Education Books

After reading this book and doing what it said, I saved over $4,000 on my new Camry. If you're looking for a new (or even used) car, this book will teach you what discounts the dealers receive, what the kickbacks are, what you should expect to pay for your new car and how to get the best deal possible. The book will teach you how to pit the dealers against each other and give you the upper hand when it comes to negotiating. No more sitting in a dealership for hours while they play their waiting games, no more high-pressure sales, no more haggling. The "fax attack" portion of the book tells you where to get the information about your car, how to present your deal, and who to fax your information to. It's that simple. With just a little research on your part, you can make a really great deal. Simply put, do the research, create your fax, send to the dealers in your area (the more the better), wait for the phone to start ringing with great offers on the car that you want. Take the lowest offer and call the dealers who will, in turn, try to beat the offer. Do this until all of them are done bidding. Go pick up your car.

If you are reading this review then your must be considering buying a new car. Don't even think about walking into a dealership and talking to the salespeople. Except of course to test drive and see which one you really want. After that run out of the showroom. I highly recommend using Mr. Bragg's strategy for buying a car. It is so easy and stress free and you will have the dealers eating out of the palm of your hand. I also highly recommend visiting his web site fightingchance.com and purchasing his information package. Actually if you get the package you may not even need the book. But the book is a good read in any event. I was looking for a compact car which typically doesn't have a lot of wiggle room for dealers because they generally don't come with expensive extras like leather seats, real wood trim etc.... I was able to get mine for $1150 under dealer invoice and maybe could have even gone a little lower but I had to stop the dealers from chasing me at some point. It was crazy. I finally just said enough. It works that well. Before finding Mr.Bragg's information I probably would have been happy to get a couple hundred of the MSRP. I can laugh about that now. One word of caution would be if you use this method and have a trade-in the dealers might try to really stick it to you on your trade. They won't be making much if any money on the sale of the car to you so they will most likely try to make it by low balling you on your trade-in. That was my experience until I told them I'd take it some where else and sell it. Bottom line is if you think you can walk into a showroom and negotiate the best deal, you're CRAZY. Buy the book or buy the info packet. And pocket the rest of your hard earned money.

James Bragg has made a successful career out of helping people through the intimidating process of buying cars. And his success is well-deserved. I just recently bought my first new car. I had put off the process for a long time, because:
(1) I'm young and could be seen as an easy target by car salesmen
(2) I was intimidated and had how idea how to even approach the car buying process.

So I began to do my homework, researching car buying on the web. I found a lot of advice out there, much of it conflicting. One thing people never disagreed upon was the value of the Fighting Chance, the information service by James Bragg. When I finally decided that the time was right, I ordered the Fighting Chance and bought this book. Armed with the all of the knowledge and preparation I needed, I now knew exactly what I needed to do to launch a successful "fax attack" on dealerships surrounding me. I knew exactly how to field every response from car dealers. I knew how not to fall into their traps. I knew how to defend myself and control the situation. I was doing everything on my terms and not letting the salesmen know too much or dictate any of the terms. I got a great price on a car (way below invoice price). And when I went to the dealership to sign all of the papers, I knew exactly what to do and what to look out for. I drove away feeling happy, satisfied, and NEVER taken advantage of.

This book will arm you with all of the knowledge you need to buy a new car. You'll know exactly what to say in every situation. And you'll know how to not fall into playing a car salesman's games. Whether you've done it before or not, you will be amazed by how effective the techniques taught in this book are. James Bragg's writing is entertaining; you'll breeze through and thoroughly enjoy this book. As one reviewer said, this book does somewhat play out like a long infomercial for the Fighting Chance service. But it fleshes out a lot of areas that Fighting Chance doesn't. And for someone like me who has never done this before, it helped me walk into the dealership with full confidence that I would get what I want.. with no surprises. It is a vital companion piece to the Fighting Chance package.

If you're in the market to buy a new car, you need this book. If you think you can get a great deal by walking into a dealership (or a few) and negotiating well, you are greatly mistaken. Buying a car is like a high stakes game of poker. And the dealership is holding most of the cards most of the time. This book will give you a chance to level the playing field. And it will enable you to have the upper hand in getting the best price for the car you want.

This book provides good practical advice for buying or leasing a car. It is clear and easy to understand and takes all the mystery out of the process. I also learned about my own motivations for buying a new car and how car stores are ready to separate me from my money. The book, however, is a couple of years out of date. It's not critical but more up to date data and more info available on the internet should in my opinion be included. The techniques offered for saving money are sound.

The "fax attack" method for purchasing a new car is genius. I not only got my 2007 Honda Civic for the least expensive price out of the 18 dealerships I faxed in Illinois (darn near the whole state, excluding some northern Chicagoland dealers), but I was able to sleep at night. Not ONCE did I wonder, "could I have gotten this at a lower price?" because I knew for a FACT that the price I got was not only the lowest at that time for that model, but was also fair. Ever get burned by a dealership? (Don't lie, everyone has, even if it was just a waste of time.) Well, buy this book, study it well, and you won't get burned again.

The book is a wonderful resource for anyone who is looking to reveiw basic math skills. The book is color coded according to subject which is really nice. Math on Call is a good resource for teachers, or any adult who wishes to brush up on their math skills or for anyone who is looking to learn new basic math concepts.

This book will help my newly made 6th grade child's math class more understandable! It's what our school uses for their math program!

This is the best handbook I have found for parents or students. I recommend this for all middle school parents trying to help their kids.

Great Book! I bought it for a math class, but have already used it with my sixth grade son. Must have for anyone with children; great reference material for anyone who even needs to know how to help a child with math at home.

I have 4th grade and 2nd grade kids and It is nice to have a resource to show a different explanation than their textbooks. I like the simple set up. I am sure we will get much more use as the years go on. Wish I had it when I was younger.

Hard, YES. I have yet to solve this maze. It is not your typical maze more like walking thru a fun house and you can never find your way out.

I work at it about an hour then give up always ending up in the same wrong place.

If you like a challange then this is the puzzle for you.

The concept of this book/puzzle is simple: each page is a separate room. Left-hand pages include brief descriptions of the rooms, while right-hand pages feature detailed illustrations of the rooms. The two major puzzles of the book are: 1. to get to the "center" of the maze (room 45), and find the shortest route back to page 1, and 2. to solve the riddle feature in the center of the maze.

The illustrations are fun to look at and, to my eye, resemble the work of Chris Van Allsburg ("Jumanji", "Polar Express", "Zathura", "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick").

I recommend this book for lovers of riddles and puzzles or anyone who enjoyed "MYST" or the old Infocom games, like "Zork".

This is a must in any library, whether you like mazes or not. Beautifully done.

The format of this book is interesting: each numbered page is a room. The reader's goal is interesting: find the path from the first room to the 45th room and back. The text follows a person (the narrator) guiding a small group of visitors around the maze-building. The drawings are all pen & ink (no color). The task & setup are fun, but ...

Here are my issues: (1) The narrator is a bit nasty -- nothing unsuitable for young children, but certainly not pleasant. (2) You absolutely MUST solve at least one riddle to find a path from room 1 to room 45. (3) There is no way to know whether you have found the correct answer to a riddle -- or for that matter, the shortest path.

My daughter & I have enjoyed reading this book together. It was intersting & fun. You'll enjoy it more if you aren't expecting a 5-star book.

A puzzle not for the faint-of-heart -- there is NO solution available to brute force and you are not expected to solve it in an evening. It's an exciting, detailed trip through a fiendish den of riddles and allusions with an untrustworthy guide, and I've used it as a great conversation piece with smart people. (Somewhere I have whole notebooks filled with sketched maps and riddle notes, the combined efforts of my theatre group ...) Highly recommended for those who love difficult, DIFFICULT puzzles.

Parents might worry that their child will find inappropriate sites on the Internet. It is important for parents to monitor their child's access to the World Wide Web and teach them proper use of it. This is not a television set with a limited number of channels. It is the information superhighway to the whole world. Think of it the same as traffic safety. You don't leave a young child playing unsupervised by a busy roadway. They could be hit by a car or kidnapped or attacked by a neighbor's dog. An older child after being taught basic principles is allowed more independence in that same situation.
Provide clear guidelines. Let your children know there are subjects or areas that you prefer to be off limits and explain why. Explore cyberspace with the child and talk about what they are seeing and doing.
Teach children safety rules for dealing with strangers online such as never giving out their full name, address or telephone number; never giving out a credit card number; or arranging to meet someone online without your permission. These are the same guidelines you probably use for telephone use in your home or for talking to strangers on the street.
Don't miss out on all the wonders of the World Wide Web. Take your child by the hand and set out on that information superhighway.

Our police department has worked with the author of this book in trying to help victims of cybercrimes. She really knows her stuff. She has even shared many things that my teens wish she hadn't. Now when they type POS, I know it means that they are telling their friends that their parent is looking over their shoulder.

When I don't know where to turn, I just turn to this book. I keep it next to my computer so my children can rely on it too. I was amazed that they enjoyed it as much as I did.

Next time, I'll buy the book BEFORE I buy the computer and set it up right.

a country mom.

I read this book when my mother bought it for me and my friends to read. I was very interested in what this person said about online safety and teens. Most talk about how terrible the internet is, but she thinks it's great for teens as long as we use it following safety rules.

My girlfriend was chatting with a boy she met online. He sent her pictures and said he loved her. She even talked to him on the phone. When he asked to meet her at the mall, I told her about the stories I read in this book, and gave her the book to read.

She didn't meet him after she read the stories about bad men who tried to trick girls into meeting them offline.

Her parents found out and found out that this boy wasn't really a boy.

Mrs. Aftab helps keep teens safe. I want to work for her group and help other teens.

Thank you Mrs. Parry Aftab for caring about teens. we love you!

a sixteen year old girl

My 12 year old daughter was stalked by someone online. I went to Cyberangels for help. Parry Aftab (the author) runs Cyberangels, which is the world's largest and best safety group. This book supports the group, and after Cyberangels helped me find the stalker (someone we knew!), we bought this book to read together. My daughter and her friends in Girl Scouts are now creating an online safety club, thanks to this book, and this incredible woman. Please buy it and support online safety and protect your family online.

I read Parry's first book, and all the other ones that copied it. This is by far the best book out there. It's got every answer to every conceivable questions, easy to understand and fun to read.

I'm a teacher and need to keep up on this subject, and no book, not even her first one, comes close to this book. It feels like she is giving you free tutoring on any question you have about your kids online, right at your side.

I recommend this to all the parents at our school. Trust me on this...only buy one book - this one. And if you have any questions, e-mail Parry, she answers all of them personally. parry@aftab.com (her name)

This book was very enlightening. Straightforward, simple to understand and it answered all my questions as well as giving me lots of new ideas.

THIS BOOK GAVE ME THE IN SITE I NEEDED TO SEE IF I COULD BE CAPABLE OF WRITING A CHILDRENS BOOK

This book lived up to its advertised benefits. It is clearly and concisely written and very encouraging to beginning as well as experienced writers wanting to write in this genre. I highly recommend to anyone desiring guidance to successful children's book writing.

Writing Children's Books for Dummies offers everything you need from start to finish to write your own children's book. Go for it !

As a Publisher of a mid-size children's book publishing company I come across many people who believe they know how to write books for children, but sadly do not know where or how to even begin. My recommendation to them is to read WRITING CHILDREN'S BOOKS FOR DUMMIES. This is the definitive guide for all aspiring writers as well as for established writers who might need a refresher on the latest formats and trends in the market.

We offered this book as a resource at our recent Early Childhood Summer Institute. The participants made many comments on how they LOVED this book and the lessons provided.

My 2 1/2 year old LOVES this book (although she pronounces it "tookie" instead of "cookie"). It has become one of her top favorites at bedtime. The language is clever, the illustrations are cute, and I love that it's actually teaching her new vocabulary and describing complicated emotions in ways that even a small child can understand. I think, based on the recommendations, my daughter is a little young for this book, but she loves it anyway and is always very interested and attentive when we read it to her.

The adorable illustrations first captured my attention while book shopping for my 2 year old grandson; the "bite-size life lessons" captured my heart.
Cookies is one of the most clever and unique children's books that I have seen for many, many years. The beautiful illustrations, the succinct explanations of difficult terms such as patience, modesty,compassion, and the tasty cookie subject make for an amazing book of lessons of living together in harmony. My grandson loves it, his Mama loves it, and so do I!
An absolute charmer for ALL ages!

My 6-year-old and I picked this up from the Library on one of our Saturday trips. My daughter, wife and I loved it so much we had to buy it. The message and lesson is wonderful and the imagery is beautiful. This is a book that can and should be read often to children of all ages.

OVERVIEW: Fun book that hits every need that a parent is looking for in a Children's book: great words, smart writing and incredible illustrations.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Parents are constantly on the lookout for a new children's book for their kids' shelf that takes language, art and some sort of lesson and incorporates all those elements in a nice package: this one fits the order.

MY REVIEW:
THE GOOD: Every now and then parents come across a children's book that leaves the entire family in a euphoric state. Since it happened to most current parents when they were younger and their parents opened up and read " Green Eggs And Ham", now they're on the prowl for more books to fit their kids' bookshelves.

Unfortunately we come across a lot of dusty dud-tomes in our book hunt but every now and then we get a gem that has our three year old staring, our six year old smiling and the parents enjoying the read. This book does all that.

The author uses cookies (and so many things related to cookies) to teach words and simultaneously share some (very funny) life lessons such as:

"Trustworthy means, if you ask me to hold your cookie until you come back, when you come back, I will still be holding your cookie."

This would be great in itself, but Jane Dyer goes above and beyond with her lifelike illustrations with almost a nod to Norman Rockwell with their detailed beauty by showing on that "Trustworthy" page the little girl, holding and staring at a cookie and biting the side of her lip. You can't beat that.

Definitely a great read that'll leave parents wanting more pages and kids wanting a reread with cookies, please.

THE BAD: I wish there were more pages? There was nothing bad. Well, except maybe the desire for some kids to want cookies.

THE UGLY: Nothing ugly about this book. Printed on nice paper, the cover is a nice stock and the illustration is repeated on the hardcover. Even the inside flaps are an enjoyable read highlighting words like "SHAMELESS" when it comes to the author (you can check out Amy Krouse Rosenthal's site here) plugging her own work and "ILLUSTRIOUS" as defined with the illustrator's name (Jane Dyer).

Morgan is amazing in this book. I must say this book was my favorite so far. I havent read the fifth yet but this was actioned pack. I finished this book in one day.

Oh, my god. I liked Cal so much and he turns out evil. Such a dissapointment. The book itself wasn't though. I don't want to give too much away. But pretty much what happens is Cal and Selene turn out evil, Hunter turns out good.
I am so confused(sarcastic). Its a real page turner. Anyone who loves to read, read it.

And agian this is one of my Favs!

This book is awesome just like the other ones.
Morgan is just starting to calm down when her she is haunted by a terrible thing that happened in a pervious book. Cal is acting strange and makes Morgan more nervous. Towards the middle of the book Morgans life is shifted when an unexpected visitor shows up.
This book is great and I couldnt put it down. Cate shows in Dark Magick that something is coming. You pracitcally feel it in the words. Its exciting and shifts the plot for the rest of the books.

The events at the end of the previous book have Morgan very upset. Is Hunter dead? Did she really kill him? Has anyone found his body? Every day and hour brings agony for her.

Cal becomes more mysterious. He is both closer and more secretive, and strange things are going on with his mother. Morgan becomes confused. But then she finds out Hunter is alive. She is relieved to know she was not responsible for someone's death.

In her confusion she must learn to try and trust Hunter and even his cousin Skye. What she learns makes her more confused.

Final confrontations reveal much about the characters and their plans. It is a good and tense story. Can't wait to see what happens next.

I purchased the Sweep series for my 13 year old daughter in the hopes that maybe she would read. "She hated to read." Well I was amazed, and could not get her to go to sleep, as she would spend the whole night, with a night-light on reading these books. She enjoyed them so much, and could not stop talking first about Cal and then Hunter, that I had to see what all the fuss was about.
Well after two weeks, a book a day, for a girl who hated to read, it sparked my curiosity, so I started reading, and was surprised to find out how enjoyable a Teen book about Teen Witches could be. I am not really into Wicca, but these books are really enjoyable. I am on my fifth book, and my daughter read each twice, and is know on the Circle of Three Series. I have to highly recommend these books to those parents who can not get their daughters to read. These are excellent stories, full of fantasy, horror, and fun.

I used this book on a recent consulting engagement and found it to be extremely useful. The authors discuss topics in depth then identify patterns in that area.

As an experienced Architect, one of the challenges I find in discussing solutions at a design level is the tendency of people to speak in implementation terms. This skews the design and makes it difficult to connect the solution with the business goals.

Hohpe & Woolfe's book provides an informative and practical language to creating flexible integration architecture.

I am an occasional buyer of reference works on software technologies I need to get familiar with, and I teach an evening section at a local area college in object oriented analysis and design. After reading this book, I am actively trying to construct a proposal for a new course based on its contents ... it's that good.

Quite simply, Enterprise Integration Patterns blew me away, on both a technical and pedagogical level. On the technical level, it's all here (except for "aspect" patterns like security, robustness and scalability which would each have really required another book). All the patterns necessary to successfully support asynchronous messaging between groups of remote applications ... which is the basic situation facing anyone trying to do a mashup of web services and / or construct business processes by integrating internal services via an ESB. Even the Process Manager pattern is here.

On a pedagogical level, the material is complete, very easy to read, well illustrated, and above all, well organized. Even a first look at the inside covers reveals this. The front has each of the 60+ patterns listed alphabetically, with its respective icon and 2 sentence paragraph. The back has the patterns (name and icon) clumped into 6 hierarchical "pattern buckets" (Message Endpoints, Message Construction, Message Channels, Message Routing, Message Transformation, and System Management), linked together in a single diagram, showing where the buckets fit when Application A is connected to Application B.

And on both inside covers as well as every place in the text where a pattern is mentioned (quite a bit since patterns are extensively contrasted with each other), the page number where it is defined is given with its name. This makes it very easy to use this book as a reference, because all the patterns it contains are cross-referenced in so many ways.

After an excellent introduction the first chapter explains what a pattern is, what the domain of integration patterns are, and introduces the Widget Manufacturing Company, whose problem grows as tools to handle those problems are introduced.

Bottom line ... I read this book during the two legs of a round trip flight from Chicago to San Francisco, took copious notes within the pages of the book, and walked off the 2nd plane feeling that I had seriously increased my understanding of the entire topic of how to integrate loosely coupled applications.

Not bad ... plus since I snagged an upgrade on the return flight, I can also report that two glasses of wine did not interfere in the slightest with the learning experience. The book is THAT good.

This is the best book I've found that helps to organize the integration space within the industry. This book has helped to organize my thoughts and communicate with others effectively on how to leverage integration patterns. I highly recommend this book to help obtain a foundational understaning of the integration space.

Upon recently changing jobs and focusing on messaging design and architecture, I was steered toward this book by my peers. Without getting into too much detail, before joining my new team, I had never heard of patterns (came from a product support area), much less asynchronous messaging design. Needless to say, this book has been invaluable in my learning process as well as conveying our direction to others.

This book is written in such a way that it is very intuitive. Diagrams help support the concepts and code examples as well.

I would highly recommend this as a must read/reference guide for anyone designing messaging solutions.

Many books have been written about SOA, but most of them are just about the theory of SOA. It's important for Software Architects and Software Engineers to understand the theory, but just knowing the theory is not enough to develop system utilizing SOA principles.

This book fits nicely to bridge the gap between theory and practice. It contains not only the theory behind the patterns that can be used to design a loosely coupled, scalable system, but also the code in Java and C# on how to implement the pattern to build the system.

If you are serious on building a loosely couple system and strongly believe on the powerful of messaging system to accomplish this task, then you have to read this book from the beginning to the end, it will help you to design the system without reinventing the wheel.

We read this nightly at bedtime. I wish there were more books like this. My daughter has enjoyed learning the verses, and when similar situations arise in our lives, I'll remind her, "Remember how we read about this with Missy and Bill ..." Just another tool to help reinforce attitudes. Perfect for younger kids.

I am using this as a daily devotional for my daughter, who is 5. We've put the verses on alphabet flash cards so she can memorize them, and she loves it. This book does a great job explaining God's word on a level she can understand. The questions after the story give us something to talk about and the little prayer ties it all together. Highly recommended!

I have used My ABC Bible Verses for 2 years now as a preschool curriculum for my children. The stories are well written and the verses are extremely applicable in daily training. I recommend this book to all of my friends. It's excellent.

My four year old boy and I read this for homeschooling. I do not think he is really understanding the devotions. They say it is for 4 year olds but I think it will be a few years before he will be able to comprehend the contents.

We love this book. I bought it for us to read our 6 year old son for family devotion time. While he enjoys it, and we truly benefit from it, I wish we had discovered it when he was 4 yrs. old because it provides a very good basic foundation for learning verses. The Awana verses he is learning now are more advanced, but he still enjoys the stories that go along with the verses in this book. If you have a 4 year old, it is not too soon to start which we strongly recommend.

I wanted to comment on the quality of this book - the layout, illustrations, format and paper stock are top quality, and this is a book you will want to use for several years. Top drawer. See also Susan and Richie Hunt "Big Truths for Little Kids" which can take up where this book leaves off. I'm glad we found them.

This rhyming children's book is terrific toddler reading. The drawings are beautiful and our kids have both loved it. Our two year old loves the animal illustrations and verses. A great pick!

We recently ordered 5 copies of Quick as a Cricket for our grandson and as gifts for other children. Our kids grew up with this book and it is timeless. All the copies we ordered were paperback but one arrived supersized. The pages are 15 x17 which is wonderful. The pages of the smaller books are 6x6. Both sizes have their uses but we really enjoy the wonderful illustrations in the larger format.

My children love this book (they are 5, 3 and 1). The illustrations are amazing and the words are few, but very creative. It's very fun to immitate the pages as well.

Cute book! There are puppets that can be purchased to go along with the story, they are great for kids to keep them engaged and involoved.

I used to use this book while teaching children at a learning center, and now I use this book to read to my daughter before bedtime. The pictures are great! The read is short which is great for kids with short attention spans. Absolutely a must have!