Schools and Instruction Books

I really don't believe that these are all real stories. That said, they are still sexy and entertaining. It was a fun read. Some stories seemed to drag on before they got to the "good" parts, however.

This book, is the ultimate reality book about sex and how different people view it. I liked the part about romance as I did about "I see you" voyerism. It made me hot one moment, then all tingly about the perserverence of love.

The Finzes' tribute to Nancy Friday's groundbreaking and endlessly fascinating series is entertaining, but clearly these "real confessions" have had more than a little editorial help from these writers of "dozens of erotic novels." Even their clumsy attempts to provide some psychological context for the stories is straight from Friday's outline.

Allegedly taken from respondents to newspaper ads inviting people to discuss their fantasies, they read more like excerpts from Penthouse Forum than the voices of the contributors themselves. Make no mistake, some of the material is hot, and a mainstream audience may find their boundaries stretched by some of the voyeurism, exhibitionism, and group sex, but if you're looking for authenticity, read My Secret Garden or Women on Top.

A very honest, VERY Sexy, really fun look at the things that arouse us. Great for inspiring fantasies, opening converation between partners, and, well, turning the reader on! Sexy fun alone or read with someone you love!

The book came quickly after the order was placed and was in excellent condition for a used book.

Product came on time. It was priced much lower than the school's preferred book company!

I never want to have to look at this garbage again...

Michael Pennock has done it again--he brings morality to a fast-paced contemporary world. Truly inspirational.

For anyone who has been working in choral music, this text holds little new information or inspiration. Some of the writing is choppy and some advice sounds patronizing. ( "They do call you a teacher" is the title of the section on grading) I recommend this for beginners in the field.

I find this book a great resource in working with younger teachers and a wealth of good reminders for veteran directors alike.
Full of Liz Volk's humor, it's an easy read, and gets directly to the point of each topic, ala Stan McGill. The included CD gives every form you ever wished someone had provided when you began teaching!
Worth every penny and then some! Thanks to these two accomplished directors for the insights into some of the reasons for their great successes that can help us all.

I have been teaching chorus for 5 years in high school. I wish I had this book the first year! It has forms, letters and all sorts of practical knowledge. How to prepare for class, sample grading policies, how to handle festival, travel, starting traditions, etc.... It is like having a veteran chorus teacher/friend who has great ideas and advice to share whenever you find the time to pull it off the bookshelf. It even comes with a CD appendix so that you can print forms,great time saver. The advice is straight forwarded and useful. If you have already been teaching for a while, the book is great for making you feel better about what you already do and it might change your mind and help you find a way of doing the same thing better.

In a time when integrating technology into our classrooms is not only desirable, but also necessary, useful resources are like gold. "Computers in the Classroom : How Teachers and Students Are Using..." is 10 carat. As the title indicates, the authors have compiled an assortment of examples of how teachers and students are using technology as a tool for learning and impacting their communities. For example, one section describes a project that was implemented in an inner-city school by three different departments. A required interdisciplinary course called "Newark Studies" involves students in producing and publishing a magazine about their community, with the help of technology donated by Apple Education Grant funds. Like this example, the book is filled with stories of children who are learning to use technology to accomplish goals, rather than simply playing games or drilling skills. The authors didn't really give specific instructions on how to implement programs, but provided a valuable resource for those in search of ideas. 1 3/4 thumbs up!

"Computers in the Classroom: How Teachers and Students Are Using Technology to Transform Learning" is written by Andrea R. Gooden, the former program manager for the Education Grants program at Apple Computers, Inc. Having known that, I expected this book to be informative and of course, filled with success stories. This book highlights six schools in impoverished communities, all whom received money from the Apple Computer's Educational Grants program. The stories include high schools in New York, Pennsylvania, California, and South Dakota. Elementary schools covered in this book represent Louisiana and New York. Each story discusses the ways in which technology was used to enhance, and sometimes enable education. Students used computers to experience education rather then simply learn. Technology was the key that unlocked the door to success for these students. This book included actual work from students and teacher comments. Although this book does not fully describe the programs used at these schools, it does provide information and resources. This book is not a teacher's lesson guide; it is a teacher's inspiration.

Advocates for computers have been proclaiming for years the ways that technology can reshape not only the way teachers teach but also the way students learn. This book looks at 6 different winners of grants from Apple computers. How did these schools use the computers to change their learning cultures?

As you read the diverse situations, you will start to see some commonalities. The first piece that is similar between the different books is that the teachers who initiate the change all desire to see an improvement in the students' lives. This may seem simple, but without a shadow of a doubt, this is what makes the projects actually work. The next commonality is that all the projects involve connections with the community. Many people try to make learning relate to student's lives, but this book recognizes and lauds when a school connects student learning, the community and the students. The final commonality I am going to mention is that of the way the technology was used. The technology is seen as a catalyst for changing the very way the material is presented. The teachers in this book desire to reshape the lecture culture in their schools. They see that the technology can help them to make that change happen. Thus, the students use the technology as an integral part of what they are doing, without the technology becoming the focus. The technology is a tool, but more than that is a means by which the students can learn in ways that they could never learn before.

I find it fascinating that the motivation of the students and change in the culture was not due to the technology. The technology allowed the students and teachers to reach into their local community in ways that they were unable to do before. Actually, its not that they were unable to do it, its just that the computers made it a smoother and more logical connection. The primary lesson that I learned from this book was not that computers need to be in the classroom. It was that the classroom needs to have the tools necessary to connect with the larger community in which the students live. They need to see themselves a valuable and contributing part of this inclusive community.

In my view, our larger culture encourages us to separate ourselves from one another. We need to make sure that whether it is schools, organizations, businesses or individuals, there is always something tying us to the area in which we live.

This book has helped me learn to make armatures and also details like dog noses and eyes. Great book !

While the book only has 25 breeds, it has many differnet shapes and sizes. The sketching pattern displayed is a wonderful tool for begginer artists. My daughter sat down with the book and had a well done skectch of our family dog in under an hour, with shading, and colors.

While the book does show how to draw a few dog breeds, not enough are included. Also, the instructions are specific to certain poses, rather than including some dog anatomy lessons. Once the few how-tos are done there really isn't a need to refer to this book. There are other better and more inclusive how to draw dogs books available.

I have seen better animation books I would not recoment this book for a animation class.

This is the only book of making animal animation that you will need, in this book you can find detail by detail, step by step, and from all angles how to animate dogs, lions,cats, horses, all kind of birds, fihes,etc, etc, etc. This book is worth $100 dollars and much more, and just paying 15 or less is a real deal, is like getting it for free.

Like its precursor, Osamu Tezuka's School of Animation volume 1, this wonderful book explains the secrets behind convincing anime style animation with clarity and expertise. In this book the focus is on the movements of animals, like lions, birds and monkeys. It is especially helpful with breaking down the four-legged or "quadriped" walk, which can be very tricky to animate convincingly. It also includes sample animation flipbooks within the pages. I recommend ages 10 and up buy this book in companion with volume 1.

Cute and fun artwork, and easy to duplicate even for children. My only gripe on this book is that it is VERY short, so I guess you get what you pay for, plus there is very little overview or explanation to help you draw anything other than what is pictured in the book. If you just want to draw the images they have, its a great start to get a hold on the concepts but you would definitely need a more advanced book almost right off the bat.

I was thrilled when I received my copies of Steve Barr's books. His approach to teaching the art of drawing cartoons is fantastic! From the beginning, he points out that there are "No Rules!". I love this approach for teaching children, and also for "big kids" like myself! People of all ages will learn a lot from his books, and have so much fun along the way. Each book shows step-by-step ways to accomplish adorable cartoons. I highly recommend this book to parents with budding artists, and to schools for their art classes!

My son is 8 and so is the main girl in this book, so I think he could relate. Both my children liked this book, and I thought it was worth buying ...
On the parent's side, the amount of things this family gets done in one day was a little intimidating! But it was a good, positive read for the kids.

The author and photographer do a good job of capturingAllison's day in a warm and human way. However, I would not recommendthis book as an introduction to homeschooling because I have philosophical disagreements with the approach Allison's parents use. The family uses a "school at home" approach complete with tedious homework, regular testing, and pressure to work. The parents stay up late into the night developing lessons, planning curriculum, and assessing their daughters' progress. And the mother has a masters degree in education! While that's not a bad thing, overall this book could give the impression that homeschooling can only work for highly educated superparents. I prefer I am a Home Schooler by Julie Voetberg which to me sets a more appealing and approachable example of homeschooling.

This book is about Welsh (excuse me, Cymric) nationalism, and King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur, sort of, well, maybe, superficially that is, since, as explained in the first chapter, steel corrodes too fast for the sword to have remained in existence all these centuries if it ever did, exist that is, though the theoretical possibility of its wooden scabbard still existing, if it ever did, and was, in fact, wooden, and could thus be carbon-dated, should not be dismissed out of hand.

Ahem, perhaps this makes plain why I would not recommend this book to readers first exposing themselves to the work of Anthony Burgess. Readers familiar with Burgess will find all the familiar themes: Joycean word play (run rather amok here), ribald allusions, digressions on musicology (drolly focusing on the percussive here) and scads of witty badinage, against the backdrop of the absurdities of war and love and life and sex and other generalities that don't immediately come to mind. The general purport of which is summed up by "Reg", who gets all the best lines, thusly:

"We can't be blamed for dreaming what we dream. It's another self that does the dreaming. We have too many selves. No wonder we're scared of sleep sometimes. Another self taking over. History is all about the other selves. Not the selves that eat and make love and play music. O God, kindly deliver us from our other selves."

Not that the book, narrated by a self-confessed terrorist, gives the faintest impression, that God, if and in whatever form he may or may not exist, is about to do this any time in the near future. Summing up, a very fun read indeed - but probably not for Burgessian non-initiates - written by a mad Englishman, narrated by a Zionist terrorist with an MA in Philosophy, and chock full of weird etymologies and such related to Arthurian legend and the aforesaid Cymric Nationalist revolutionary or devolutionary movement. Only word-drunk readers with dirty minds need apply.

In "Any Old Iron" Burgess gives us an entertaining tale of a Russo-Welsh family across the decades since the late 1800s. The story is ostensibly about families, war, love, birth and death - the usual fare, in other words. He also, being Burgess, gives us a liberal dose of foreign language, word play and (as a subtext that had me re-reading this book a number of times) a carefully camouflaged and delightfully off-kilter retelling of the Arthurian legend. This book is worth reading if only to see if you can tell which character was the "Fisher King" and which others correspond to legend - a marvellous romp through the legendary and the prosaic. Add in Burgess' sly wit and taste for word play and you have a story to settle down with for any number of evenings. I'm sorry Burgess is gone - we shan't see his like again for a long, long time!

John Lynch wrote a classic in Spanish-American Revolutions 1808-1826. He masterfully describes all the events that led to the independence of Latin America from Spain. The book starts in Rio de La Plata and ends in Mexico and Central America. Curiously one can note a common pattern of highly stratified societies lead by Spanish officials and merchants in not complete harmony with the Creole ruling class. The reluctance of Spanish Monarchy (and later even of liberals) led to independence basically motivated for the economic and social interests of the Creoles (Spanish born in America). For all of those who are interested in a better understanding of Latin American societies of today this great book is a must. Lynch cleverly combines historical and economic facts about the Hispanic American societies looking for free trade and in such a way clashing with the status quo of monopolies imposed by the decaying metropolis. Two thumbs up!

This book was a very well written and looks at every aspect of the revolution. If you want to learn and understand the latin american revolution, then this book will be a good read. But, if you are looking for a creative book that exhibits insightful opinions, then look farther than this book. This was a very well written, but was brought down by its lack of flavor.