Morrison Books

I'm probably the laziest person I know when it comes to reviewing books. I'm okay on the reading part, and I'm just ducky at putting a book in my To Be Reviewed Pile. It's at the point when the book merges with the general pile that I tend to get distracted, though. Books get seriously frighteningly buried. I guess that's the danger with a vertical rather than a horizontal pile. Then the mediocre books begin to disappear from my mind. I forget their details and their characters. I can't conjure up a notable scene or moment from them, and then the end of the year rolls around and it's too late to review them anyway. Once in a great while, however, I'll bury a book deep down into my pile and it'll remain in my brain for months on end. Today's example of this is Sharon G. Flake's, "The Broken Bike Boy and the Queen of 33rd Street". I read this book so long ago that I've no clear-cut memory of the time or season anymore. Yet when I plucked it up just now it was if I'd finished it in its entirety only yesterday. Until this book the only Flake title I'd ever read was the mighty YA, Who Am I Without Him?. "Broken Bike Boy", then, proves that Flake's talent for switching genres is rivaled only by her strong characterizations.

It's enough to drive even the most superior member of the royal family bonkers. Queen knows that she's smart. Her father and her older brothers tell her every single day, and she loves correcting her teacher whenever she has the chance. That the kids in her school don't immediately recognize her innate superiority would be tolerable if they didn't all go and actually like nasty old Leroy instead. Leroy stinks and he lies. He says he's royalty from Africa, and Queen seems to be the only kid in her class that can see through his lies. Yet somehow this nasty boy has managed to charm everybody. Her teacher. Her parents. Her classmates. Everyone! But Queen's attempts to get at the truth behind Leroy's past teaches her a thing or two about what it truly means to be royal and, more importantly, a good person in this life.

At first when I was reading this book, I was ... well, basically I read this book like a kid would. I really did NOT like silly stuck-up Queen and I was feeling more than a little mad at Ms. Flake for forcing her upon me. I mean, this is a gal doted upon by her father and all her brothers. When one of them sends her a present she recounts how, "Then like always, he told me how much he loved me. Right after that I called my other brothers, to see what they would send me." ARG! Tell me that doesn't make you feel just a little crazy. Spoiled kids make for frustrating if intense reading. I'm ashamed to say that I was probably halfway through the book before it occurred to me that maybe you weren't supposed to like Queen. Maybe that was kind of the point. I've been so used to reading characters like Ida B from the novel of the same name that I had difficulty recognizing when I was supposed to be annoyed by my protagonist. Kudos to Ms. Flake then. It takes guts to make an unlikable hero. Guts and talent.

Pity about the end, really. Chapter 26 goes way too fast and ends the book with an abruptness that takes your breath away. Spoiler alert for those of you who'd rather not know the end. First of all, the villains are punks with pink hair. It's so retro it almost works. But then the action sequence starts and the herky-jerky writing throws everything off. For some reason, the style that serves the rest of the book so well goes wayward and odd here. Sentences are short and don't connect to one another in a pleasing fashion. Then the next thing you know you're at the end of the book and it's all happened so quickly that you don't know if you're coming or going.

Be all that as it may be, I'm a fan. The book sticks with you. Queen is so infuriating that it's nothing short of amazing that Flake is capable of making her sympathetic. The feeling of wanting to root for Queen even as you throttle her makes this book a standout in a fairly dull year. Ideal for booktalks, book discussion, and reading aloud in the classroom. Two thumbs up.

I highly recommend this book for all veterinary students due to its thoroughness and most of all because it is current (or as current as one can be in the field of oncology). It reads well and provides a great number of well thought out illustrations and pictures.Plus, it highlights the major systems and neoplasms there of and covers most of the protocols for each cancer.

This trade paperback reprints the recent comic book mini-series Captain Carrot and the Final Ark. Before the mini-series, the book features a few pages of "Whatever Happened to Captain Carrot?", which appeared in two issues of Teen Titans comics. This was an attempt to parody the "grim and gritty" trend in comics and didn't really work for me, especially the mischaracterization of Alley-Kat-Abra. After this brief prologue, we get the actual mini-series. This is more like a traditional Captain Carrot comic book, although it still parodies recent comic book trends like the government banning super-heroes and "Crisises". It also manages to fix some of the wrong-headed things from the prologue. I enjoyed this series quite a bit. The mini-series was only three issues long, so this book also reprints some classic Captain Carrot comics; specifically the group's origin and their team-up with the JLA (Just'a Lotta Animals).

UPDATE! this book is now in print

If this is the first review of College Street, I am surprised. It has been reviewed by an independent editor before publication and given good grades, or so I have been told. It is about days of The Great Depression in Kentucky and the abandoned children given a shot at survival by a church group. I think the author writes well. He convinces me he knows his subject matter, since he was one of the survivors of College Street. It's not a great novel, but few books are. It's just good reading, that's all.

I used this book to write a report on Colombia. Within the first 10 pages of text, I had 3 pages' worth of material for my report. The report ended up being a total lenghth of 17 pages, when it only needed to be 5. This book is JAMMED w/ info.

This book serves as a good introduction to the main seven areas of information technology reguiring ethical considerations. It is suitable for anyone who is new to computing with a social concience.

I found the book fascinating and helpful in describing the situation in our comapny today. The insights and learnings will be most helpful. A clear, concise message is provided that needs to be heard by all involved in the field of leadership development. A great book for use in both academic and hands-on training.

The Doors is basically the same as all the other Bison Group books that I have. Mainly filled with great pictures and a little history. This one was a great gift from my Aunt. It even comes with a poster.

The Doors personify the image of 'Rock Gods'. To me, they are basically one of the first groups ever to be so dang cool.

If anyone has a link to the publisher I would be grateful.

This represents solid work on Nuzi studies that is worth a read.