Shepard Books

I gave this book to a 6 year old daughter of a close friend four years ago, and it became her favorite book for months. It still comes out on Christmas four years later.

I recommend it to any parent - especially if they live in the Albany, NY area.

This is a delightful story to read to your children during Advent, particularly around the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6.


I think this book is a nice change of pace for children who are already aware of who St. Nicholas is and his history as a bishop. This story is set in Albany, New York, probably in the 18th or 19th century. We just know that it was before modern times and certainly before the days of the super grocery stores!

The story centers on the baker, Van Amsterdam, a good baker and honest businessman who gives his customers exactly what they pay for, "not more and not less." Although that is very legal and very fair, it's not exactly fun is it? In the long run it also proves to be bad for business when a mysterious old woman enters the bakery and asks for 13 St. Nicholas Cookies and insists that 13 makes a dozen. When Van Amsterdam reiterates his motto and only gives her 12 cookies the old lady curses him as she leaves with the words, "Fall again, mount again, learn how to count again!"

After that Van Amsterdam's business falls off and his baking suffers. A dream of the good saint and his genorosity turn Van Amsterdam's heart around and changes his business practices. In the end he learns that a few freebies are actually good for business, and for his own heart!

The illustrations are colorful and interesting. My kids loved to look at the detail in them. This is another nice book to read during the Advent season!

This is a gorgeously illustrated book that teaches a wonderful lesson about the spirit of generosity. Who can condemn the baker who is perfectly fair? St. Nicholas, cloaked as an old woman -- who shows him that by giving more of his own possessions, he will in turn receive greater rewards. This is a great way to teach young children about the the joy of giving, and about the life of St. Nicholas. The "truth" about Santa is that there WAS a saint who gave to the poor, filled stockings and dropped gold coins down chimneys at night -- this book could launch older kids on a study of the real saint's life and how Santa traditions arose. My six year old boys aren't ready for that part yet, but they love the story of the baker, and this year we're going to try to bake gingerbread cookies to resemble the baker's St. Nicholas cookies on St. Nicholas Day. (Some clever marketer ought to package this book with a cookie cutter and recipe, because the cookies are beautiful!)

I found this book in the library and immediately loved it and ordered it both for my 2 1/2 year old son and my 1 1/2 year old nephew for his (Greek Orthodox)baptism. It is very loving and beautiful. It approaches the topic of God broadly. I really think that it can be meaningful for both religious and non-religious (but spiritual) people. It is somewhat nature centered but without being too "hippy-ish". It affirms good morals and is simple but not dumbed down. I'm so happy that I found this book!

The power in this book lies not only in its beautiful, oversized illustrations which fill out the entirety of its pages (11.25 x 9.53), but also in its well chosen words which describe God in terms that are understandable by children. This book is worthy of highest honors for its illustrations and the author provides a text which paints pictures with words which are ample accompaniment. It is important for parents of young children to begin the discussion of God and this compelling book provides a guide to admiring the beauty of His creation in a form that can be held in one's hands. It is non-sectarian. This book deserves many more than 5 stars. It has not received the attention it deserves.

"Everyone wonders about God...We think about Him and wish we could see Him, but we don't need to see God to know what He is like."

Thus begins, "A Book About God," a simple and beautifully illustrated story that explains God by comparing Him to things that are like Him and His love - the sky, the air, the sun, the rain, the sea - all things beautiful. The author paints a picture of a God who is loving, protective, gentle and always present - even when He can't be seen. The illustrations are beautiful depictions of nature.

The book is non-sectarian but some readers may find the reference to God as a "he" to be problematic. However, "A Book About God" is a good beginning point for a subject that many children wonder and ask about and which is not easily explained or defined.

My daughter loves listening to this book. It's a fun read, too. The pictures are great, the story is great and I do think the wording flows if you catch your pacing correctly. We now read this every night.

As the mother of a 3-year-old who lives for trains and pretends to be a dinosaur all day long; I feel this book was written just for him. The rhyme doesn't quite flow, but the illustrations are spectacular and the story is great. If only I can find a copy for him; it's out of print!

Brother Billy hops right off the page and into your imagination! The pictures are colorful, the story memorable (my son could recite it to me!) and this book is fun to read. The opprotunity to play with the sounds and to assume a southern accent make it ideal for grown-ups that like to act out characters. Not to mention children that revel in fun, exciting reading. I highly recomend this book for all ages.

Some of the boys in my first grade class have launched into a cowboy phase (hopefully due to a ranch-themed week in reading) and this is one of the books they had me read to them. Most of all I loved the illustrations, though the nice, thoughtful prose of the cowboy life was nice as well. It's pretty and easy to read for the kids, and the illustrations are fun to look

Cowpokes features simple, rhyming text, and lovely, colorful illustrations with native desert flora & fauna. There are "games" we discovered in the book, too, such as hidden animals amongst the cliffs, and locating the groundhog on every page.

If your littles like cowboys, horses or the desert, this is the book for you!!

This book has the best illustrations of cowboys for children. My boys and I first checked this book out in the library. They are ages 3 and 6. We loved the book so much we bought the book on Amazon. It is the cutest cowboy book I have ever seen and I love the illustrations.

Alice, Peter, Dorothy, the Wardrobe, half-magic . . . all on quests in magical places. But this one is the best and the most meaningful. Alone, Griselda is be-friended by magical creatures--not unlike imaginary friends--until she finds strength within herself and her real world. This old book never gained the notariety of others, but is far more enchanting, well-written, and touching than those that became more fashionable. It is a book that many readers claim changed their lives. It entertains and touches the hearts of young and old.

This is one of the most magical & imaginative children's books I have ever read, I first read it as a child and have never forgotten it! Buy it for your children....

than "The Cuckoo Clock" to an imaginative child of the proper age! While its tales-within-tales were lovely, what really caught me were the evocative details of the little heroine's surroundings. I realize my love for potpourri, nodding "Mandarin" porcelains, and yes, even cuckoo clocks were formed as I read this book.

The students in my classroom enjoyed this book. It gave them a great overview of the content we had been studying. It can be used at the beginning of a unit or as a review.

We read this book as part of our medieval times studies, and it compliments your studies wonderfully, in that it surveys a very broad range of time, but it all focuses on the discovery of the AMericas, from the last Ice Age to the Europeans. It should not be your only reading of the subject, but it helps put history in perspective for your 7-10 year old. There is also a timeline of dates in the back. This book went well with our Story of the World readings.

I came across this book by Betsy Maestro "The Discovery of the Americas" and I loved it. The text is simple and the illustrations are great. It is historically accurate as well, a must in my checklist. I didn't realize she also wrote the historical series "You Wouldn't Want to..." They are my favorite!! I recommend all of her books, especially for teachers. This series "The American Story" are great. I just wished they were more but she doesn't have one for the Revolution which would be great.

This is a wonderfully written, extremely helpful book. The footnotes alone are worth the price of the book!

I can't speak or read Russian and I'm not a trained specialist in Russian history. All I am is a person who is fascinated by the history of that great nation and people. And this book seems to me to be pretty close to essential for anyone who shares that interest.

The Emergence of Rus tells of the origins of the Russian people and the first great Russian state at Kiev. Given that few written sources are available for the time period, this book relies heavily on archaelogical information early on. Such written sources as exist are compared and contrasted and the conclusions drawn seem eminently reasonable. Even though there is a lot of archaelogical data presented in the first part of this book, it is by no means dry. Franklin and Shepard have a interesting story to tell and they tell it very well. I found The Emergence of Rus to be a very good read, something I'll definitely go back to.

If you are interested in Russian history at all, this book is highly recommended.

It is truly unfortunate that this book has yet to be released in an affordable edition, because the Longman History of Russia series is a definite must-have for anyone interested in Russia. There are not enough good overviews of Medieval Russian history, and Franklin's book is a thorough analysis and explanation of the origins of the Kievan state. Great read, even if you have to go to a library...

More of Shepard's mix of the exotic and bizarre, from crazed sf jungle war, to demon summoning. Even a high fantasy with Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter, although even that has junkies and midget slaying.

Ends of the earth : The Ends of the Earth - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Delta Sly Honey - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Bound for Glory - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : The Exercise of Faith - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Nomans Land - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Life of Buddha - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Shades - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Aymara - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : A Wooden Tiger - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : The Black Clay Boy - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Fire Zone Emerald - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : On the Border - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter - Lucius Shepard
Ends of the earth : Surrender - Lucius Shepard


Writer's Guatemalan getaway gains girl, but the local game proves a tad gruesome.

4 out of 5


Ghost patrol's gunnin' for body baggin' boy broadcaster.

4.5 out of 5


Shapeshifters need shootin' on the terror train.

4 out of 5


Reverend's sermonised secrets stab home.

3 out of 5


Come into my dream parlour said the undead spider-woman to the shipwrecked IRA bloke.

3.5 out of 5


Drug den death's transformation.

3 out of 5


Ghost grunt.

3.5 out of 5


Honduran honey's time travel revolution.

4.5 out of 5


Spook settles up after goddess girl's demon defiance mentor death trap.

4 out of 5


Bloodnut's moonlighting memories.

3 out of 5


Drug boosted maniac murderous soldiers seek Queen of the Jungle.

3.5 out of 5


Rich girl rescuer rudely repulsed.

3 out of 5


Escapee dragon prisoner.

3.5 out of 5


Guatemalan mini-mutant massacre.

4 out of 5

Lucius Shepard, The Ends of the Earth (Arkham House, 1991)

Lucius Shepard has been one of America's most underrated writers for years; this is one of those collections that faded into obscurity quickly, but that deserves to be taken out, dusted off, and thrust upon the nation with the marketing campaign it deserves.

The Ends of the Earth features fourteen of Shepard's finest stories from early in his career. They span the globe from Vietnam to Guatemala to New England, taking on all things weird and wonderful, and are uniformly excellent. Fans who came to know Shepard through Twilight Zone magazine and the excellent Vietnam War fiction collection In the Field of Fire will already be familiar with "Delta Sly Honey" and "Shadows," two of the book's strongest pieces. Others will no doubt already know the novella "The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter," published on its own as a limited edition, and the kind of story that cannot be described with any accuracy; it must be read to be believed. All, and the rest of the stories here, are mesmerizing.

That said, this is a collection of early work (well, relatively); while the stories here are undoubtedly strong, sometimes they don't reach the gloriousness of some of his later work, especially the novels. That's not to say this stuff isn't worth reading; to the contrary, seek this book out however you have to. ****

Lucius Shepard is one of the most extraordinary writers living, inside the genre ghetto or out. All his books - Green Eyes, The Jaguar Hunter, The Golden, Barnacle Bill the Spacer, Life During Wartime and any others you happen to run across - are complex, literate, unputdownable and decidedly different from anything else you've ever come across. There's almost nothing in science fiction, less in horror fiction, and damn little in the mainstream to match his visionary scope, his brilliant atmospherics, and his lucid prose - lucid even in the most extreme states of mind and of spirit. The stories in The Ends of the Earth take place in his usual locations - evil little Central American wars as in "Fire Zone Emerald", weird mutations of the United States as in "Bound for Glory" and "Nomans Land", and upon (and inside) the great dragon Griaule in the stunning "The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter" - which is a heartbreakingly beautiful story. As are the rest, including among many others the terrifyingly optimistic "Bound for Glory", which tells of monsters and why we might consider joining them; the existential nightmare "Nomans Land", which treats of white spiders which dream us; and "Aymara", which is that near impossibility, an original tale of time travel, with one of the most moving final sentences I've ever seen. You should go to the ends of the earth to buy this one. These fourteen stories alone are worth a cartload of almost anyone else.

This script was needed by my son in a hurry, and I got it super fast. He was very happy with it, and I was very happy with the price and speed of shipping. Fantastic play, by the say.

In Fool for Love , Sam Shepard analyzes the complicated relationship between May and Eddie who are involved in a love-hate, fascination-repulsion 15-year-long relation which is once more in the `on again' phase.
Set in a low-budget motel room on the edge of the Mojave Desert, May and Eddie play out an unpredictable encounter. Traveling close to 2,500 miles to come back into her life, Eddie attempts to once again declare his faithfulness and commitment to the unconvinced May, who tells him: "You gotta give this up. You've been jerking me off like this for fifteen years. Fifteen years, I've been a yo-yo for you". May screams for Eddie to leave yet pleads for him to stay upon his repeated exits. Through their arguing, the chemistry and history the two have shared becomes apparent and it is obvious that the characters are deeply in love. "We've got a pact...we've made a pact", Eddie said to May. "You know we're connected, May. We will always be connected...that was decided a long time ago", he added.
A bottle of tequila blends the couple's arguing into the narration of a story that deepens on May and Eddie's past revealing how the two were already completely in love when the truth was learned about their true relationship. At this point of the play, Shepard had gotten illusion and reality finely combined that it takes a while to understand that the Old Man observing, and occasionally interacting with the characters, is just their distant father's ghost.
Shepard has done an amazing job in this play managing illusory conversations naturally flow within the real ones. May and Eddie seem to have both independent and joined conversations with the Old Man.
A fourth character, Martin comes into the story, as the shy, naive date of May to reminds us that the conversation between the protagonists is "real". As Eddie, now drunk, continues his story of how he came to know May, the old man yells for him to stop the story, but ends up discovering facts of his own past as well -- which confused me since his presence is not real but illusory only.
The fact that at the end of the play, the motel gets burned down by Eddie's mistress, -- as May refers to her -- May is forced to move away again, suggesting us that the vicious cycle in which the characters live, will be repeated once again following what Eddie once told May: "You'll never get rid of me. I'll track you down no matter where you go".

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results. We learn of Eddie, Mae, their father, and a "Man" (Martin) coming for a date blind to the status of the relationship of his date and her brother and their father. I am a Senior at Lindenwood University in St. Charles Missouri, double majoring in Theatre and Mass Communications. This April, I will be directing "Fool For Love" as my senior project. This play, as analyzed in a previous modern drama class and in my current working analysis, is highly identifiable with anyone who has ever been involved in a severely dysfunctional relationship that won't go away. Mr. Shepard creates four intricate and powerful characters sharing both realistic and ethereal existances.

This book is colorfully illustrated with lots of funny looking characters and is set in an enchanting city. The book is a pleasant read for kids at bedtime and I recommend it.

It was a nice touch to see the page titled "how to say the names" with the phonetic equivalents written next to them - as we know many names can be mispronounced. However, it was disappointing to see that they made a typo on the phonetic equivalent word for IRAN! It says eer-ON instead of ee-RON. I hope they correct this mistake if there is a reprint.

This book is wonderful. I love the way Alisher Dianov illustrates his childrens books. This book would be a fine addition to any library, child or adult.

Excellent English translation of the folk story. I have heard a couple of other versions of this story when I was growing up in Iran. It was a (very) pleasant surprise to see that the story has been translated. The illustrations are remarkable. You can see the old Persian architecture, the costumes, the robes and turbans, yet the characters are cartoonish and extremely funny. I hope to see more Persian folk stories by the author and illustrator.