Vermont Books

This is a touching tale that comes complete with black and white photographs. A young man, David, is witness to the murder of his mother. He then hides in the woods of Vermont until he is old enough to carry out revenge. Lots of thing occur during the course of this short book including David being mistaken for the Green Mountain Yeti and his own saving of another's life. I liked it.

Leann Arndt, Reviewer

Tersely and expertly written, with a level of deep intensity permeating every page, credible characters and locales, the book is also profusely illustrated with black and white sketches. I very much enjoyed the book!

Here is a compelling family drama that you can read aloud to the kids! With a strong sense of place (Vermont) and an engaging plot (murder/revenge), this is a G-rated murder mystery that the whole family can enjoy. When a young boy is traumatized by watching his mother's murder, it starts him on a fascinating journey that includes becoming mute, learning to survive alone in the wilderness, and an eventual reconciliation with society five years later. A visiting family from California helps put all the pieces together in this charming, brief book that clearly has ties to the author's own life.

The degree of intencity, from beginning to end! You will not be able to put it down.

In my language arts class we have to read three books every nine weeks. I have read my first book called Six Haunted Hairdos. As I read this book I went into a journey. I would love to take you with me on the journey again. So here we go!

Oh wow, look where we are. We are in the book called the Six Haunted Hairdos. Now we can see who the author is. The author is Gregory McGuire and he has a collection of books, just like this book I'm about to talk about. The book we are inside is a story. This book is also adventurous and has a lot of mystery in it.

Now we move to the first page of this book and we can work our way through the book. This book is about when Sammy Grubb and his club of the copycats try to convince the students of Josiah Fawcett Elementary that ghosts do exist. Thekla Mustard, who fronts the all girl club cynical tattletales, sees a perfect opportunity to spook up a plan and scare the boys. With the help of her friends they get together six wacky, crazy, and scary wigs, a lot of make-up, and some costumes. The tattletales transforms themselves into the six Haunted Hairdos, as they frightened the boys out of their pants. The tattletales give the boys a few scares. When Thekla Mustard takes her club to her house, they go up the room and Thekla congratulates them on what a fine job they did. When Pearl Hotchkiss hears the girls talking about scaring the boys again, Pearl runs to boy's club and tells the boys what the girls have been doing. So the boy's try to get back at the girls. When they get ready to scare the girls, all of a sudden an elephant comes out and Salim thinks it's a ghost of an elephant named baby Tusker. He thinks the ghost is coming to haunt him, but it wasn't. So they went to go find the tattletales after they made a plan. The girls went to go meet the boys and the boys said they wanted to meet the six haunted hairdos. Thekla said she didn't think they would come out, when all of a sudden the six haunted hairdos appeared. The girls ran down the hill and at the bottom they saw an elephant named baby Tusker.

Did you like the short story about the book? Now would you like to tell me any parts about the book you liked? I know I've got some, so here they are. The strong part of the book is that throughout the whole story it never gets boring and has good endings to each chapter. There are no weak parts to the book. Gregory McGuire has wonderful books because they are funny and interesting... I like that.

I think this book would be recommended for children in fourth grade through eighth grade. Well, I hoped you enjoyed your journey through this book. We've got to go before we get taken by a customer, so bye.
Sincerely, Hannah

The "Tattletales" (all but one of the girls) and the "Copycats" (the boys) in Miss Earth's class can't agree on the existence of ghosts. The Tattletales insist there's no such thing. The Copycats insist there IS such a thing, especially after seeing something large and inhuman roaming the area.

A new Copycat, Salim from Bombay, has a secret that might explain the mysterious ghost seen by the boys, but he's afraid to tell them. In the meantime, the Tattletales plan to scare the boys by posing as the Six Haunted Hairdos. If the children of Hamlet, Vermont don't watch out, they'll scare the pants off each other!

Clever and humorously written, this book will capture elementary students' imaginations with the Copycats' and Tattletales' adventures. Besides the fun, kids will also be shown examples of compassion and generosity, traits often lacking in today's media. Equally important, this chapter book is easily read for intermediate readers.

Gregory Maguire's magic touch brings another installment to a great series for kids.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
9/3/2006

Six Haunted Hairdos is the sequel to Seven Spiders Spinning. It is about to rival clubs, The Copycats (boys) and The Tatletails (girls). In this book the members of The Copycats believe in ghosts and state so in class. The Tatletails decide to play a joke on The Copycat's "silly" belief and give The Copycats their idea on girls thrown at them. This joke turns out to be less fake then they thought, as The Tatletails and The Copycats meet real ghosts and have to unite the ghosts, and set aside their club differences, before it's too late and Hamlet, their town, becomes filled with ghosts. This book is exciting and portrays some very interesting veiws on the rivalrey between boys and girls.

The book I reviewed is called Six Haunted Hairdos. This book was written by Gregory Maguire. Six Haunted Hairdos is a fictional book, and it is sort of a mystery, but at the same time it is an adventure.
A group of girls and a group of boys are always trying to outdo each other. When the girls cook up a wonderful plan to scare the boys, things start getting out of hand. Thelka Mustard, the empress of the girls club, who call themselves the Tattletales, tells the boys that six beauticians were recently killed on a nature trip. Though none of this is true, the boys are not sure whether they should believe this story or not.
Meanwhile, the boys who call their club (...), are having ghost troubles of their own, without Thelka Mustard trying to scare them with her crazy ghost story. Sammy Grubb, who is the emperor (...), thinks that they all saw a baby elephant, though this was no ordinary elephant, it was ghost.
The Tattletales are planning to scare the boys in their "Six Haunted Hairdos" costumes. Thelka leads the boys into the woods so that the "ghost beauticians" can do their jobs. The plan works out great and the boys got scared. Now the boys are even more sure that the baby elephant was a ghost. You should read this book to find out what happens with the ghost elephant and the "Six Haunted Hairdos".
This book's strengths are that it has good details and it is very compelling. It is a good book. The book's weakness is that at times, it can be a little bit confusing.
I think the author Gregory Maguire is a good author who knows how to use details. He writes good books. I would recommend this book to any reader who likes suspenseful, mysterious, and spooky books. If you enjoyed reading this book, then you should read the rest of the book series!

This product is exactly what it's supposed to be: a comprehensive map to covered bridges in Vermont.

Just returned from a week in Vermont and this map/guide saved me a lot of time and effort in tracking down the covered bridges I wanted to see in Northern Vermont.

I found this map of Vermont covered bridges only moderately helpful. The map has a symbol for covered bridges on it and directions to each bridge are located on the back of the map by region, along with a very brief history. I found having to flip the map over for directions very user unfriendly while trying to navigate.

On medium-weight, stain-resistant paper, this beautiful and durable map folds out to approximately 2 feet by 3 feet. On one side is a three-color map of Vermont placing all 107 of the state's covered bridges, interesting facts about bridges and their designers, separate indices for bridges and places, and labelled watercolors of 23 of the bridges. The reverse side shows a county map, line drawings of various types of bridge trusses and a list of all the state's covered bridges by town. Each entry gives the date the bridge was built, information about its design and construction, and directions to the bridge.

This is a beautiful and informative map, and what a bargain!

I really enjoyed this book. It shows the experience of a "backyard sugarin'" guy in great detail while being very entertaining at the same time.

When he wrote this account, Noel Perrin (1927-2004) was an English professor at Dartmouth. He also owned a Vermont farm, and the property included stands of sugar maples. It was only natural that he would be interested in setting up a small sugaring operation in order to process his own maple syrup. After all, that's what folks do, up here in New England.

Being an admirer of Henry David Thoreau, Perrin sets out to do something special: he builds his sugar house as a replica of Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond. The first third of "Amateur Sugar Maker" thus chronicles the building of the structure. Along the way, Perrin continually compares his expenses, the costs of materials and other statistics (in 1969) to Thoreau's own spreadsheet of 1845, well publicized in "Walden." What fun!

But then Perrin has to acquire the proper sugaring equipment (after doing some research to discover exactly what he needs in the first place, of course). If he thought building the house was a tough task, he discovers that he's in for even more than he bargained for when he sets off to find buckets, a cask, and an evaporator small enough to fit into the space, since he unwittingly confined himself when he built such a tiny barn. His goal (in frugal N.E. fashion) is to find good used equipment instead of buying anything new. Being diligent about watching newspaper ads and hearing local tales puts him on the proper trails. Eventually his approach pays off, and he assembles and tests the process. The last part of the book is therefore spent emptying buckets and making a few bottles of syrup for sale in New York City.

This paperback edition includes a postscript written in 1982, after Perrin and his family had been sugaring for 15 years. In the interim, he strung up tubing so that the sap ran directly to the sugar house, if it didn't freeze along the way. So this thin volume provides basic tips for other "amateur sugar makers" out there. It probably will also result in a few nods and guffaws from those hardy New Englanders who already have successful operations in place. Noel Perrin's narrative style is factual and funny all at once. I may need to read some of his other books about rural living. I'm saddened to learn that Perrin is no longer with us.

A real gem on how Noel Perrin started sugaring from his own trees. He's revised the book over 20 years, so he's learned from his own mistakes and successes. He has some pithy commentary on Thoreau's costs of cabin making versus his own, as well. And did you know that milk (just a drop) will calm a roiling boil?

AS LONG AS THERE ARE MOUNTAINS is another classic from Natalie Kinsey Warnock. Her beautiful use of language and lyrical voice make this a delight to read out loud.

This book was very good. I couldn't put it down.

This title was appreciated by enough students and professional librarians and teachers to make the Year 2000 list of nominees for Illinois' childrens' choice award named after the Illinois author Rebecca Caudill. This book is best for grades 4-8.

Going by the Shaker Book, Robert Peck and his family never accepted any frills. Robert's father, Haven Peck, kills pigs for a living. One day, Robert is given a pig by his neighbor for helping him with his cow. He names his pig Pinky. The author describes Robert's and Pinky's lives together, and how happy Robert is that he has something that he can call his own. This is a very sad and compelling book. Although their are some deaths, it shows how a family unlike other neighbors of theirs can keep their Shaker religion, even if it causes them to be different.

This book was one of the best books that I have ever read. The ending was wonderful and made the whole book worth reading.

I listened to the recorded, three cassette version and really think I missed some of the depth of Robert Peck's childhood-based story. I heard the re-recorded version narrated by Johnny Heller.

Shakers in Vermont must have been quite a peculiar people, and young Robert showed extreme gratitude and happiness when a neighbor gave him his first real gift, a tiny piglet he named Pinky. Robert's father was a butcher and made his living from pigs. At first the father would not allow Robert to accept the gift until it was given as advance pay against labor promised in the future.

Life was tough and Robert worked very hard on the farm. His parents' strict Shaker faith would not allow for idleness or waste. Therefore, it was a very big task to expect this young lad to take a neighbor's cow to the fair and show the cow in spite of the fact he wanted to show his own pig. He made good choices -- most of the time.

In spite of the incredible sadness at the end of this book, Robert's heroic act of saving a cow and her calf by pulling a goiter from the cow's throat with his bare hand puts this book on a must-read list for children over 10 (due to occasional profanity and gory descriptions of life on the farm).

The book leads to many possible avenues for lively discussion for children....family life, responsibilities and friendships. Animal care and appreciation are stressed as important.

Probably the most important aspect for discussion is what to do when your family is apt to go hungry and your very best friend is your pet pig which would feed your family.

A great springboard for imaginations and young people exchanging ideas!

In this book, Perrin gives us an honest view of what it's like to be an amateur farmer in Vermont. He is realistic and open enough to share his own foibles. Perrin does not romanticize farming or rural life, even while writing about the richness such living can hold. "First Person Rural" is also full of lots of practical advice for those looking to buy pickup trucks or chainsaws or looking to make maple syrup/maple sugar. A quick but meaningful read.

This book is a collection of essays by a man who describes himself by observing "I once was a New Yorker. Now, I'm a peasant." Perrin moved to Vermont some 14 years before writing these essays and had a lot of time in the meantime to learn the ways of the country. He shares with us some practical advice, like how to rescue burned maple syrup, or how to build fences using trees from your own land. In one story featured in this collection, he tries to take a load of firewood to New York City to see how much of a killing he could make by selling it there. Some of the stories are a bit humorous, but mostly, they aim towards the practical.

Perrin addresses himself to other newcomers, or wanna-be newcomers to Vermont, the Flatlanders. In comparing city life to the idyllic country lifestyle, he notes that here in the country we don't have garbage strikes (since we don't have garbage pickup or sanitation workers to get disgruntled), but we do have fresh air (which needs to be warmed up from -20 degree temperatures before you can breathe it without pain). One of his themes is the tension between modernization and the determination to make a "last stand" by living a traditional lifestyle. A mainstay of Vermont's tourist economy is the "last stand" farmstead; unfortunately, it's nigh onto impossible to make a living by farming without modern equipment such as milking machines, which goes against the ethos of "last stand". As I read this book, I couldn't help but think of the native Vermonters I've met, who want to have nothing to do with woodstoves or dirt roads. They've split and hauled all too many cords of wood in their time, and now that they have the resources to own a house with a modern furnace located on a paved road, they don't see any reason why they should go backwards. Meanwhile, the Flatlanders come up here and can't wait to get themselves a woodstove, and they can't understand why the natives aren't interested in such things. Flatlanders like the challenge of learning how to do for themselves, to provide their own water, heat and food. Some native Vermonters look on, bemused both at how little common sense the Flatlanders have, not knowing how to do anything right, and also at their determination to do things the hard way when they have the resources to live like modern city people do. But of course, not all Flatlanders or native Vermonters fit the stereotypes-some Flatlanders are quite skillful at country living, and many native Vermonters are quite pleased with to see their new neighbors fit in so well on "last stand" homesteads. In any case, if you're a recent arrival in the country, Perrin's tales may hit a chord with you, and you just might learn something useful along the way.

I just finished the last half of this book last night. Perrin's book is a droll but always honest take on the country life in his beloved adopted "homeland" of Vermont as he alerts the reader to the realities behind the romantic vision portrayed on various Maple syrup containers. Country life is tough and not for the soft-hearted or timid. Some of the chapters are dated (it was published in 1978), especially the pick-up truck advice. But I did learn a lot from this book as I consider my own move to the hard rural life of Vermont and I was thoroughly entertained the whole way through. It's a really easy read with some great tips if you're thinking of making the move to a more rural life. I'm looking forward to reading Second and Third Person Rural books in the next couple of weeks. I got through this one in 3 days of sporadic reading.

Ever since I read a review of Archer Mayor's Joe Gunther series, i became a loyal fan. I love each book. I used to live in and later near Brattleboro so I love how every scene described can be located and viewed as the author described it. Start with #1 and read them all!

This installment of the ongoing series finds Joe Gunther as head of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation acting more as a politician and less as an investigator. It isn't a role he relishes but has little choice when the Governor forces him into a political square box.

It begins when a convenience store owner, during the course of a robbery, shoots a young woman inside his store. The severely wounded young woman is Laurie Davis, drug addict, and the niece of Joe Gunther's longtime girlfriend, Gail Zigman. As fans of this series already know, they have had an on again off again relationship for years that has survived numerous personal crises. The shooting of her niece brings up guilt as well as painful old memories for Gail and deeply strains their relationship.

Drugs play a role in another case out of Rutland, Vermont. Unlike the situation regarding Gail's niece, this case has the Governor's full attention. Not only was a dealer by the name of James Hollowell found dead, his body hanging from a bridge, the body of his girlfriend and user Sharon Lapierre was found dead in a nearby motel room. The deaths appear to be staged for some unknown reason and so far the local media hasn't made all the connections yet. The dead woman is the daughter of Roger Lapierre, party bigwig and moneyman. The Governor plans to use the VBI to solve the murder cases, stop the flow of drugs into Vermont, and generate plenty of positive press coverage.

Forced into a case that he does not believe should be handled by the VBI, Joe Gunther has no choice. He also has no choice but to accept the situation when one of his investigators, Sammie Martens, goes undercover without authorization and hooks up with a local supplier. They need answers fast and soon everything, both professionally and personally, spins out of control with potential disastrous consequences.

While billed on the jacket copy as another novel about Joe Gunther, much like "The Sniper's Wife" the focus in this book is primarily on everyone else. Beyond the occasional sermons about the evils of drugs and their addictive lure, heavy attention is given to the backstory surround Gail and Joe and how it relates to this case and the status of their relationship. Also too, heavy attention is given to the undercover actions of Sammie Martens almost to the point of being the major story line. For large sections of the 296-page book, she operates independently and in so doing, Joe is pushed to the background. The same is true for the sections revolving around the secondary storyline of young David Spinney and his friends who unknowingly being investigated by Lester Spinney, David's father and member of Joe Gunther's VBI team for their own possible drug use and possession.

The various storylines all work and slowly weave together. While the overall read is enjoyable, I read this series primarily for the Joe Gunther character. Much like the Bill Gastner series by Steven Havill, which just isn't the same anymore now that he has been pushed off of center stage, this novel isn't quite as good for the same reasons. Clearly there is nothing technically wrong with it. It just doesn't have enough of the namesake series character in it to make it the normally excellent read.


Gatekeeper
By Archer Mayor
Mysterious Press
www.twbookmark.com
2003
ISBN # 0-89296-766-8
Hardback
$23.95 US
$34.95 Canada



Kevin R. Tipple©2004
(yes, it is my real name)

The Governor of Vermont directs his state's Bureau of Investigation to enter the war against drugs when recent crimes shows a massive increase in drug trafficking. The interrelationships between the various layers of police forces fail to unite as dissonance over jurisdiction rules. Desperate to carry out his state's executive officer's order, VBI Second in Command Joe Gunther sends Detective Sammie Martens undercover as drug distributor Greta Novak. She persuades the Massachusetts mob that runs the Vermont business that she is the right person to organize trafficking in an efficient and effective manner.

Meanwhile a convenience store robbery leads to the discovery that Laurie Davis, niece of Joe's long-time lover, has been committing armed robberies to support her heroin habit. Now Laurie is in a coma in Brattleboro Hospital as this time the storekeeper shot her. Another VBI detective Lester Spinney realizes that in spite of his occupation, his teenage son is a user. To VBI, the war on drugs has turned personal.

The Joe Gunther police procedurals can always be counted on to provide the audience with an insightful look at law enforcement. GATEKEEPER is an entertaining look at the war on drugs from a state, local, and personal perspective (wonder what happened to the federal war - did we declare victory?). Though not quite as exciting as some of Joe's previous cases, readers will appreciate the deep look at jurisdiction issues, the drug pyramid scheme, and how no family, even those of cops, seems immune from usage. GATEKEEPER is a strong tale that would be the best of most sub-genre authors, but more at the B+ level for superstar Archer Mayor.

Harriet Klausner

Very good illustrated survey of Colonial Military sites in in the Lake George, Champlain area. Nicely illustrated with a brief history of each site. A true bargain at the price!!!! The only flaw I found was the author repeats the old misinformation regarding the excavation of the HMS Invincible site in England. This warship sunk in the 1750s which was excavated along with late 18th and 19th Century military buttons that washed into the wreck afterwards leading Archeologists to believe British military buttons were regimentally marked in the 1750s. It shows how Archeology can sometimes provide misleading history when the excavators have little knowledge of material culture.

The Great Warpath is a comprehensive integration of archaeology and history, the type of book history needs more of to make past subject matter more tangible and believable. Ironically, there are surprisingly few works which supplement history with archaeology or vice-versa. With The Great Warpath Starbuck fills the vacancy as he carefully balances the two fields and raises archaeology to a new level of importance. Specifically, the book deals with British Military history in the late 18th century as Starbuck interprets it from his many years as an archaeologist. All the major sights of the French and Indian War in New York State are covered, as well as a few sights from the American Revolution. The Great Warpath refers to the Hudson River, the main corridor in New York State, along which military engagements of the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution occured. Undoubtedly, The Great Warpath has something to offer every military historian who is not satisfied solely with the limits of written history.

Few books strike such a fine balance between scholarship and popular appeal. Now a major holiday destination, the Champlain/Hudson corridor 2-300 years ago was a cockpit of strife between empires and indigenes. Starbuck's surveys and excavations of its military sites reveal much about warfare in the northern colonies, with tart comments on developers' and treasure hunters' threats to preservation. Unlike some archeologists, he keeps sight of the broader patterns of frontier life in peace and war, presenting details in a style that satisfies researchers while educating vacationers about their summer playground's past. Our family often visited forts and battlefields along the Great Warpath, helping inspire my historian's career; I still hear Ticonderoga's cannon booming as today's gunners (mostly) fail to hit that battered metal can. Starbuck's lavishly illustrated tome captures the awesome drama of a bygone era, one which still resonates in the Northeast US and Canada. F. Anderson, "Crucible of War" is now standard on the 1754-66 conflicts. I. Steele, "Betrayals" dispels myths about Ft. William Henry, showing Indians as rational actors despite often brutal frontier violence. Gordon Bok's song "Piper's Refrain" hauntingly evokes the Highland Scots legend of Duncan Campbell. "Farewell, til we meet at Ticonderoga!"

For a number of years, I attended gardening workshops sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation and Brooklyn Botanical Garden held at the NWF Headquarters in Vienna Virginia. These workshops were always thematic, covering topics such as 'growing perennials' or 'regional gardening'. On more than one occasion I heard Joe Eck or Wayne Winterrowd speak about their home and garden at North Hill Vermont. Their talks reflected the various stages of change they experienced as they renovated their old house and developed their grounds. I particularly remember the oohs and ahs when they showed us slides of their perennial beds.

"Living Seasonally" continues the story first described in their book "A Year at North Hill: Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden." In this book they leave the perennials for the vegetable patch. Eck and Winterrowd are now working in patch number five.

"Living Seasonally" is a cross between a coffee table book and a garden guide, though for practical purposes the book is more the former than the latter. Much can be gleaned from the book as it is filled with all sorts of useful tidbits and wonderful photographs, but it is not a "how-to garden" book per se. Also, it covers life in a Vermont garden which is not like life in any other part of the U.S. The authors point this out over and over, but some will forget. For one thing, the growing season is short in Vermont (about two months before global warming) and much of the garden work is done in frozen ground or under grow lights in the green house. For another, some plants that thrive in the cool Vermont summers, don't thrive elsewhere in the U.S. and vice versa. Growing vegetables is tricky. Planting dates must be attended to with rigor and special consideration must be given the "ground" work. The reason Eck and Winterrowd are working in vegetable patch number five is because the other four patches did not work out. They are quite forthcoming in the reasons why the other patches were best abandoned for other types of vegetation.

This is an intersting book with lots of anecdotal material that may or may not prove relevant to gardeners outside Vermont. I read from mere curiostity more than anything. Much of what they describe for their garden in Zone 4 or 5 will not work in my Virginia patch in Zone 7. I do like their photographs of garden designs and fixtures as well as farm animals. However, I think the animals are mostly ornate creatures kept for show. This is a very picturesque book.

Although I enjoyed their first book, this one kindled my gardening fires. As always, their writing is top notch -- polished and seamless. I cannot detect whether it is one writing about pumpkins ("as wayward as vegetable guineas") and the other about onions ("connecting us to all that has gone on before"). It doesn't matter. What does matter is that once started I had no choice but to slow down and savor every page, every wonderful photograph. Yet for all its beauty, I also had to fight a compulsion to underline portions, to write notes in the margins. I can't recall the last time a gardening book made me feel so inclined. I appreciated their candor as well, especially about raising livestock for food (they do -- I couldn't), their diet (they confess to eating red meat) and even an "occasional smoke." I hope I have the good sense to return to "Living Seasonally" not just when I'm thinking about new tomato varieties but also when my harried pace has my priorities out of kilter. For in these calm and gentle pages I found reminders about why I garden and the affinities I share with those who delight in growing plants.

Every time I pick up a book I am about to read,I first weigh it in my hands.The feel of it is as important as the touch and sound of every page I turn.In this book I could feel the authors,as if they were right there still on that very page.They seemed so close.
It is apparent that descriptions as just and as appetizing as the ones in this beautiful work of art,could only come from very passionate gardeners.But Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd are not only gardeners.They are also gourmets in every aspect of life.
Taking time to smell a wonderfully scented flower,or staying up all night to assist their favorite cow giving birth to her offspring every single season,well I think that says it all.
Hours are long when one chooses to farm.But real happiness lays in having dirty fingernails.I say "Bravo" to Eck and Winterrowd.May there me many more books from these two very talented and gifted authors.