McDonald's Books

John E. McDonald, a new writer, is bound to become one of the top writers of our time. His "Here piggy" series gets you "hooked" as he takes Mac and his characters from 1969 to present times! While the books titles kinda get you thinking it's another war story about Viet Nam, it's not! The setting is in Viet Nam, not about Viet Nam. A Salt is the second in his series and I cannot recommend it enough to readers who want to laugh,cry and be highly entertained as this great movie plays in your head! I loved the scene when Mac, after arriving in Hawaii, shoots the surfboard of a guy trying to muscle him as he sat at a table on the beach! The character "Mac" truly is a Huckleberry Finn armed with an attitude and a gun! Someone WILL make a movie out of the 1st four books that John has completed! A Must Read!!

This is an amazing book. I love the storyline. I love that the storyline is true to history. When you look at the back of the book there is an explanation of how the characters in the book fit into the storyline of the historical perspective.

I've used this book for lesson plans in a third grade classroom. It works really well and the students love learning history and hearing a story at the same time. Best book I've seen for the Liberty Bell.

This award-winning, beautiful little book includes 101 Scandinavian proverbs designed in calligraphy. Printed on ivory acid-free paper, the ink used is blue and rust, colors favored by Scandinavian folk artists.

Scandinavian Proverbs won first place in the trade book division of a contest sponsored by the Chicago Women in Publishing Association.

Julie Jensen McDonald, the author, writes that the hours she spent in libraries to compile the book were "more like picking wild strawberries than serious research."

"That which is loved is always beautiful." -Norwegian

"God did not create hurry." -Finnish

"The twigs are rarely better than the trunk." -Icelandic

"Don't sail out farther than you can row back." -Danish

"A life without love is like a year without summer." -Swedish

Julie Jensen McDonald is the author of ten published books. Her mother's parents emigrated from Denmark in the 1880s, and her father came from Denmark when he was nineteen. Mrs. McDonald is also the author of the Penfield Press book, Definitely Danish: Denmark and Danish Americans.

Calligrapher Esther Faske, M.F.A. graduate of the University of Iowa, designed the book. The proverbs are reproduced in her calligraphic style. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

As a former President of the Houston Astronomical Society, I found the illustrations and clear presentation to be especially useful for young students - I'd say 6th - 8th grade. David Levy--the co-discoverer of the comet that smacked into Jupiter--wrote the introduction.

I haven't read any Ben Jonson plays, but I am interested in the entire English Renaissance genre so I took a flyer with this book. It is one of the best Shakespearean Scholarship reads I've found, I am usually disappointed when the Scholars feel a need to write above 'popular' scholarship (where they believe they need to dumb things down). To me, this book hits a challenging happy medium of thoughtful argument without flights of fancy indecipherable literary rhetoric. IOW ...

It is thoughtful and accessible without all their esoteric jargon. Be prepared to think because the Arthur has done some homework. I don't always see things the same way as him, but his arguments show some determination at reasonable analysis, rather than blindly endorsing some flavor-of-the-month view, regardless of how outrageous many of them are.

Unfortunately, I cannot use this review as a basis for recommending other books by the same Arthur.

Mark Sullivan's poems are rooted in the experience of daily life. A keen and thoughtful observer, his gift is in examining the world carefully, deeply, intensely. There is a sense of discovery in the writing, it is not just describing phenomena but illuminating them.("The houses sit like broken radios.") Sullivan turns his eye to art, animals, film, a comet, basketball, the city, and finds insights about time, death, illusion. The complex and philosophical are arrived at through observing and considering the actual stuff of the world we live in. Watching a slow loris at the zoo leads him to consider zero gravity and the "void of Newton's first law." A chance ramble through Manhattan's Diamond District leads him (and the reader) to the possibility that "this is/all we're here for, to exchange every moment/ for its opposite, for what endures and we/ can't hope to hold. To watch as it/ outlasts us, like fragments of starlight/ arriving at the backs of our retinas/ after million-year trajectories . . ." The book as a whole is testament to the importance of observation, empathy and inquiry, and points the way to a life worth living.

You won't be disappointed! Great recipes from a great Chef! You won't believe how good you'll be eating when you start cooking from this book!

The author uses events in the scripture to define Biblical spiritual understanding, then attempts to stir the reader into seeking this understanding. Understanding is always confirmed with a happening, such as a healing.
The goal of this book is to teach the reader about the power of the following scripture: I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. Psalms 119:99,100.
Although the author does not yet claim to have met the above goal, he reveals many happenings resulting from seeking spiritual understanding.
This deeper relationship is between the Holy Spirit and the individual seeking. This is where most of us lose our benifits because we think man has to be involved in some way as a third party.
I have not read another book with this approach, however the scriptures comfirms this understanding. Man tends to accept what he can see; God releases what man can understand. If man can not understand, then God can not receive glory for the happening. The happening as the author calls it, is the righteous judgment that HAS TO HAPPEN when man understands it. This is the word of God.

There aren't that many books on the QGD -- Marovic and Polugayevsky are the only authors that come to mind off the top of my head, and they're both somewhat dated. So there's definitely a niche for a book on the subject. The book under review is a godsend for a 1.d4 player like myself who wants a clear explanation of ideas. For instance, in the classical set-up (...c6, ...Nbd7, ...Be7), what does one aim for in the tabiya position that arises after 12....e5?

The book, as the author makes clear, doesn't cover every main line: it restricts itself to the Tartakower, the Lasker, the Exchange, the Classical, the Cambridge Springs, and the Bf4 lines. The author explains the ideas in each of these lines using games from both past and present. Every class player who plays or encounters the QGD will benefit from this, and even experts may pick up a few things.

In my humble opinion, mastery of QGD and QGA postions is essential for every chessplayer, regardless of whether he plays them or not.To this extent, the book belongs on every player's shelf.

Ms. McDonald and Ms. Hershman have done it again! I was one of the first to buy their "Survival Kit" for elementary and Junior High students, and only recently discovered they've now published one for secondary teachers as well. I was at a recent conference and had the thrill of meeting them and hearing them present their ideas and strategies to hundreds of teachers just like me, and it was standing room only. Ms. McDonald and Ms. Hershman are light years ahead of everyone else when it comes to practical strategies and resource material for the new teacher, and I recommend this book, which focuses on secondary classroom teaching and management but in a VERY practical way, to anyone and everyone in the profession. If its important for you as a new teacher to really LEARN and UNDERSTAND teaching in high school, get this book and read it till the pages wear out! Thanks so much McDonald and Hershman for making my life (and my students' education) easier, more productive, and fun!