Simmons Books

I bought this book because I own two other Bag Ladies books. This book has not disappointed me. I have incorporated these projects into my math lessons which has helped bring math to life for all of my students. The use of these simple manipulatives has brought a greater understanding to my lessons and has provided that needed element of hands-on for my students. They now look forward to taking out their hand-made projects to do a lesson. Math is now fun in my classroom. Thanks to the Bag Ladies for their simple and innovative projects. The materials are easy to get - especially if you send home a wish list to your parents. I like the idea of recycling materials from home rather than going out and buying everything. It helps to teach my students how to stay "Green". I recommend this resource to all teachers whether they have small groups or entire classes - you won't be disappointed.

I really wanted to like this book. From the description it sounded just like what I was looking for. But when I received it, I was really disappointed. I am a classroom teacher, and was looking for some new math centers to do with my students. I think this book would be better for a math club, or working with a small group of students. I say this because many of the activities include materials that teachers would have to go out and buy-- velcro dots, magnets trips, beads, clay, CD cases-- and then prepare. This could easily turn into a daunting task for 25+ students. Plus, I didn't feel the pay off (learining) of the activity was worth the time it would take, in many cases.

Aside from the activities themselves, the book looks like it was made on a home-computer. The font used for the titles is really annoying to look at.

If you are a non-teacher leading a math group, this book might give you some cute ideas. But if you are a teacher, you've probably seen most of these ideas already. Maybe some of the other books from these ladies are better, but my advice is to pass on this one. While their hearts are in the right place with hands-on math activities, there are better books out there.

I love this book and my students love the projects! It is easy to use with pictures that show the visual outcome. You know which NCTM standards are being addressed too. There are lots of reproducible sheets to help teachers and parents. Its packed with creative ideas to make teaching math easy!

Memory Tips for Math, Memorization and Learning Styles: The Successful Way to Teach K-5 Math

I think this is a great book that gives not only the story of starbuck's as a store, but it also narrates how the company's philosophy of the company was established giving it's added value service.
Highly recommend for anyone who works on marketing or communications related areas.

I love all things Starbucks which is why I purchased this book.

I was under the impression that this story would be a diary type book, complete with juicy stories of interactions and goings on at Starbucks.

This was not the case. This book is basically loaded with all types of information (business-wise mainly) on Starbucks, coffee, and the industry in general. There are some great photographs of various Starbucks stores in various cities in the world.

This book is interesting if you are looking for dry facts. If you are looking for anecdotes, cute stories or juicy gossip, this is not the book for you.

However, having said that, it is obvious that the author was painstaken about his research and certainly took his subject matter to heart.

This book can be finished in a day! I simply couldn't put it down. It's written as a story so you get quickly pulled into the storyline to find out the end. Although, you already know the ending...Starbucks is one of the most admired brands and successful companies ever known.

So how did they do it? This book answers this question and more. What I enjoyed about the book is that it opened the door to the heart and soul of Starbucks to reveal their evolution and foundation. As I prepare my business plan, this book has been more helpful to me than typical business plan books. A lot of times those books provide heartless examples of companies. Sure you've got a great idea for a product or service, but how do you translate that into a brand? What is in the best interest for your customer? After all, Starbucks just sells coffee and coffee related products - nothing extravagant alone, but the mystical & romantic experience surrounding their coffee is a distinctive brand that is difficult to match.

This book answers the Who? Where? When? Why? How? of the Starbucks development - their trials, errors and commitment to their beliefs. The concepts discussed in the book are things that I feel touch every business, yet this book provides consistent examples of how to address them.

Concepts such as:-
-Growth & development
-Branding
-Why you don't have to franchise to be successful brand
-Rewarding customers by first rewarding employees ("partners") and suppliers
-Turning down profitable alternatives if it sacrifices the customer's overall experience or a partner's view of the company

I must admit I have not read "Pour your heart into it" so I can't comment on any similarities/differences between the two books. What I can say is that if you are interested in creating a world-class company and want to learn how to infuse your company with a soul (rather than focusing on your product development) to ensure success, then this is your book!

I bought this solely for the rare Stephen King story "The Replicants", which is good but feels more like a first chapter in a book that a short story (unresolved ending). The other two King stories are okay ("Sneakers" being the better of the two, but both are published in Nightmares and Dreamscapes. The real treat here is Dan Simmons. I am more familiar with his sci-fi and mystery works, and was happily surprised by these stories which are more in the horror vein. "Metastasis" is an excellent story about what cancer really is a result of (with several revolting scenarios), while "Iverson's Pits" is an atmospheric piece that involves the corrupt legacy of an inept and cruel Civil War officer. If you like the period piece horror of "The Terror", you'll enjoy this long story. I didn't read the Martin novella.

This was originally published as Night Visions 5, a horror anthology series. It's got some neat stories. It's interesting to see people so critical of a work that was never meant to compete with Hemingway. These stories are clever and fun and, as they are supposed to, entertain.

I recommend the book as an interesting diversion...unless you're looking for Hemingway!

I would actually give this book 3.5 stars, but since that is not an option, three it is. That said, while I was kept interested by Yonge's narrative, I can't help but feel that she read Jane Austen's novels when she was young and then could not get away from similar plots. Clever Woman certainly parallels both Emma in the main character of Rachel Curtis, and Persuasion in the characters of the Colonel and Ermine.Therefore, while somewhat enjoyable, I feel that this book did not live up to all it wanted to be.

The Clever Woman of the Family (1865)
Like Dorothea Brooke of Middlemarch, Rachel Curtis (the 'Clever Woman' of the title) longs to live a more useful and more meaningful life than that generally accorded to young ladies of her station. Like Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse, Rachel also has an arrogant habit of believing she knows better than anyone else how the world ought to be arranged. She governs her own life foolishly, and with great presumption manipulates the lives of others; and like both Dorothea and Emma, she makes colossal blunders in the process. Her actions, however, unlike Dorothea's, hurt other people more than herself; and unlike Emma's, they result in tragedy as well as comedy. The story also offers a rather unusual and utterly lovable hero, and a Persuasion-like subplot of two lovers long kept apart by family disapproval and personal misfortune.
Like Yonge's other works, this novel has an instructional purpose and a high religious & moral tone. However, in this case I did not find these so intrusive as to interfere at all with my considerable enjoyment of the book. Needless to say, The Clever Woman of the Family is hardly a feminist manifesto - but then, it was the written and set in the Victorian era, when the mere idea that it was not only acceptable, but necessary, for a young woman like Rachel to read and think deeply (as the author quite clearly implies) was pretty radical stuff.
(NOTE: The Broadview Edition includes a moderate number of typos, and some pages may become detached if you crack the binding.)

We love all of these books, the story is great. A must have for any child who loves animals.

I bought this book because my daughter LOVES the moon. She always wants to see it. She also loves ducks. The title of this book led me to belive it was about a duck and a moon. Perfect... I thought. The illustrations are nice in the book but the story isn't anything to jump up and down about, and it has nothing at all to do with the moon. It is about a duck who wanders off in the night and then finally returns safely to her mom. The moon is not even mentioned.... bummer. But still a cute book, I guess, I just wanted more moon!

This wonderful little ghost story gave me goosebumps and took me back to my childhood with my six siblings in Ohio. On dark, stormy nights we used to sit in our "gable room" in the attic of our house and tell ghost stories; you know, the ones like "Drop of drop of blood, I'm on the first step ..." Oh-hhhhhhhhhhh, creepy. (Incidentally, I relate one of these episodes from our young lives in my new book that's coming out in early April: 1106 Grand Boulevard.)

This author, learning that she was psychic from an early age, must have led an interesting life. In this story she relates the experiences she and her psychic aunt had at the "most haunted plantation in the United States," The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana.

This was the author's first experience, and with her Aunt Belle Brown--an experienced ghost hunter and psychic--leading the way, it was a spooky adventure.

If this one doesn't make you a "believer in ghosts" and raise your hackles, nothing will. Good job! - review by Betty Dravis, author of the Amazon Short "V.O."

This Amazon Short was named wrong, it should have been called "Tour Guide Tales", because it's just that, a tour guide story about well-a tour.

I read nothing in here, that any other "haunting" tour brochure wouldn't have said to prepare you for the tour, the atual "hauntings" recalls read like some housewife's journal and not a seasoned writer per se.

They were something one can expect at campfire-story-telling-hour; nothing more and definately something much less, then what we were led to expect.

I'm sure you've heard of the Bell Witch in Adams, Tennessee, who carrys a lantern and walks the train tracks. Well it is of slightly more modern vintage than this one from the Civil War in Louisiana. Tana is a witch woman who talks to the other side and is able to control the cpirit world.

In 1875, a time machine lands at the Chenaie plantation to claim ownership. Something like 'Somewhere in Time,' only this witch ghost has gone back in time to clear something up concerning the happenings there at the old antebellum mansion with the fancy cupola on the top. She claims to be from the future, 2005. "You said that time travel's impossible. Yet, here I am, a dimension that's not supposed to exist -- with people who have been long dead in my time. If it's impossible, how did it happen to me? How else would she be here?

Basil, an elusive ghost, who pulls shenanigans; it's thought he stuck around to be near the family graves as he couldn't stop grieving after his wife died. "Time don't matter when a man loves a woman." He had been seventy-two when his granddaughter, Shaia, was born. Now, he has called her back to meet the man she will love, just as he had loved her grandmother. Jake told her, "You mentioned other dimensions, and some people do believe those exist. One of those is a totally unexplainable dimension, but almost every cultlure has mad a stab at setting forth a rational theory on it. Everything has to be taken on faith, though, because no one alive can tell us what it's like in reality."

Francesca (I always though of Waller's (BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY) as a 'fallen angel') is a good name for a guardian angel. She looks after the angel witch in the countryside of Spanish moss hanging from the tall, tall trees. Southern gentlemen don't abandon ladies in distress. "That he had come for her, admitted their argument had disturbed him so deeply, and now confessed to the same feelings. This man from across time was everything to her -- everything she could have wished for herself."

This is a nice little ghost story for Halloween. Many artificial ghosts and goblins will be traversing the neighborhoods and countryside soon to have fun on the Devil's Night. One young woman told me she has put together a costume of a dark fairy (red & black with a little silver mixed in); she loves unicorns and fairies, but not Tinker Bell. Which brings us back to the Bell witch. If you are not familiar with it, do some research and regale your friends with your knowledge.

In 2005 Guardian Angel Sylvia suffers from battle fatigue syndrome after fifteen years on earth trying to help crazy human Jackie. She asks her boss Superior Guardian Angel Francesca for a vacation, but her reaction is one of disbelief as angels do not take vacations. However following Janine's latest insanity behind a wheel, Francesca agrees that she and Sylvia need to go on sabbatical to an easier quieter era. She selects 1875.

In 2005, architectural restorationist Alaynia Mirabeau drives her rental from Baton Rouge to her new home Chenaie that she inherited form her late aunt and not been occupied for five years. However, something weird happens and she ends up in a ditch with no paved road in sight. Shain St. Clair sees her and tries to help the reluctant strange female who claims his estate is hers although he sees a horseless carriage for the first time. As they become acquainted they fall in love, but she came from the future because Basil the ghost wanted to stop her plans to renovate his home while two angels insist he send her back where she belongs.

WITCH ANGEL is a fun fantasy romance that lampoons the recent flood of angelic matchmakers. The story line contains five solid characters the displaced but mortal lovers, the crusty ghost, and the pair of not vacationing angels. Readers will take immense delight as the angels argue with the free will ghost to return the heroine to her times even while they debate between themselves how nicely Alaynia and Shain seem together.

Harriet Klausner

This book is a good resource for Dungeon Masters to gain a different voice in ideas in creating stories for your players. It is a good addition to a DM's library

This book is a collection of essays by notables in the gaming field, and their thoughts about the purpose of the Gamemaster, and ideas on how to make the roleplaying experience better for all. While it does have some "try this" tips, it really isn't a "how to do gamemastering" book, in the sense of checklists and steps.

New Mexico's numero uno historian offers New Mexico history buffs another delicious slice of Hispanic life in Spanish colonial times. The only complaint I have is that I wanted a bigger slice of this pie! Dr. Simmons' readability is appreciated. This is one you will read straight through without coming up for air. This sometimes unflattering history of the Spanish colonists in Alburquerque prompted my desire to dig up Dr. Simmons' earlier book on Albuquerque, published in 1982, which satisfied my need for sources, end notes, and a bibliography, which I heartily recommend for those needed a stronger dose of Albuquerque history.

This is a good book for the general reader, but if you are a history buff you may be dissapointed. The book lacks footnotes and is too short, and often times reads like fiction rather than fact. This does not mean that it's not well researched, it just means that sometimes the author concentrates too much on telling an interesting story rather than relaying good information.

But if you are a general reader, and enjoy a quick read, this book may be for you. If you know nothing about the history of Albuquerque, this we enlighten you. However, if you are like me and have done research on Albuquerque history, you may be disappointed.

this book is $15.00 new in paperback why so much for used?

What a delicious book! Just what I needed. This is one of those books where you'll learn alot and it opens alot of doors in your mind. This book is not only for teens, it's for everyone!
Enjoy, I know I did, infact i'm on round 2!!Loved it!