Richardson Books

The book A Journey is inspirational to everyone that tries their hardest and loves the sport or other thing that you are trying to achieve. This book shows use the hardship of growing up and how we can trust our family for our problems. The thought of trying harder to be a success is always a part of all lives and should never be forgoten. This book will always be insiring and must be read by young and old.

This is a great story about Apolo and he writes the book so that you are able to feel like your are on the ice with him on every win and fall. You will really enjoy this book.

Apolo Anton Ohno is a great speedskater . . . and after reading the book I find that he has a pretty good potential for a writer too. After watching him in the 2002 Winter Olympics, I was intrigued with his story. This gives me something elso to build off of as well. He sets a good example for kids because he is a true good sport -- always with a "That's the sport. What happens happens" attitude. A great read.

I was incredibly impressed by Apolo during the Olympics - not only is he an amazing athlete to watch in one of the best sports in the Olympics, but he was also gracious, seemed to know the real meaning of the games - participation and being in the moment as opposed to winning - and his celebration upon winning the silver moved me to tears but after reading the book, I didn't get the same feeling and I admit it left me disappointed. The book was not very well written and I half expected it to be since he had a co-author. Apolo seems to take himself a bit too seriously. He dwells on leaving home at age 14, something many kids do to go to boarding school and the like and I don't hear them whining. He also failed to take responsibility for his own health and injuries and appears to blame others for that. Yes, he was young, but it is clear he didn't have a hard time defying his father, which leads me to believe he was quite capable of speaking up for himself. I also didn't find his defense of the race fixing scandal very persuasive. In his interviews, Apolo seems very nice, unassuming and gracious but in the book he just didn't come across that way. Maybe he had too much of an axe to grind against his coaches and his accusers. I think he will regret publishing this. Sometimes it is best to write down how you feel and then put it away until you have come to terms with your feelings and then decide if you really want to share them or not and my guess is, in a few years, Apolo will regret sharing many of the ones he put in this book.

Spare & lean, this young man tells his story with aplomb & humor. Nancy Ann Richardson has not tampered with his way of expressing himself, allowing Apolo Anton Ohno to shine on through.

A JOURNEY is as much a biography of a modern, unassuming hero as it is a tribute to a father's job well done.

A must-read for anyone with a hunger for excellence, & a clue about self-awareness. A splendid read in which we catch glimpses of how one person, with many strikes against him, found something to pull him out of a typical city-bound boyhood, out of the terrible teens, out of obscurity to be the best at what he does.

Apolo Anton Ohno can also add storyteller/author to his accomplishments. Highly recommended.

This is a big book but well worth the price and time if you are a serious reader of short stories or trying to write them (as I am). You will find a comprehensive collection of the finest stories from the first efforts down to the present. There is also a wealth of commentary and criticism on the story in general and those in the collection. The Story and Its Writer has to be one of the best single sources of short story material that's yet been assembled.

My book arrived when it said it would and it was in perfect condition. Thanks.

This anthology was something I stumbled upon in college and completely changed the way I approached reading and writing. The stories are a wide variety and the writers writing about writing is a fantastic resource. This is one of the most precious pieces to my library and a must for any serious reader and writer.

This compilation of short stories was used for my Intro. to the Short Story college course. Our professor only picked out certain stories but I found myself reading unassigned stories myself. Some of these stories are wonderful. My favorite was "The Widow's Son" by Mary Lavin. Some other noteworthy stories: "Hills Like White Elephants" Hemingway, "Girl" by J. Kincaid. Too many more to list, a course book I am actually keeping so I can finish reading it. Usually I can't wait to close them after the course and not see them anymore! :)

This is a very comprehensive compilation of the most important classic short stories as well as some newer stories from today's writers. I thought the book was very well organized, especially with the case files and interviews that accompany several of the stories.

There are a few omissions of some classics but nonetheless I felt it was a very good collection.

A must have if studying Fiction.

This book made me realize that I'm not the only one experiencing such a drastic change (and lots of disappointment) after college. The first chapter of the book was alright, but after reading the 2nd chapter, that's when the author tackle the typical problems 20something faces. If anyone is having a tough time adjusting to being an responsible adult, figuring out he/she is suppose to do for the rest of his/her life, confused about which direction to take for career (or whatever goals one might have), this is a good book to read to get you start on the right track. The author definitely reminds the reader that God is in control no matter what, and that our twenty-something years can be a great time in our lives.

This is a must read for the confused college grad, floundering young single or even twentysomthing working man or woman. This book radically changed my outlook in this awkward life stage known as the "twentys," and it will do the same for you.

While this book has many great insights into the dilemas and problems faced by most twenty somethings, it has a distinct distaste for corporate america and for any careers in that area.

I finished reading "twentysomething" a few days ago & it was an eye-opening/heart-felt read. I'm 23 & some of the thoughts & feelings expressed in this book have been my exact experience w/ my tenties.. thus far. Margaret is a talented writer- one who is able & capable to express her thoughts & experiences in a way.. that truly makes you feel that you've known her forever. This book is about real life experiences that are shared in hopes that they might shed some light on a kind of overwhelming stage of life. We (twentysomethings) aren't alone. God has definitely blessed Margaret w/ the gift of writing- I'm just glad she has pursued Him & that gift & in that- she has blessed at least one reader.. me.

Twentysomething by Feinberg writes about the phase of your life where you move from the school world into the real world from a Christian perspective. The topic of finding one's purpose is a hot topic these days and Feinberg attempts to tackle the topic as well.

The book goes through some of the issues that arise and Feinberg lets us in on a couple challenges she faced while finding her purpose. Through the book, some good advice is given (do what you love, trust God, etc) but nothing I haven't heard before. The best part of the book probably was when Feinberg talked about needing to get your validation from God, and not from the world. While this makes sense, I felt the practical application was not covered as well as it should have been, as trusting God is much easier said than done. Most people don't need to be told what to do... they need to be told how to do it, and then be given examples of what other people did. And while Feinberg does give some examples from other people, I was left unfulfilled.

I was impressed with the extras that were included in the back, as those were a welcome addition. The book was also laid out really well and included some good statistics.

In all, this is a good book if you are in your 20s and don't have any idea what to do with your life. Even after you read it, you still won't have any idea, but you will feel better about it. 3 out of 5 stars.

I bought the book "Michael Crichton: A New Collection of Three Complete Novels: Congo, Sphere, Eaters of the Dead" for my 20 year old grandson for Christmas and he was very excited about getting it. As soon as he finishes the book he is reading now, he will read it immediately. I received the book in just a few days. I was really impressed with the timely manner given that it was just a few weeks before Christmas.

This is one of the best collections I've read in quite some time. I think it provides an affordable introduction to a wide spectrum of Crichton's work.

Highly Recommended

I read Congo. It is a great book. It has an excelant writing technique. The storyline is terrific. It is pact with intense action filled parts. Even though it was fiction it seemed as if it could really happen. I couldn't quit reading until I was finished. When I was finished reading I wanted to go back and read the good parts over again, because they were so good. The things that I didn't like however is that it seemed to drag on from part to part and it had some swear words. The book is about a team of people that went into the Congo Jungle, to get diomonds, the whole team of people was killed in less than three minutes. In Houston they watched, and saw everybody dead. So what do they do they send in another team. This book is very adventurous during the good parts I didn't want to put it down. It was kind of scarry how everybody was killed so fast and how it might be able to really happen. The intended audience for this book would be for adults. It is not a childrens book. Because it goes into detail during some parts of the book.

I loved Sphere and Congo. I read them when 3 years ago I was overseas in Africa when I was about 11, and was glad a picked them up. I had read previous books, such as Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as well as The Adromedia Strain. In all truth, Sphere scared me senseless, I ended up reading all of it in one night because it was too frightening to put down. Congo is another book I bought just so I could re-read it over and over. I have to say that the movie just doent do it justice, just cant capture the pure emotion of the story, the feeling of assembling the parts of the story, what has been described in your head, then having that moment when it all comes together. The spoon-fed images version does not work. I picked up Eaters of The Dead yesterday, and cant wait to start reading it after I finish Traitor General by Dan Abnett.

I bought this book in a local bookstore only because it was marked half off and I recognized the name... and I must say it was the best $7.00 I've ever spent. I started at the beginning and read all 3 books in just over 2 days. All three were great, but Sphere was my favorite. I love his writing style... his writing feels so real-life. I've since read most of his written works.

For readers who have never read anything by Crichton, this is a great place to start because of it's great value and great content. Highly recommended to anyone who likes action, suspense, and good science fiction thriller!

It's really four-and-a-half stars. Since Teach Yourself Esperanto went out of print, this is almost certainly the best print-based Esp-o course for Anglophones.

My only gripes:
First, it needs an English-Esperanto glossary to complement its excellent Esperanto-English glossary.

Second, despite the third edition being published in 2004, this is book is essentially twenty-five years old. Its history of Esperanto has no information of anything happening since 1981 (despite the renaissance that the Internet has given the Esperanto movement), and the glossary has no computer/Web/electronic terms. The only difference I could discern between it and the second edition was a one-paragraph biographical note about the author.

This book is in many ways the lineal descendant of the once popular "Esperanto: The World Interlanguage", to which a younger David Richardson himself made some minor contributions. I've never been particularly happy with the system used in both books, breaking the work down into expository section, lessons, reader and appendices. Each of these deserves a book of its own. The problem is always what weight to give each section vis a vis the others; and every reader will have his or her preferred balance.

Having said this, I have to add that Richardson did an excellent job of implementing the system in this book, better than the one in its predecessor. For one thing, he omitted the purely topical (and so ephemeral) material, such as the earlier work's long list of currently popular books and magazines in Esperanto, and UEA delegate categories.

The four chapters of explanation ("Communications and the Language Barrier") are well-written, and still of great interest, though they were written in the 1980s and so do not address the changes in the world over the past two decades; I don't find any mention of the internet, for instance. Perhaps for a fourth edition Richardson or some designated person will add a fifth chapter to bring the reader up to date.

The hundred-page ten-lesson Esperanto course will teach you everything you need to know about Esperanto to actually start using the language (actually, you can start using it after the first one or two lessons). The ten-lesson system unfortunately requires that even in a language with an excellent word-building system such as Esperanto there will be relatively long lists of basic vocabulary to memorize, but Richardson offsets this to some degree with well-thought-out drills and exercises.

For me, the real meat of the book is in the 130-page reading section. This isn't just a collection of reading material, but devotes almost as much space to annotations and explanations, which to some extent makes it an extension and polishing of the ten-lesson course.

The whole thing is rounded off by a bibliography, which also suffers (slightly) by being somewhat dated, and a fairly complete Esperanto-English vocabulary. Since there is no English-Esperanto vocabulary, the purchaser might also want to get a copy of an appropriate dictionary. For the neophyte, I'd recommend the inexpensive two-way EAB MiniDictionary; the more ambitious student may want a copy of the Comprehensive English-Esperanto Dictionary.

All in all, a good book to acquire if you intend to learn Esperanto and pursue the language to whatever degree.

This is my favorite beginning Esperanto book. The vocabulary choices are good, with more difficult words being introduced in a logical manner (not all at once!) The excercises are at a good gradient - not too hard -- and the words a new Esperantist would need are introduced early on.

Within just a few days I was able to correspond with Esperanto speakers from all over the world.

I highly recommend the language and this book!

If you've already started studying Esperanto, you probably have a textbook like "Teach Yourself Esperanto" and a dictionary like "Teach Yourself Esperanto Dictionary" by J. C. Wells. But, if you're new to Esperanto, and just wanting to learn more about it and perhaps get started on grammar and vocabulary, then you can't beat Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language.

If not available through Amazon, it's always easy to get this book from ELNA, the national Esperanto organization.

I'd normally not want to simply add another "Oh this is a great book" to the list of reviews that is already here, but honestly Richardson deserves the praise.

While the book largely tries to be three things at once it is successful to a good degree. The first part of the book is a good overview of the "language problem" and Esperanto's solution to is. It's also a good (but increasingly dated) overview of Esperanto culture and resources.

The second part of the book is a reasonable 10-lesson section on Esperanto itself. it does a good job at this for its size by immediately integrating the reading of dialog at the end of every lesson.

Finally, the most unique part of the book is its last part: a small Esperanto reading anthology that allows you to immediately try your new found skill.

If you're interested in Esperanto in any capacity (save hard linguistics, perhaps) this book is your first stop. Get it.

This is a fine piece of work that teaches one how to find and follow their heart and feelings and thus lead a meaningful and passionate life. This is truely practical advice from a brilliant women. Much of it seems commonsense, to me, which I like, no tricks, no magic potions, just what the author (a life coach) has has used to help her clients lead a more enjoyable, meaningful life. So many people struggle with fidning meaning in their lives. This author gives us concrete doable steps on how to make it happen. Yes, it takes work, as Ms. Richardson states, you must be willing to make yourself and your life a priority and be willing to pay attention to your feelings (something us American's have become very bad at!). The speaker also gives tools for working through emotions that may be keeping the listener from pursuing their passion.

I highly recomend this to anyone seeking to add a little joy to their lives or anyone seeking a dramatic change, such as a new career that is more meaningful and joyful. (for the record, the sound quality on my copy was fabulous)

This CD was really inspirational for me at a time in my life when I need to reconnect with what was truly important. Although I found some of it a bit 'American' (being a rather reserved Brit) and too affirming with the audience, underneath the 'empathising' were some very helpful thoughts and insights. I especailly liked the section which encourages the listener to think about things that have inspired us in the past. Listen with an open mind and take what is relevant to you at that moment in time.

I liked the book but it left me with some unanswered questions:

What I liked:
The Life Makeover groups
The AssistU.com virtual assistants website
The Warletters.com example

What I didn't like:
Where is the benchmark with which you can measure when it is time to fish or cut bait?
As children, much of what we were going to do we knew because their was a natural progression. There were very few 'real' decisions necessary on our part. There were nature bench marks: school had semesters, classes had tests, sports had games, and musical interests had recitals.
Even today, as adults, a nutritionist will tell you how many calories to eat in a day. A trainer will tell you how many reps to do in a workout. A financial planner will tell you how much to save for retirement. So my question is:
So how do you know if the "passion" bar has been set too low?

Here are some of the things that I felt were left unaddressed:
What do you do if you have "exhausted the possibility"? (as Lance Armstrong states in his book Every Second Counts) You have taken the train to the last stop - you have gone ahead and taken the step through the newly opened door in pursuit of your passion. You have found it, made a decision, taken action and put in your time, money and energy into something only to find that you have finished out of the medal race? You find that there will be no gold, silver or bronze for your efforts. Yes you finished fourth based on your best effort - but the game doesn't take place again for another four years or at all? That event horizon is still going to close. All the "brainstorming", as Cheryl talks about in her book, isn't going to prevent that window of opportunity from continuing to narrow. We see it in tennis, golf, gymnastics, skating and even in school, a college athlete can't go back to play for another four years. In the business arena it is quite common that "barriers to entry" exist. This wasn't fully explored. In the field of economics it mentions how the "law of diminishing returns" can play a role in an outcome. This wasn't either. Speaking in books terms, "How" do you know "when" to finish reading an average book and when it is time to put it down and pick up another? That's what I would have liked to have learned from Finding Your Passion.
WHEN do you move from "sitting with it" as Cheryl speaks about in her book - to moving on to that new passion?

NOTE: I can't believe that in 2002 (This book/CD was published in 2002) that anyone would offer advice that it is OK to create email and send it as a "reply to all" - That is absurd. I would call that SPAM. There are MUCH better ways of getting people together electronically.

I listened to this C.D. on a long car ride, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's easy to get caught up in the daily "must-do's" of life and forget what really sparks our enthusiasm. Cheryl has terrific ideas and anecdotes to help us get back to what gets us going.
I got a kick out of how her New England accent is more noticeable by the end of the presentation.

Sometimes it ignites. Other times it just brews. Cheryl Richardson's taped lectures on finding passion present a day-to-day, everyday people process of letting yourself and your inner passion find one another. Filled with stories, case studies, and all sorts of unfolding paths. One of those motivational lectures that feel real rather than phony.

Displayed code examples are barely legible in the kindle version of this book. They appear as low resolution images and cannot be enlarged. Other kindle books format programming code fragments as text which is resizable, but not this book.

These guys put together a wonderful book; I've find it an ideal guide to solving pitfalls in the Java language and related J2EE™ technologies. Having this book on my desktop help me in preventing potential problems with my code and saving countless hours of time tracking down issues that aren't initially apparent.

Java Pitfalls points out a lot of common mistakes made in Java development as well as providing optimization and means of producing much cleaner code that runs faster and uses less memory. This book provides vital information for J2EE Architects and JDK1.4 specifications and lead Developers by showing how to avoid making mistakes that have critical impact on design and implementation of enterprise Java software.
The book covers Java NIO, which is a pretty formidable subject. The author does a decent job with this material. With JAXP, JAXR and JAXP, he provides you with instant access to critical, drill-down information on APIs and the foundation for you to proceed into any region of APIs usage and technology and have secure knowledge of the basics.
Besides being well written, the book is fun. I found myself trying to figure out along with the author how to improve the performance of the various examples demonstrated in the book. In addition to containing excellent advice; it's the most up to date publication dealing specifically with performance of Java applications.

This book is chock full of Java programming and architecture goodies. No Java programmer or architect should be without it. It hits on some of the subtleties of the paradigm and makes some great suggestions for solutions to common problems. I've already used several since I read the book three months ago. It covers the full range of the Java paradigm from EJBs to Servelts and JSPs. It also covers many Java Web service APIs such as JAXP, JAXR and JAXM. Unlike many other books, it also address J2ME, GUI programming and several utilities. Readers should also check out the web site that goes along with the book. It provides sample code, corrections to the text and links to additional resources.

The book is easy to read and well organized with excellent "how-to-fix" information about the "hard-to-figured out" problems. We found many of our Java servlets problems in this book and wished that we had this book earlier when we struggled to solve the instance concurrency problems in our web-based Java/Servlet application. This book is definitely the first book that we will refer too when we have any difficult Java related problems in the future.

This book is full of valuable information, and something that I believe I can use for my team of Java developers on our projects. I have enjoyed this entire book, but here are my comments on a few of my favorite "articles" from this book.

#1 - When Runtime.exec() won't. An excellent 13 page discussion of how things can go wrong with the famous Runtime.exec(). There are so many ways to mess up when running OS processes from Java, and this article discusses most of them, and more importantly, the right way to go about using Runtime.exec().

#5 - Avoid Granularity Pitfalls in java.util.logging. This is a well-written discussion of the java.util.logging API, and helps programmers avoid using it in the wrong way. This is a good tutorial, but I really like the pictures that show the relationship between the logger and the handler - it is much easier for people to understand that way.

#15 - Avoiding singleton pitfalls - This is a great discussion of how multiple "singletons" can happen in your VM, if you don't set them up the right way... My company has seen this happen a lot, but I have seen few discussions on it before this book.

#24 - JSP design errors. This is something that I don't believe many other books talk about, and is very valuable. A lot of the JSPs that I have seen out there look bad, and this shows how they should be developed. The examples are good, and this is short and to the point and conveys the points well.

#41 - The problem with multiple concurrent ResultSets. This shows an example of having 2 ResultSet objects open at the same time in an iteration, and showing the results in Sybase, Oracle, MySQL, Access, and SQLServer. It shows how, depending on the implementation of the driver & database, different behavior can be seen, and shows how to fix it. This is an excellent article - most examples I have seen before do not take the time to show behavior from multiple databases.

These are only a few of the articles from this book. I like the book because it is full of self-contained articles that discuss aspects of the Java programming language that are tricky - or are often misunderstood and misused. I also like it because it covers performance, design, and in many cases, gives metrics. Some of the APIs discussed in the book I have not used yet (j2me, jaxrpc, jaxr), but probably will in the future. This is an extremely relevant resources.

I can't say enough good things about this book. I give this an excellent rating, and recommend it highly.

My kids loved this book and had me read it to them 6 times! Yours will too!

This is a very good book. It is about two young children with no mother and then their father dies and they are very poor. They are forced to live with their aunt. (She is very mean and she doesn't care about anything but money.) Once the king of Noland died they decided for Bud to be the new king. It is really about their adventures with Bud being king. At the same time a magic cloak is going around and nobody knows that it is magical. People keep on accidentally making wishes and they don't know it until later when their wishes come true. Once they notice that it is magical everybody wants it. Soon there is a war against queen Zixi of Ix for the cloak.
This book is cool in very weird ways. It is also one of the books in the series of the Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. I like this book because the plot is fiction and I have read and liked most of the books that this author has written. I think that he is a very good author. He is very creative and I like that and how he uses his creativity to write his books.
I strongly recommend this book to whoever has it. I don't really think it belongs in a specific age group. I think that every body could read it and understand what is going in the book. I also think that whoever reads this book will really like this book.

Queen Zixi of Ix is far and away my favorite non-Oz Baum book, and actually is high on the list for my favorite Baum books in general. In the interesting and informative introduction to the Dover edition, Martin Gardner cites Baum himself (from a letter to his son) about the book.

Baum wrote: "In some ways Queen Zixi is my best effort, and nearer to the 'old-fashioned' fairy tale than anything I have yet accomplished."

In fact, one of the reasons that this book has stayed with me so strongly over the years (I have been re-reading it on and off since I was eight) is that pure fairy tale quality. The issues between Ix and Noland have less of the sly contemporary humor that Baum used in the Oz books. He instead revisits the classical fairy tale characters of the ruling innocents (Bud and Fluff), the tragic "evil" queen (Zixi), and the wicked step-parent (Aunt Rivette). What makes Queen Zixi so wonderful is that while the archetypes are recognizable in the characters, they are also vibrant and real people in their own right. The tension and the flow of the story relies on the fact that these characters are much more than their fairy tale ancestors.

I find that the Richardson illustrations work well with the book (it was the only Baum book that he illustrated). His style is memorable and works well with the text.

Expect the always reliable Baum humor and wordplay. Expect to be engaged and amused and moved.

Recommended for readers of any age.

I first read Queen Zixi of Ix when I was in fourth grade. I loved it then and got really into it. The story concerns a magic cloak that grants wishes (one wish only per person). For entertainment fairies weave the magic cloak and release it to the people of Nopland. The recipient is a little girl, Fluff. Through absurd circumstances her brother, Bud is crowned king of Noland.

Ironically only one person in the story ends up intentionally making a wish on the cloak. The others either forget that they are wearing the cloak or don't know about the cloak's magic properties, and so are granted the first wish that they state as they absently talk to themselves. Because the cloak takes things literally this leads to some absurd consequences as people is Bud's palace find their idle wishes come true.

Queen Zixi in the neighboring land of Ix has heard about the cloak. She decides to steal it and after a few tries succeeds. However the wish will not be granted if the cloak has been stolen. Queen Zixi doesn't get her wish and discards the cloak without knowing why.

Meanwhile Bud's country of Noland is invaded by very round rude people called Roly-Rouges. He and Fluff don't have the cloak to help them and appeal to Zixi for help. She took the cloak while in disguise and switched it for a fake so the kids don't know that the cloak is missing. They only know that it won't work. The rest of the book follows Zixi helping the children as they hunt down the cloak and deal with the Roly-Rouges. Naturally this happens in unexpected ways.

As an adult rereading this book I still liked it, but the pacing felt kind of funny. This is a fairly short book and lots happens (more than I can summarize here). When I read this as a child the pacing felt perfect so I probably read faster now. There are still little jokes included here for adults, though. At one point a character muses that this would be the way things work "in a fairytale, but not here in the real world of Noland". So there are little jokes and ways in which things are worded that adults will get but children will likely overlook as they think about fairies, wishes and magic. This book is written more for children, but if you read it as an adult or if you read it aloud to kids there is something for you too.

If you have younger children then this book is definitely a good choice for them. I remember it well from my childhood and I loved it. For a child it is a must read. For an adult it is a quick entertaining read.

L. Frank Baum is best known for THE WIZARD OF OZ and the sequels he wrote to that series. All of them are good but, of course, some are better than others. He wrote other stories as well and most of them take place in the same general locale as the Oz stories. The kingdoms and personages may vary but the "feel" remains the same. This book is one such.

This is an original fairy tale and has many of the familiar aspects of the classical genre. It is fun and well written and is as fully deserving of respect as the OZ books. Some say it was Baum's best work; Baum himself certainly ranked it among his best. I had heard of this book when I was a child in love with all things Oz but it was out of print at that time. Thankfully, it is available now.

The story centers around a magic cloak created by a fairy queen. The possessor of the cloak will be granted one wish. Many of those wishes turn out to be foolish or wasteful. The cloak is originally given to a young orphan girl, Fluff. Her brother is soon proclaimed King of Noland and turns out to be an enlightened ruler, even if he is full of the follies of youth. The cloak provokes jealousies, however, and Noland soon finds itself at war with Ix and ultimately conquered by a bunch of strange beings foreign to both Noland and Ix. The cloak turns out to be a source of trouble as well as a blessing.

Leanne D. review of After Hamelin by Bill Richardson, March 12, 2008. This book was an interesting account of what happened to the one child left after the Pied Piper piped all of the children of Hamelin away for revenge. The majority of the story is in the leftover child's, Penelope, who is capable of "deep dreaming", dream in which she goes on the quest to rescue the children of Hamelin. She is accompanied by her cat, Scallywaggle, and is guided along the way by a very old man named Cuthbert. Along the way to the Piper's palace, Penelope makes friends with the Trolavians and with a dragon. Once she and her newfound friends find their way to the Piper's palace, they get locked up with Penelope's sister, Sophy, who appears to be the only child around. Sophy proves them right once she explains that the piper has turned all of the children into rats. As Penelope's friend, Alloway, gets turned into a rat by the piper, Penelope catches the words to the spell and turns it on herself in an attempt to save the other children. She does so, only to chase the Piper and the other children over the border between dream and waking. Penelope manages to free the children and restore the spell that bound the Piper to the land of dreaming.

What was THAT?!
That was the strangest book I ever read, that's what. Very...interesting. It left you with a few unanswered questions, but it wasn't a half bad book.

Very...um...interestingly....strange....though...

This book is a newer version of an old story.I myself a 12 loved this book my mom a well... older than twelve year old also loved this book. It was great and I thought Penelope was a very brave herione. I also loved Quentin and his unusal habits.Most of the people who went on the journey and some sort of disablity, take for example Alloway a blind harper, it just made the story a little more intersting on how it showed us that even if we are disabled we can do great things. I recomend this book to boys and girls of all ages.

In this woderfully weaved tale of a girl, Penelope who is 101 years recalls upon her childhood adventure in saving the children of Hamelin. Once you read this book you will want to know more and more until the book ends. But imagination doesn't only end at the last pages for some. Many may want to make a tale of their own. Penelope recalls in extraordinary detail and Bill Richardson has done a wonderful job of making the pipers music in this book turn you eyes to look at the story. The cover speaks alot itself and one look can tell you the meaning " a picture is worth a thousand words." You may get annoyed with the repeating parts where she always says she's 101, but other than that its a good story.
Penelope is a skipper. Not any ordinary skipper, she's a skipping harpers daughter. Ever since she was little there has always had music in her life. Then on the day of her elevening, she goes deaf. The same day the piper comes to pipe away the children with his magical net of music from his pipe. All children but two. Alloway, a blind apprentice who stays with Govan, Penelope's father and of course our heroine, Penelope. To save the children of Hamelin she must go to a world both seen and unseen. Where anything can happen, into a land of dreaming. The stakes are high and in this dream world you just can't wish yourself away from danger.With a wacky group of companions she embarks on her journey... the rest is for you to find out...

After Hamelin might be marketed as children's lit, but that demeans it. The characters are real and alive. Even the cat. How many authors have tried to make an animal into a character and failed? But Scallywaggle is a full-fledged character. And who ever thought of a flower-arranging dragon? I'm still working on my re-read, so some of the details that I have aren't great. Though I hate the children's sections, I love fairy tales, and wish everyone would remember C.S. Lewis's dedication of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Children's lit is often an incompetent author trying to sell to kids who don't care about quality. After Hamelin, though, should go to the fairy tale section. I hate Disney retellings: they make fairy tales cheap and simplistic happily-ever-afters. Richardson knows his story of the Pied Piper well, and does with it exactly what everyone should do with fairy tales: he takes it, adds some stuff, changes some characters, adds events, and puts in beautifully handled prose. He reinvents the story for a more modern reader, and makes it more accessible. Penelope isn't "charming" in the sense that she isn't the sweet, adorable little girl, nor is she the tomboyish one who defies the rules. There's no title on the list of character cliches to fit her, or any characters in this book. They're all their own selfs, and that's what makes this book stand above the masses of fairy-tale takeoffs that plague book stores. There's not much else to say. I read this first when I was 10, and now at 14, and will keep reading it throughout my life. Read this book, and remember, above all things, one: we are never too old for fairy tales, and fairy tales aren't for children alone. I'll spare the rant on that here, but read After Hamelin, regardless of your age, and rediscover the fact that we all have dreams and goals, and that no matter how fantastical they are, they are true.

The Blue Fairy book was a great book. I have read most of these fairy tales before, but Andrew Lang puts these stories in a new perspective. Most kids, are used to Disney Princesses and how all of them have happy endings, but in the Blue Fairy book there is a jappy ever after, but with a twist. My faveorite was East of the Sun and West of the Moon. It was about a poor man who has three daughters. They were all very pretty, but the youngest was the prettiest. a white bear came and asked the poor man fot the youngest and he will become very rich. The poor man excepted. the youngest daughter rode on the back of the white bear's back and came to castle. the white bear gave her a silver bell that if she rang it everything she wanted will appear. After that, he left. she survived for a few weeks, but she started getting lonley. When the white bear came, the youngest teacher asked to visit her family. The white bear said yes, but to not listen to anything her mother says. The youngest daughter went to her family. Her mother took her aside and asked if anything is going wrong. for awhile she said nothing, but then she told her mother about a strange noise she heard. Her mother told her to go to where she heard the noise, take a candle and see what is there. She took her mother aadvice and when she did it she found a prince. The candle wax fell on her shirt. The youngest daughter looked suprised. She saw a white fuzzy cloth on the floor. he said that now she saw him in his real self, he now has to marry a troll. He left in a vanish, but saying "I am going east of the sun and west of the moon." She the north wind to go to the place the prince had said. She found a big mountain. she climbed it. She saw the troll and asked her to see the prince for one night for a special gift for their wedding. The troll excepted, but gave the prince a sleeping drinmk. the youngest daughter went up to the prince's bedroom. She couldn't wake him up. She was yelling and crying. Morning came and the troll kicked her out. She offered another gift. The troll excepted. The same thing happened that night, but on the third night, a servant heard the daughter crying. The prince pretented to drink the sleeping drink. When the daughter came they had a very nice night together. In the day the prince said that the lady who can get the stain off the the wax from the candle stick. The troll tried to get the stain out, but it just got bigger. Other trolls tried too, but the stain got bigger. The youngest daughter tried and the stain came off. The prince and the youngest daughter got married and lived happily ever after.

Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book is just as god as any of the other fairy books, it just has different stories. This book has 37 short fairy tales and black and white pictures on 7 different pages. Some of the fairy tales that this book has include:The Bronze Ring,The Yyellow Dwarf,Little Red Riding Hood,The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood,Cinderella,Aladin,Rumpelstiltzkin,Beauty and the Beast,Han sel and Grettel,Snow White,and many more.
In my opinion this book has the biggest collection of classic Disney fairy tales, the ones most people know.

This book is amazing! We are blessed to have an older hardcover copy of this book in our public library that is so lovingly worn, it's a treat to borrow it and read it as a family! My boys adore these stories and I plan to share these with my grandchildren one day...if my boys don't beat me to it! Wonderful book! Check it out for yourself and see! :o)

The Fairy Book series by Andrew Lang is not politically correct. I don't think these will be around for long or they'll be "fixed" such as is emerging with Irish fairy tales.
(The American Druidic folk discovered the PC "fixing" going on with the Irish fairy tales some years back.) The books in the series are replicas of the originals. The artwork is magnificent.

I grew up with my great-grandmother's first-edition, from the early 1890's. The stories are lush and eloquent, unequivocally imaginative. Recently, I bought my niece a current copy. I am overjoyed to see the gorgeous original illustrations which, I had fallen in love with, are included in the later editions. If you are able, I do highly recommend purchasing the rest of the books in the series. Any child will be thoroughly delighted. You will happily discover your child's vocabulary considerably enhanced.