United States Books

I would recommend this book to girls who like journal style writing. Kristiana Gregory writes this book as the main character, Suzanna's, diary. She uses the elements of suspense and surprise to hold your attention; including how, when, and where Suzanna and Clara's mother died. I learned a lot from this book about the Gold Rush. I learned what gold fever was and how some men became thieves because of it. If you want to learn more about the Gold Rush and you like surprises then you should definitely read this book.

I am a huge fan of all the Dear America books. The Gold Rush is really cool and this book made me feel like I was there. This story is about a young girl who leaves her home to go and live with relatives. On the way her father gets gold fever, so they head out west. I really enjoyed reading about Susanna and all her many adventures

This book is the most fantastic book I have ever read! Susanna(the main charecter of this book)a girl who has no mom, a father who is a doctor in the Gold Rush, a bossy older sister, and who gets merried at the age of 15. She is always getting into trouble during the Gold Rush, But Wait! I don't want to spoil the whole story! I want you to read it yourself. I love this story more than anything ! Please consider this amazing book!

If your like me loving the past than you should read this book. It's about a girl and her father is a minner so they have to go differnet places so he can find work. At some parts it's hard for her and her sister. I SAY YOU SHOULD READ IT!!!

This book is about a girl named Susanne whose dad finds out about the California Gold Rush. They decide to stay for about a year, then go back to Oregon. Their dad goes away for a little while, leaving Susanne and her sister in charge of the cabin. A boy gets sick, and they want to help him, but their dad is away. They go searching for him, and they come upon a chunk of gold weighed around 1,000 dollars. Back then, that was a lot of money to just find. Anyway, this is a very good book and I suggest it to readers. READ IT!!!

This is a great Book! We used this book in a sign language class I took. It is easy to read and understand. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to talk to the deaf or hard of hearing.

This book covers numerous "word groupings" in 17 chapters. Some of these groupings include, "Days of the Week & Time"; "School & Education"; "Descriptions,Thoughts& Emotions"; "The body& Health"; "Mealtime& Food"; "Home&Clothing"; "Numbers,Math Terms,Quantity &Money"; "Pronouns,People&Relationships"; "Actions"; as well as many more.
I especially like this book for the photographic illustrations. So far this is the only ASL book I have found with photographic illustrations.

With each word there are specific instructions for the proper hand shape, position, and movement to go with each sign as well as a visual reminder for memory. At the bottom of each page there is a photographic guide as a visual reminder of all the proper hand shapes that are used in all the signs for that particular page.

I would highly recommend this book for any with the desire to learn Sign Language.

This book was a required text for a Sign Language I course. The pictures are very clear, it gives good description of hand shape, location and movement. I really like that it gives a hint of how to visualize each sign, it makes it much easier to remember.

The book "Talking With Your Hands, Listening With Your Eyes" is a great book for people wanting to start learning sign language. The photographs of the signs are very clear. I especially like the additional material throughout the book about Deaf Culture and history. I recommend this book and enjoyed reading it even though I have been a student of sign language for 5 years.

Love the book, first borrowed it from my local library. The binding does tend to crack with much use, so I broke my book's binding and put all the pages in clear cover sheets in a 3 ring binder. Cost a little more but it was worth it because now I don't have to worry about destroying it and my book will last a lot longer. I found this book the most helpful in explaining how to do the signs as well as illustrating them in very clear photos. I highly recommend!!!

This book not only deals with the issues of attachment and other developmental issues of the adoptive child, but it gives you practical strategies to overcome and deal with them. This book is very inlightning, but offers hope to parents of hurt children.

I thought this book provided valuable insights and gave good real life examples. I would recommend this book for anyone adopting an older child.

This book contained things that I think all parents should know about dealing with kids and thier baggage. I have refered back to this when dealing with situations with my special needs child, if only to know that I am not alone in my struggles.

This book was very helpful. It helped me even though I haven't ever adopted. It helped me understand hurting kids more. I will buy this book! I would like to adopt older kids when I'm married. Besides I have known several foster/adopted kids. It helped me understand them.

I read this book twice I liked it so much. I found many books minimized the struggle of raising adopted children and focussed too much on only the positive. Although I have not raised any adopted children myself I do plan on it after I finish university. After reading many books I knew it couldn't be as flowery as they put it. Although I am sure no book could truly prepare anyone for the realities of raising childeren it can help you understand where things are comming from. If nothing else I have a greater respect for the adoptive family because of this book!!!

This book does a very good job in trying to explain some of the causes of violence and some of the systemic failures in our society. It also provides an interesting narrative of the people involved in the story.

I am a descendant of James Butler. For the record, that family is not Scotch-Irish, they were English and had been for hundreds of years. They went to Virginia from England in the 1600's not because they were poor or down trodden but because they were wealthy and well connected with the intentions of making more money.

Shoddy research just makes me cringe.

On a cold wintry day in March 1978, Willie Bosket, a 15-year-old boy with an extensive juvenile record, shot and killed a middle-aged hospital worker in a New York City subway robbery. Eight days later, Willie robbed and killed another man under similar circumstances. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested, confessed, and was found guilty of these two homicides. He was given the maximum sentence for a juvenile of five years for the two murders. He felt not a whit of remorse for his actions, and was quoted as such in the papers.

A few days later, New York Governor Hugh Carey, reading about the trial in the New York newspapers, became so incensed that he immediately called a special session of the state legislature in Albany. He proposed and was successful in passing a new law in record time, the Juvenile Offender Act of 1978. This law allowed kids as young as 13 to be tried in adult criminal courts for murder and receive the same penalties as adults. This law was a sharp reversal of 150 years of American tradition. New York became the first of many states to make this watershed change in juvenile justice policy. Willie Bosket had made history.

If All God's Children were merely a harrowing recitation of the criminal life of Willie Bosket, it would be a fascinating chronicle of the "most dangerous prisoner in the history of the state of New York." But it is much more than that. It is also a multi-generational tale of the Bosket family dating back to 1834 in South Carolina. It in particular traces the interweaving stories of Willie Bosket and that of his father, Butch Bosket, with all that they held in common-genius-level IQs, a history of explosive anger, psychopathic tendencies and a conviction for two homicide.

In telling this saga of the Bosket family, Butterfield has successfully woven together a sociological treatise on violence in America, a cautionary tale of the pernicious effects of slavery, and a genealogical study of a truly tragic family.

Armchair Interviews says: A stunning read.

This book was indeed an eye-opener. I encourage all who are concerned about our society as a whole to study this book, and especially those who are in social services. Mr. Butterfield should be applauded for this work.

I'm not A reader of books. I was refered this one and I can't stop referencing it in everyday conversations. This book is not only a great history lesson of Racial tensions but also a great look into the history of violence in our Black Youth....

Bad

A. The narrative pace is just awful. I don't know what it is about this book I almost didn't make it past the first 40 pages because the begining moves so slowly.
B. The idiotic "conspiracy theory" idea regarding the Texas Revolution. Someday right minded people everywhere will be able to laugh conspiracy nuts right off the street.
Good

The book has a great deal of information regarding the beginnings of an organized abolitionist movement in this country. Garrison was the focal point for this when the movement started to move beyond isolated groups of idealists and Quakers and started to be taken seriously as a genuine force for social change.

Overall-Once you get into the book it is amazing, but you have to be in the right mood to do so.

Now a book that shows two sides of slavery that all white people were not all for slavery .Like Dr.martin luther king was saying that slavery was not about black against white ,but justice againt injustice.Because if all men and women are not free then we are all in chains.Books like this one has giving us a balance look at one of america darkest sides. But men like Garrison showed us that their were men and women that were a light of hope that all men are created equal . And being a black man I must say thank you to all the blackmen and women and white men and women of the past for fighting a fight that many of us still fight for today .And that is for an opportunity to live as we were when God created us in the beginnig as, a human being thank you.

This is the last and probably the best book completed by the late Henry Mayer.

Mayer admired Garrison, the most important leader of the abolitionist movement. In this book, he succeeds in renovating the reputation of a great reformer and activist who has often been neglected or written off as a crank.

Garrison and the abolitionists were originally hardly more popular in the North than in the South. They were seen as disrupting the Union and were regarded with suspicion for their pro-black beliefs - public opinion in the North was only marginally less racist than in Dixie. Garrison's courage and consistent refusal to trim his convictions for popular acceptance led to a career with an outsized share of controversy, oppobrium, and in several cases physical danger.

Some reviewers have felt the book is too long, and it is hefty. But the length is necessary for Mayer to give a full portrait, which shows not only the man, but also the era he lived in. In particular, Mayer writes extensively about abolitionism as a movement. Abolitionists, and Garrison himself, struggled with many problems - whether to compromise by supporting politicians whose platforms called for less than full abolition, evolving from a paternalist movement of mostly privileged whites to a movement in which free blacks and escaped slaves could play a meaningful role, and reconciling the pacifist leanings of many to their role in a war against slaveholders - that will be of interest to contemporary political activists. Mayer also shows how, after abolition was accomplished, former abolitionists seeking new causes worked for other advances, including the first stirrings of the women's suffrage movement.

Let's just get the obvious criticisms out of they way. First, the author pretty much flat out states that The Civil War was fought only because of slavery--and in the preface! Yawn. Will I ever be able to find a Northerner who can write a book that examines both sides of the conflict? I mean southern writers do it all the time. The second problem is the assertion that the Texas Revolution was some kind of government conspiracy--from Pres. Jackson on down to Sam Houston--to perpetuate slavery and continue manifest destiny. While I'm sure some men fought for those reasons, this moronic conspiracy theory about secret government shenanigans has no basis whatsoever. In fact, I would recommend the wonderful biography, Sam Houston, by James Haley. It expertly destroys that awful line of thinking that has somehow survived all these years.

But, being from Texas, I tend to be sensitive to such things. For most people it won't matter.

I still highley recommend All On Fire, though. It is very well written and researched. But most of all, it is the only real biography on Garrison worth reading. And say what you want about the author's biases, he can't muddle the fact that Garrison was one of this country's great patriots, willing to stand up to anyone to free his fellow man. He dedicated his entire life to this noble cause--and except for a few references in some Civil War books--is largely forgotten. What a shame.

William Lloyd Garrison was a man ahead of his time. Not by years or even decades, but centuries. In the 1830s he was an outspoken proponent of not just the abolition of slavery (many advocated various ways to deal with the South's "peculiar institution"), but called for the immediate abolition of slavery with complete and full civil rights for African-Americans. He dreamed of a time when a black woman might succeed a black man as Secretary of State a decade before the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were something less than human in the infamous Dredd Scott decision. He was also an early advocate of women's rights, labor reform, temperance and civil disobedience, as well as an outspoken critic of organized religion (Garrison was what we might today call a fundamentalist "born again Christian" who recognized no formal church other than Christ's teachings).

Given Garrison's role as founding father of the abolitionist movement, his passion for the cause, longevity in leadership and terminal impact on the greatest political issue of the nineteenth century it is puzzling that he has left such an obscure historical legacy. As author Herbert Mayer notes, Martin Luther King Jr. cited Gandhi, Thoreau and the Gospel as his inspiration and motivation in the Civil Rights movement with no reference to the man whose peaceful agitation did more to eradicate bondage than any other -- and who in turn may very well have been Thoreau's inspiration in writing "Civil Disobedience."

So why the obscurity? Mayer's biography does little to address this paradox. In fact, his book makes Garrison's general absence from the mainstream of American history all the more tenebrous. The man that emerges from the pages of "All on Fire" is a moral giant, a crusader in the purest and best sense of the word, who risked -- indeed, welcomed -- verbal and physical abuse, a life of indigence and scorn, all in pursuit of a truly noble cause. Garrison grew up in New England and never traveled further south than Baltimore until after the Civil War, yet he dedicated his life to the abolition of slavery with an intensity and zeal that surpassed dissident southern whites (such as the Grimke sisters) and even some blacks that had escaped from bondage themselves. Because of his central role in establishing and leading the cause, "All on Fire" is, as the full title suggests, as much a history of the entire abolitionist movement as it is a biography of its leading agitator.

However, a close reading of "All on Fire" also reveals a hidden side of William Lloyd Garrison that Mayer, unfortunately, never fully explores: a man of extreme ambition, vanity, and conceit. Garrison fought tenaciously to keep himself at the front-and-center of the moral movement he came to regard as his own. One senses that the fame and notoriety he gained by his agitation came to mean quite a lot to him. In this sense, Garrison reminds one of a contemporary political gadfly increasingly enamored of his high-profile image: Michael Moore. Perhaps Garrison's attraction to celebrity never fully outweighed his commitment to the ultimate prize of freeing three million humans from bondage, but it certainly meant more than the pious Christian in him would have liked to admit -- and certainly more than biographer Mayer is willing to concede. Again and again throughout the narrative Garrison experiences a painful and personal falling out with some of his closest friends and coadjutors: Frederick Douglas, Wendell Phillips, the Tappan brothers, etc. And time after time Mayer attributes the rift to simple misunderstandings or the result of the stress and pressure of the times. That Garrison might have been something less than the Galahad on ante-bellum America is left unexplored.

Nevertheless, for anyone with a desire to know more about America and especially to learn about a man that was once one of the most controversial and well-known figures of his century, only to sink to near anonymity, this National Book Award finalist can be highly recommended.

This book probably presents every scenario you can think of if you want to protect your estate. Reading this book will provide you with intelligent questions while you discuss your estate planning with your attorney.

The book is not only informative, but also entertaining and easy to read. No legaleez to wade through. I highly recommend it.

I felt the book was easy to read. Not one to be read in one sitting, however. I have done extensive estate planning, will preparation, and will updates. However, this book presented some options that I am considering. It also showed me a couple of loopholes that I thought I had closed, that I probably don't. Well worth the money and time to read. I expect to go back to this book several times. I will be taking it with me to an attorney appointment.

Estate planning is so important if you don't want your son in law running off with half your estate in the event of your kid's divorce. This book was a great asset to me ... and a real eyeopener as to what can happen at the reading of your will if you haven't equalized everything. the author even gives you his phone number that readers can call and ask questions free. The book is so good I bought 4 extra copies for friends.

Only estate book I've seen written in an easy-to-read, mini-case-study format. Very practical and thought-provoking advice. Tends to focus on little worst-case scenarios in an attempt to get people to plan properly for all the things that can go wrong in an estate.

For what it's worth, I thought the book was generally best-suited for estates with $100,000 to about $2,000,000 in assets. Don't get me wrong, there's something in here for all estate sizes - especially for people just starting the process of developing a plan. However, don't buy this book looking for technical discussions of advanced tax-minimizing strategies. If you or your clients have estates over this $2MM mark, this book can be a great thought-provoker, but some of the advice isn't really suitable for larger estates.

I have several estate planning books...the "how to" type and they are great. This is the book you need to read before you start filling in the blanks. I wish my parents had read this book. It would have saved my family relationships. This book gives you the basic information you need before drawing up your trust. Protect your beneficiaries and prevent family conflict by reading this book!

Every public and school library should have a copy of this excellent resource. The research that Judy Freeman did to create this compendium of quality read aloud books is well worth the investment.

Ever wished you could keep up all the great children's books and pick the best ones to read aloud and recommend to your students? Need inspiration to liven up your lessons on library skills? Looking for more effective ways to collaborate with teachers? This book has it all!

Targeted at grades K - 6, the first 100+ pages include wide-ranging information about children's books and ways to use them. Topics include: how to be a great school librarian, evaluating children's books, read aloud and booktalking suggestions, fun library learning games, storytelling, creative drama, reader's theater, etc.

The next 600 pages contain wonderful annotated read-aloud lists divided by Easy Fiction/Picture books, Fiction, Folk & Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends, Poetry, Nonsense and Language Oriented non-fiction, Biography, and Non-fiction. In addition to standard information (author, summary, etc.) each of the 1,705 annotations includes grade level, related titles, subjects, and a "Germ." "Germs" are small, practical, do-able ideas to interject into lesson plans including ideas for sharing the books with children and incorporating comprehension, creativity, library skills, and cross-curricular ties, etc. Pick one book on the list and turn it into a great lesson plan!

The final 200 pages include a professional bibliography and 3 handy indices: Author/Illustrator Index, Title Index, and the index I find most helpful - the Subject Index including grade level of each book. Subject you can think of is covered - from Aardvarks to Bullying to Hispanic Americans to Zoos!

I cannot recommend a book more highly! It's not just for school librarians - teachers, homeschoolers, parents, and public librarians will also love it! I also recommend previous editions - Books Kids Will Sit Still For and More Books Kids Will Sit Still For - both have different hints on how to be a great librarian and annotated lists of older books. I use all three Judy Freeman's books almost daily to help me work with teachers and plan great library lessons.

I stumbled across this wonderful book while working my way through our library's books about books in search of more wonderful picture books to share with my toddler (who is nearly 19 months). It was mis-shelved in the local branch (took 4 tries for the librarian to find it) and since no one had noticed in the 6 months or so since the book came in, my friendly librarian slapped a due date sticker on it and let me check it out. I found myself immersed in it during the daughter's afternoon nap and checked to see if either of the previous volumes was available to check out. Alas no, although I found a cheap ex-library copy of the previous volume, More Books Kids Will Sit Still For: A Read-Aloud Guide (2nd Edition), which when it arrived looked like it had never been touched. I don't pretend to understand that - I think this is a treasure trove of ideas and books to share with young (and not so young) children. Although it's aimed at elementary educators, there's a huge amount to offer a parent or other caregiver...ideas for activities related to the books as well as related titles.

As the parent of a toddler, I confess that I prefer the overlapping mini-sections by age found in More Books Kids Will Sit Still For: A Read-Aloud Guide (2nd Edition) and Books Kids Will Sit Still For: A Read-Aloud Guide Second Edition (Books Kids Will Sit Still for) because it's easier to sift through a couple hundred titles than 800 for books short enough for a toddler to sit through, but that's more of a quibble, especially since the expanded entries offer so many ideas for making (or keeping) books interesting.

How does she do it? Another winner from Judy Freeman! More tips, annotations, bibliographies, storytelling, reader's theater etc.. The amount of material is superb and the format is clear and precise. She is marvelous at what she does and can help any media specialist or teacher sharpen their book skills.
A must buy for all elementary educators!

I've had the pleasure in the past week to read Judy Freeman's Newbery committee experience in her latest "Books Kids will sit still for 3" (c. 2006). She had to take the Librarian Oath, probably with a ceremonial blood letting to seal it, that she and the other members would never tell the secrets of the Committee dealings with the individual books. Ooooooh, that makes me want to be on the Committee even more!

I thought the listings alone in the book would be worth the book's weight in gold (which is substantial, with more than 900 pages), but it pales in comparison with the first 100+ pages of the book in which she shares her passion for reading, books, libraries, and children. What a treat! Reward yourselves soon by allowing time to read this.

Thanks, Judy! You made my day!

Liz Frame
Librarian
San Antonio Christian Elementary School

HE TELLS WHAT HOLLYWOOD IS ALLBOUT. HE WRITES GREAT AND TELLS WHAT HIS LIFES ALBOUT.

This book is a great journey of someone's life. Skip E. Lowe is a true show business character--as much a part of the town as the Holllywood Sign and the billboards of Angelyne. His life is filled with pathos and happiness. From cover to cover the book is a pure joy. You'll find yourself wondering who could possibly play Mr. Lowe in the movie that undoubtedly will come from this fabulous life memoir.

Okay, I'll admit it. I bought Skip E. Lowe's memoir with the idea that it would be a horrendous hack-job full of celebrity groveler and rampant name-dropping. Needless to say, I was floored when The Boy with the Betty Grable Legs turned out to be a compelling autobiography written with panache and a good deal of humility.

Lowe's book is difficult to put down. Lowe does well to balance his personal tragedies (Lowe seemed to attract molestation the way flowers attract bees) with his career as an entertainer. While his brief mention of his part in BLACK SHAMPOO is akin to Orson Welles skipping over CITIZEN KANE, Lowe's book manages to stand tall on its own shapely legs. (ISBN: 0964963582)

LOVE THIS BOOK IT TAKES YOU EVERY ALL OVER THE WORLD AND FEEL LIKE I WAS THERE.ITS SO GOOD LOVE IT THANKS FOR THE JOURNEY .. WHAT A LIFE.

I picked up Skip E. Lowe's book on the recommendation of a friend, but had no idea that I was in for such an amazing read. In addition to having some unforgettable stories to tell, he is able to share them with complete emotional honesty, which provides surprisingly human insight into this larger-than-life world in which he has lived. I recommend this as a "must read" to all who are interested in learning about the Golden Days of Hollywood, the truly fascinating character once known as Sammy Labella, and the ups and downs of an unconventional life. By relating his madcap adventures and the lessons he has learned, Skippy does the best job I've ever seen at creating a road map for the road less travelled.

This was one of the most moving books that I've ever read. I lived in Rockaway Beach for four years (my father is from Rockaway originally) and I had first read the book when I moved into the neighborhood. I picked it up a few years later and was brought to tears. Rockaway is SUCH a tight-knit community and reading it the second time made it even more poignant as there were many people that I now knew well. It was well-written and for most people, Rockaway is a place that many forget. Rockaway lost over 80 firemen and policemen in 9/11, so it is not something that is taken lightly. It really is an amazing place to live, everyone knows your name, everyone looks out for you. I now live in Phoenix, but Rockaway will always have a special place in my heart. Thank you Kevin Boyle, for bringing this neighborhood to life. Never forget!!!

To know Rockaway is to absolutely know what it's like to not be able to live without Rockaway. Kevin Boyle captures Rockaway's darkest moments and shows how a community bonds together and rebuilds. He shows our strength and our unity during these tragic times. Thanks Kevin.

Kevin Boyle writes about Rockaway and its inhabitants with respect and humor. It has a nice balance of history, humor, and gripping unreal reality. I am from the area and lost a loved one. This book was tough for me but I can honestly say it is the most personal and realistic look at not just the firefighters that were lost, but the people that were lost. I recommend it.
- James Suhr

Fascinating account of the history of The Rockaways, and the devestating impact of 9/11 and the November 2001 airline accident. The reader is introduced to a number of families, and how they were impacted by the two tragedies. It is a wonderful read, and although The Rockaways are a scant few miles from Manhattan, the feeling is one of a small-town, where neighbors look out for neighbors and there is a community spirit of togetherness.

I must have read twenty 9/11 books and only came upon this after doing a search about 9/11 books. I had only heard of Rockaway Beach from the song, Rock, Rock, Rock, Rockaway Beach. I didn't know such an amazing place actually existed. Kevin Boyle writes of a place we want to call home and of people we want as friends. The bravery and toughness seen here is superhuman, and so is the goodness and strength. It's a story I'll never forget.

We have used several other camping guides to Colorado and this one is the best. Information is up to date and accurate.

I've used this book so much over the past 2 years I may need to replace it soon. While the rating system took me a little while to figure out (the numbers do NOT represent the ranking, just the location on the map), the book is very user-friendly. In addition to giving accurate directions to each campground, it directs you to the correct page and area in both the Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer and Colorado Recreational Road Atlas. By rating Scenery, RVs, Tents, Shade, and Privacy, the book helps you locate the campgrounds based on what is important to you. The elevation info is great if you have young children who might not appreciate waking up in the snow and I love that the book tells you which tent sites are the most popular since we tend to reserve campsites well in advance of trips. This is a great book.

We have camped in Colorado for years, but this guide gave us new campgrounds to explore and try. We like the idea that the author includes ratings on both tent and RV "friendly" places, as well as including shade and sun, spacing and privacy aspects.
Love the pictures!
We find the format easy to use and the organization by regions is good, too, although the San Luis Valley should be kept separate from the Eastern slope.
This is the first summer we've used the guide, but will keep it in use for many years.

I do not own an RV, but noticed that the book is full of campsite info from all around the state, and includes whether the sites allow RV's, tents, pets, if they have hook-ups, ect.

The book is a very good reference on a large number of campgrounds. It has a strength in that it provides pictures, unlike for instance the Moon guide. In my opinion, the book would be better if it covered the CGs more evenly: the authors' choices of "best" very often coincide with "most popular" (read: "most crowded") and the quieter campgrounds do not get the coverage that may be of interest to readers.
Another annoyance I found is numbering of campgrounds. They are not numbered and listed in a logical order that would allow reading about closely located ones in a sequence. Instead, you can read on one and the adjacent one on the map is fife pages down, yet the next one in the text is 50 miles away. This makes one go back and forth between the map and the text if you are trying to get impression on CGs in a certain area.
However, all this notwithstanding, I think this book is well worth having.