. Great insight into the mind of director Jean-Jacques Annaud. Incredible story how such a difficult story became such a great film. Even if you do not have interest in the film you should buy this book to learn how great films are made. And, how great actors take risks. Kudos to Brad Pitt for seeking difficult roles. Buy this book. You will be glad that you did.

This pictorial book was to coincide with the release of the epic movie based on the classic memoir of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer. The book contains scripts, location stills of Tibet, and hundreds of photo stills from the making and the movie itself. Knowing that due to the Chinese opposition parts of the scenes from the movie were actually shot in South America, I was somehow disappointed. But the pictorial still adds grciously to my Tibet collection.

The book is very....real.The author described everything in great detail.Brad Pitt's character was also very realistic in how the author projected him.Also has many cool facts on Tibet(customs ang religion),the many characters had very interesting personalities.Brad Pitt's character had alot of character,the way the author projected.Good book.Read it.

I found Richard Graves English translation to be excellent. One can almost feel the cold nights and the pain of Harrer's trek up from India to Lhasa. His appreciation of the customs and desire to learn from them is something much needed today as Americans try to understand Tibet. This is a good book to begin with in gaining background. He is not a theologian or historian but gives a much needed glimpse of Tibet fifty years ago. Knowing the past makes the future brighter.

I bought this book after wearing out my library's copy. I use it as an introduction to a quilting unit I teach with gifted children, and open the box of tissues before I ever open the book each year. It is poignant and wonderful, and the author's vivid language is a reader's (and teacher's) dream.

This is a story about one summer that 2 brothers share. One of the brothers has cancer and the other brother tells the story of what he learned during his brother's illness. He learns how to make the bed while his brother is in it and he learned how to smile when his heart is breaking inside. This is truly a tale of brotherly love!

Cancer is so real in today society. Each family is touched with it in some way. This book is really heartbreaking and will make you count your blessings if your children are healthy.



Yes. I have never read a book quite like this one. There are books that help kids deal with the death of grownups but I'm not sure there are many that deal with terminally ill children and their feelings.

"That Summer" is a poetic blend of the carefree days of a childhood summer disrupted by the reality of terminal illness. The narrator's brother, Joey, becomes ill during summer vacation. As his illness progresses, he begins to piece a quilt: "Cut scraps into shapes of all the things you love," Gram said,"then join them with thread." Illustrated with beautiful graphite and chalk pictures by Barry Moser, Tony Johnston weaves a story of a brother's love, a family's loss, and a patchwork of memories through powerful figurative language: "...that summer, a gleam of guilt glided through my heart like a gleam of snake down a hole." This is one of the most moving childrens' books I've ever read.

"That summer began like always, with hoots and shouts, all of us running in the sun, freed from school..." But, as his brother, the narrator tells us, on the fourth of July, Joey "took sick." He went to bed and stayed there. When he perked up, the whole family was filled with hope, and when he got worse again, they realized the awful truth. "What do you do when you know you are leaving the world, when your heart hurts with grieving? Joey was leaving. It was clear as the rain that stung his window that summer." Gram sat by his bed keeping vigil and quilting, and when Joey couldn't sleep, Gram taught him how to quilt. And so that summer, he sewed the pieces of his young life together, all the things he love, "a patch with an owl because he loved its call, the cow he squeezed from clay (first grade), and his fishing pole and a lightning bug and a country road and his baseball glove..." Author, Tony Johnston, and illustrator, Barry Moser, invite the reader to share in this very intimate and moving experience. Mr Johnston's quiet, understated, and eloquent text is at times both poignant and uplifting, and rich in beautifully poetic figurative language. Mr Moser's stunning artwork captures the special moments of Joey's life in dazzling full-colored illustrations, juxtaposed with touching and emotional gray and white "snapshots" that seem to be pulled from the family photo album. Together, word and art paints a remarkable portrait of life, strong love and loss, told with great insight, wisdom, and truth. Perfect for youngsters 5 and older, That Summer is an inspiring story that deals with the sensitive subject of the death of a loved one with honesty and respect, and should help open important discussions. As Barry Moser writes in his dedication... "For all the courageous people who care for terminally ill children, with my deepest respect and admiration." An amazing book that shouldn't be missed.

From Jean Johnston there is now a priceless and refreshingly sensible account on caring for mental illness.
Professor Angus Mackay, Scotland

This is the total reality of having mental illness in your family. A powerful desciption of the developing of a mental illness it is wonderfully with the constructive tools of recovery. It is full of bravery and hope.

A real good read for those who would like to understand mental illness better - sufferer, carer, familly, friend or professional - and is definitely for anyone who feel isolated by mental illness. It makes you realise that you are not alone.

To Walk on Eggshells will prove very useful to any relative, carer or friend of a mentally ill patient.

Together with the book by Mrs Johnston's daughter that describes her own experiences of mental illness 'The Naked Bird Watcher', it will prove a very useful educational tool.

It is also a jolly good read - and short enough to be read by busy people. Strongly recommended.

Two Women - One Journey of Recovery - Two Perspectives

From both the patient and her carer there is now rare and unusual insight into living with and learning to manage a mental illness.

Emotive yet practical, these books should be read by all those affected by mental illness and working in its profession.

To Walk on Eggshells by Jean Johnston, ISBN 0954809211
The Naked Bird Watcher by Suzy Johnston, ISBN 0954809203

My favorite kind of love story is when two people who have been friends for an extended period find themselves falling in love with each other, or discover that they have been in love all this time and in denial about it. Hawk's Way: The Virgin Groom is just such a tale.

Mac Macready met Jewel Whitelaw while attending Camp LittleHawk, a camp for children with cancer and other illnesses, when they were children. An intense friendship was formed that the passage of time, failed relationships with others, and painful injuries (to both body and spirit) has not weakened. When Mac is faced with a career ending injury he returns to the soothing comfort of the Hawk Ranch and his friendship with Jewel. But times and, more importantly, feelings have changed. Though neither Mac or Jewel want to destroy their friendship, both cannot deny the attraction they feel for one another. Things get even more sticky when they discover the feelings are mutual. And there is that painful trauma in Jewel's past that needs help being overcome. A deceptively brisk read that packs a bigger emotional punch than you would expect. Recommended.

Jewel Whitelaw was first introduced to us in her adopted parents book, Zach and Rebecca Whitelaw in The Disobediant Bride. Jewel was in an accident in that book that left her without a family, scars on her face and parts of her body, and a limp. Rebecca and Zach fell in love with her and was one of the first of many children that they adopted. In this book we learn that Jewel has suffered even more as she grew up. In her sister Cherry's book, The Temporary Groom we learn that Jewel was attacked by a boy as a teenager, but what we learn in this book was how brutal that attack was and that the one person that knows her secret is her long time best friend Mac.

Readers of the Hawk's Way series will remember Mac by his given first name Pete. Pete was one of the sick kids that came to Camp LittleHawk in The Disobediant Bride. Mac as he is now called is a great big football hero with a career ending injury. Mac comes back to Hawk's Pride to 'recover' because he is sure he will play again. Mac also wants to spend time with his best friend Jewel.

Mac learns that Jewel has still not recovered from the attack. Jewel will not let any man near her, but is somehow comfortable with Mac. Jewel hopes Mac can help her overcome her anxiety around men, you know as a 'friendly' favor. Mac wants to help Jewel, but is afraid that she will find out his horrible secret-this stong football hero is also a virgin.

It is a wonderful story and it is great to see Jewel and Mac help each other in lots of different ways. So many questions are raised. Can Jewel help Mac realize his football career is over? Can Mac help Jewel get over her anxiety of men? That is just the tip of the iceberg when they both realize that they have feelings for one another.

This is a great addition to the Hawk's Way series. I was disappointed that this book along with Cherry's story did not include more of the rest of the Whitelaw family. It is still a great read.

JOAN JOHNSTON HAS DONE IT AGAIN WITH THIS WONDERFUL BOOK. THIS BOOK HOLDS EVERYTHING TO A PATIENT MAN IN WHATING,AND PROVING THAT A WOMAN CAN TOO BE A HERO NO MATTER THE AGE OR SEX.

I have loved all the Hawk's Way and Hawk's Pride that Ms. Johnston has written and this one was no exception. Can't wait for the others.

Actually, I have one beef with this book: it's awfully hard not to cry.

Solid construction, simple but good story, nice artwork.

I read this book constantly as a kid (I'm eighteen now) and I loved it. It is now part of my heart forever. Parents, buy this book for your kids, if only for the sheer beauty of it.

Tony Johnston weaves a simplistic farm life story that touches your soul. A gracefully written family saga that is magestically illustrated by Lloyd Bloom.

The background rolls with the hills, trees and farm as the story of life changes with the seasons and years. A beginning life for a husband and wife, a growing family and encircling love for all.

Parents, readers, prepare to wipe away the tears of simple joy and beauty as you share this book with a special little one.

Though this book is currently listed as out of print, please try Amazon's search to find a copy, it is definately worth the effort.

Yonder provides children with a charming, vivid image of life, with its joys and its sorrows. The story of a farmer and his wife as they raise their family is mirrored in the growth of the beautiful plum tree outside their home. With vibrant, Impressionistic illustrations, this is an enchanting story that gently introduces children to the beauty and reality of the circle of life.

The real anthologizable pieces start at page 44. Probably one of the best ears since Dylan Thomas. No, not Creeley as some will run to for comparison...I'd wager a Niedecker and Merrill Gillfillan confluence. The ones that need to get into anthologies include "White Out," "Higher Learning," "Influence," "The Will" (!), and the perfect elegy "The Art of Autobiography." Perhaps not so suprisingly, Jonston's a great winter poet...he likes the icy architectonics of language and the icier sounds....the images tend towards hibernal darkness too....you will hear the stereometric shapes of words if you read this even half-carefully...he is a Naum Gabo of the word....W.B. Keckler

Initially I was drawn to this book because of Brian Calvin's beautiful painting used here on the cover, an image of precision and quiet insouciance which you can discern in miniature on the Amazon site, and also by the reputation of the poet himself, a young but quite active figure we have been following since the late 1980s, and in the wake of a very different book, TELEPATHY. In any case opening this book all illusions dispelled themselves, like stars scattering from the wand of the young Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Johnston has written yet another book, an insufficiently noticed study of American poetry "as occult practice" and some of that concern with ghosts and the paranormal, as it were, continues over here, in its shortness of line, as if not daring to say more, not daring to make more signs of the ectoplasm, and in a general interest in signs of all sorts. Even the title, which I had first read as a splendid defiance of convention and a romantic insistence on finding one's own way, I now think of as Johnston's cautious signal that he will not harm the entities that surround us in the world of making the poem. "A shutter knocks/ against my thoughts--/ / to punctuate/ and interrupt." There's a bitter, learned presence making itself manifest at the heart of AVERSIONS, and it isn't necessarily your sweet old grandmother come to breathe a kiss in your ear. "With a rush/ of wings/ / a dark-green shade/ descends;/ / and then it goes/ away again," Johnston writes, in "Doubtful Weather," one of many poems in which the apparition seems to come THIS CLOSE to being alive.

You will find yourself tapping, like a blind man, through the pages of this book and shuddering with sheer pleasure.

The poetry by Devin Johnston addresses the personal challenges of turning toward (or away from) human experience. By turns enigmatic, insightful, and lyrical, Aversions offers a body of poetry that is subtle and almost visual in its passionate employment of language. Dark Wood: Dashing through the station/in the final collapse/of time, I'm already dead.//It is all one where I begin:/at Niagara, where we never were,/or the Casentino, Dante's wood, in which/the tangled limber of Guelphus/lay thick as leaves/that strow the brooks.//Beneath a canopy of lime/which darkens the Dawoo's/windshield, we glide/through dictionaries/in search of moufloun.//One week married: if, then. Wherever I start, I'm lost to the language/and still putting paper to pen.

Very nice layout, easy to follow instructions. Love the binding. Looking forward to the projects.I would recommend this book to anyone interested in stained glass.

This book is fantastic! I love the step by step pictures and the detailed instructions. I have purchased other stained glass making books but this is by far the best one. I look forward to making some of his projects because he makes it look so easy.

This is a very good book with outstanding photography and functional book binding. The basic skills reviewed are a bit redundant and don't advance the readers knowledge very far but it is a good review for beginner stained glass artists. The author should consider writing another book which assumes basic skill sets and focus on taking the reader further into advanced techniques and project design.

Excellent book which includes techniques, tools and tips to improve the stained glass beginners abilities. It also has very good pictures by Alan Wycheck.

This book tells you everything about Hong Kong butterflies. The photos / illustration plates add live to this wonderful book. The information is so comprehensive and useful. As an enthusiast of butterfly, I highly recommend this book (THE BIBLE OF HONG KONG BUTTERFLIES) to everyone.

The most comprehensive, informative and wonderful book about butterflies of Hong Kong I have ever seen. It covers all the details you would like to know about Hong Kong butterflies. I recommend this book to those who like to explore the nature.

Although this is an expensive book, it simply is the best and most definitive work on butterflies of the region. The standard of presentation is excellent. Descriptions are clear and very informative, with plenty of in text illustrations showing identification characters allowing similar species to be identified - particularly useful for the Hesperiidae. Many species are give full ecological write ups, some reared for the first time. Also included in the core text are photographs of many species taken "in the field" (mostly of good to excellent quality). Short chapters also outline Hong Kong's natural environment. The plates (in two sections: adults and immature stages) are absolutely top quality and show dorsal and ventral wing surfaces, male, female and seasonal forms at life size; the immature plates comprise photos of each stage, where known. A few negatives - local distribution data is already out of date and must be regarded as historical (a sad reflection of Hong Kong's general apathy to its natural resources); the list of contacts is also out of date!

Thoroughly recommended (I'm still saving up for my copy!), a wonderful addition to any butterfly bibliophile's portfolio and a must buy option for anyone interested in the butterflies of South-east and East Asia.

This is the second review of this book I have written for Amazon. This time around, I would rate it 10 if I could. This is the finest research I have ever come across about a most fascinating time and man. It is a must read for anyone interested in history, maritime affairs and the war of 1812. I just wish I could have been the author. Bravo.

Stephen Duffy's "Captain Blakeley and the Wasp: The Cruise of 1814" tells, and tells well, the story of Master Commandant Johnston Blakeley and the highly successful and ultimately doomed cruise of the US Navy sloop of war Wasp in 1814. Through exhaustive research, Duffy chronicles in detail the building of the Wasp at Newburyport, Massachusetts, and Blakeley's struggles to outfit and crew his new ship, an effort made more difficult by national politics and by rivalries within the Navy command structure. The tale of the Wasp's cruise across the Atlantic and into the English Channel is of necessity less comprehensive because many crucial records were lost when Blakeley and his command vanished at sea after twin victories over Royal Navy brigs in British home waters. Although Blakeley was able to forward his official reports of the two battles before his ship disappeared, it is the missing unofficial information which prevents Duffy from fully reconstructing what happened when the Wasp captured HMS Reindeer and then sank HMS Avon. Despite this limitation, Duffy does provide clear analyses of the two actions, reaching rather different conclusions about the sequence of events during the Wasp-Reindeer fight than heretofore have been published.

It has been said that a biographer must have a personal liking for his subject for the labor in writing the book to be anything other than a burden, and certainly Duffy has a great admiration for Johnston Blakeley. His assessment of his hero as America's most accomplished naval commander during the age of sail perhaps errs on the side of hyperbole, but the book leaves no doubt that Blakeley deserves greater fame than he is usually accorded. Duffy was handicapped by the paucity of primary source accounts from Blakeley and his close associates, so he frequently was forced to resort to speculation about the thoughts of the young officer regarding various situations. At the very least, Duffy presents a valuable and interesting study of a junior officer in the small American navy at the beginning of the 19th Century.

This little gem of a book is exactly what every enthusiast of the age of fighting sail is looking for: engaging characters, beautifully designed tall ships, and plenty of action. It reads like a novel, is full of larger than life characters, and the ship to ship actions are better than anything you'll read in the novels of Alexander Kent, Richard O'Brien, and CS Forrester.

Captain Blakeley (his naval rank as commander of the USS Wasp, a sloop of war, was actually Master Commandant) is proclaimed by the author as the most accomplished US Navy captain in the War of 1812. In his single cruise with the Wasp, he sank two British ships of war of near-equal strength in hull to hull fights and captured and destroyed a slew of merchantmen as he prowled the sea lanes. He had been on successful cruises with the Enterprise and the Argus, and continued his professional successes on the newly built and commissioned USS Wasp, the last ship so named in the War of 1812. Sadly, after her last victory, she sailed off into legend and was lost at sea from unknown causes, the families of the crew never knowing what happened to their loved ones.

This is a most valuable addition to the literature of the period and a definite must for the historian and enthusiast. The author has done a masterful job here. It is carefully researched, is a very quick read, as you can't put it down, and is accurate. This book is highly recommended and I couldn't help thinking that it would make an outstanding motion picture.