More topography and less politics would have made a better book.

This book is typical of an Edna Ferber novel--good details of the respective time period, but little insight or depth of characters. Half of the novel concerns Barney Glasgow, a poor child of immigrants who grows up in the lumberjack world. Determined never to be poor again, he sets his sights on becoming a wealthy man in the lumber industry. With the aid of his boss, Hewitt, he circumvents the law in taking land that in his opinion screams "Come and get it". His ambition causes him to sacrifice his love for a woman, a saloon singer and ex-prostitute nine years his senior named Lotta Morgan. Instead, he marries his boss' spinster daughter to gain partnership and inherit his boss' business. He gets his comeuppance thirty years later when he falls for the very beautiful granddaughter of the woman he loved (who eventually married his best friend Swan Bostrom). Lotta Lindbeck is eighteen, smart and has the same ruthless ambition as Barney. She entices Barney, who lavishes his wealth on her, but she also sees Barney's grown son, Bernie, on the side. She chooses Bernie over his father and marries him, when Barney and other members of his family die in an accident. The next half of the book describes Lotta's life as a socialite. It gives good detail on what was considered luxury then and the commonfolk's lifestyle in Wisconsin.

The book loses momentum as it solely describes Lotta's life with Bernie and doesn't bother with creating tension or describing the feelings or psychology of its characters. The film by the same name ends with the scene when Lotta disses Barney and leaves with Bernie, which was appropriate, since filming the second half of the book would've been pointless and would've made the audience drowsy. Ferber should've made the book center on one character, and eliminated the chapters detailing the lifstyles of the rich and famous during the turn-of-the-century. The book was about Barney and she should've focused her attention on him (Lotta was a dull frivolous character). The point of it is, afterall, about how being blindly ambitious in attaining one's goal, by sacrificing personal happiness can cause regrets later in life, when the advantages of being young are gone.

P.S. In case you saw the movie or plan to see it, Lotta Lindbeck is named Lotta Bostrom, and she is less innocent and more calculating in the book. Lotta Morgan, her grandmother, was no great beauty. And Kari Lindbeck, Lotta's mother, is portrayed as Lotta's aunt. I guess the producers wanted to narrow the age difference between Lotta and Barney and thus made Lotta as Lotta Morgan's daughter. The film claims Barney was 50 when he meets the teenage Lotta, but in the book he's actually 57. The film was great, with Frances Farmer playing the two Lottas. She fits the physical description of Lotta Bostrom (Lindbeck) perfectly.

This Ingalls Study Guide is pricier than most, and if it is the only one you buy, it may be worth it. There are some thoughtful activities and questions that made it better suited for an older child of at least 11 or 12. There are lots of opportunites for essay writing and unless your child has a good command of writing skills and spelling, he or she will not be able to take advantage of the writing activities suggested and you will have wasted your money. This guide is more focused on writing than activities. It covers topics in history and social studies; creative writing; and language arts skills. Although I feel most parents can create their own study guides, if you are pressed for time or ideas, this is the best choice among the ones available. Its biggest drawback is price, but if you really feel you need a guide, I suggest this one in preference to the less expensive Literature Units.

This is thematically similar to Lauran Paine's later novel "Outpost"in being about the rescue of a white woman from captivity among Indians.It is a far better book with more well defined characterization and bebefits from a setting earlier than maost Westerns--the mountain man era.

"Seth Woolf",the hero of the book.is a young trapperliving in the mountains with the older,and more seasoned trapper,"Jules"
He finds a tintype miniature of a young girl taken captive by Blackfeet Indians and against the advice of "Jules"he resolves to track her down and liberate her
The camp of the blackfeet is in Moon Prairie and "Seth"accompanied by "Jules"persuade the tribe to allow them to winter there during which period they will seek to engineer an escape for "Karin"the captive.

The novel treats of the attempt to free her and of how they expoloit internal tension between the tribe leader,the moderate "Black Horse"and his younger more intermperate rival"Plume"

A fierce aninosity between "Seth"and "Plume"add fire to an already volatile situation and gives the book much of its intensity and drive.Inddeed there is a strong-perhaps unintended-vein of homoeroticism in their rivalry.Paine points out both are well built and muscular types and when they first come into conflict both are naked

The material is nothing new but it is propelled along with enough vigour and assured professionalism to ensure a diverting read especailly for genre lovers.

Finley Peter Dunne was famed both for his sportswriting, covering the Chicago White Sox, and for his humorous columns featuring the imaginary
saloonkeeper, Mr. Dooley, who would spout his "wisdom" in a broken Irish brogue. Dunne had been writing these essays for nearly a decade when the
Spanish-American War came and his (and Mr. Dooley's) criticism of it, as an imperialist enterprise, won him a national readership, plaudits from
intellectuals, and friendship with folks like Mark Twain and, improbably, with arch-imperialist Teddy Roosevelt.

The essays rely heavily on wringing humor from dialect, something that got laughs more reliably in that era of minstrel shows and the like. What's most
interesting today about their politics is that they're of a piece with Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, in that they're
anti-imperialist because of the effect it will have on the colonizers, rather than the colonized. Here's a representative sample:

**Wan iv the worst things about this here war is th' way it's makin' puzzles f'r our poor, tired heads. Whin I wint into it, I thought all I'd have to
do was to set up here behind th' bar with a good tin-cint see-gar in me teeth, an' toss dinnymite bombs into th' hated city iv Havana. But look
at me now. Th' war is still goin' on; an' ivry night, whin I'm countin' up the cash, I'm askin' mesilf will I annex Cubia or lave it to the Cubians?
Will I take Porther Ricky or put it by? An' what shud I do with the Ph'lippeens? Oh, what shud I do with thim? I can't annex thim because I
don't know where they ar-re. I can't let go iv thim because some wan else'll take thim if I do. They are eight thousan' iv thim islands, with a
popylation iv wan hundherd millyon naked savages; an' me bedroom's crowded now with me an' th' bed. How can I take thim in, an' how on
earth am I goin' to cover th' nakedness iv thim savages with me wan shoot iv clothes? An' yet 'twud break me heart to think iv givin' people I
niver see or heerd tell iv back to other people I don't know. An', if I don't take thim, Schwartzmeister down th' sthreet, that has half me thrade
already, will grab thim sure.

"It ain't that I'm afraid iv not doin' th' r-right thing in th' end, Hinnissy. Some mornin' I'll wake up an' know jus' what to do, an' that I'll do. But
'tis th' annoyance in th' mane time. I've been r-readin' about th' counthry. 'Tis over beyant ye'er left shoulder whin ye're facin' east. Jus'
throw ye'er thumb back, an' ye have it as ac'rate as anny man in town. 'Tis farther thin Boohlgahrya an' not so far as Blewchoochoo. It's near
Chiny, an' it's not so near; an', if a man was to bore a well through fr'm Goshen, Indianny, he might sthrike it, an' thin again he might not. It's a
poverty-sthricken counthry, full iv goold an' precious stones, where th' people can pick dinner off th' threes an' ar-re starvin' because they
have no step-ladders. Th' inhabitants is mostly naygurs an' Chinnymen, peaceful, industhrus, an' law-abidin', but savage an' bloodthirsty in
their methods. They wear no clothes except what they have on, an' each woman has five husbands an' each man has five wives. Th' r-rest
goes into th' discard, th' same as here. Th' islands has been ownded be Spain since befure th' fire; an' she's threated thim so well they're now
up in ar-rms again her, except a majority iv thim which is thurly loyal. Th' natives seldom fight, but whin they get mad at wan another they
r-run-a-muck. Whin a man r-runs-a-muck, sometimes they hang him an' sometimes they discharge him an' hire a new motorman. Th'
women ar-re beautiful, with languishin' black eyes, an' they smoke see-gars, but ar-re hurried an' incomplete in their dhress. I see a pitcher
iv wan th' other day with nawthin' on her but a basket of cocoanuts an' a hoop-skirt. They're no prudes. We import juke, hemp, cigar
wrappers, sugar, an' fairy tales fr'm th' Ph'lippeens, an' export six-inch shells an' th' like. Iv late th' Ph'lippeens has awaked to th' fact that
they're behind th' times, an' has received much American amminition in their midst. They say th' Spanyards is all tore up about it.

"I larned all this fr'm th' papers, an' I know 'tis sthraight. An' yet, Hinnissy, I dinnaw what to do about th' Ph'lippeens. An' I'm all alone in th'
wurruld. Ivrybody else has made up his mind. Ye ask anny con-ducthor on Ar-rchy R-road, an' he'll tell ye. Ye can find out fr'm the papers;
an', if ye really want to know, all ye have to do is to ask a prom'nent citizen who can mow all th' lawn he owns with a safety razor. But I don't
know."**

There are some mild chuckles there and you get a sense of how the Mr. Dooley character enabled him to prick America's civilizing pretensions rather gently. On the other hand, Mr. Dooley seems
right, even know, not to know what we should have been doing in places like the Philippines and Cuba. The former seems to have benefitted significantly from our involvement, even if its people
resented us, and the latter would certainly have fared better had we gotten reinvolved as recently as forty years ago. Yet, if you look at how ambivalent we all are about the prospects for
democratizing the Middle East and about whether that's even a fit role for the U.S., you have to wonder if we can ever resolve the tension between our desire to "do good" and out fear of being
morally tainted by our involvement with cultures so clearly "other". One's admiration for Mr. Dunne ends up being tempered by the knowledge that what he's making fun of something that's actually
rather admirable in our national character, our uneasiness over our role as the world's crusader for peace and democracy.

Nice book for children. I liked the artwork, very well done. A word of caution to domestic ferret fanciers: this book is from the Sierra Club, who has taken a political position against ferrets in California.

Percy is in a hurry to grow up, but his parents won't let him help with the tough chores until he is older. One day, Percy spots a prairie fire racing towards their homestead, and the boy knows his family will be in for the fight of their lives. Now Percy realizes he isn't ready to be a grownup. But there is no choice. No matter how terrified he is, Percy must help his family save their home. The Prairie Fire is a gripping story of a child's heroism in the face of overwhelming fear.

I read this book because I was given a signed copy of it as a gift (the author is now deceased). I grew up in the same town as the author, and he wrote extensively about the area in many books, not just this one. But this was the first (and so far only) book of his I read. His philosophy is similar to James Joyce's DUBLINERS or Sherwood Anderson's WINESBURG OHIO. The book examines the lives of people living in a specific community and how it shapes them, and although the other books were fiction, Derleth's is not. The book started out very slowly but I stuck with it and it did get better. He tells the story of people in a small Wisconsin town from the late 1800s to the 1950s. Many of the people went crazy or committed suicide. It also has a good dose of nature stories, as Derleth recounts his walks in the forest and marsh in the countryside and describes the wildlife he met. This book is definitely not for everyone but if you are patient and are interested in nature and a slice of life in olden days Sac Prairie (known more commonly as Sauk Prairie or Sauk City and Prairie du Sac), then this will be an enlightening read.

I love Most of Linda Girard's books, but this is the worst children's book I ever touched. It deserves a TURKEY instead of a star. It makes fun of children with AIDS. It says in this book that Alex got AIDS from a transfusion. It is no longer possible to get AIDS from blood transfusions because all donated blood is tested for HIV and AIDS. Don't waste your money on this piece of junk. Insteas buy the CD "For Our Children."

I really enjoyed the way the author handled this issue with regards to the boy Alex, a fourth grader with AIDS. The only part of the book I found disturbing was that of how the teacher reacted to the poem that was written about her. I did not think it was right that she would not enter it into the contest because she did not like it.

I am looking for this book and no one seem to be carring it. Not Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Can you help me find a copy, please.

The entire plot of the book is built around a lynching. As I read it, I knew that this was the purpose of the book, but the first 22 chapters delt with backgrounds for the main characters. The last few chapters told the story. Even though the author devoted enormous amount of time with the characters, they seemed unrealistic. The good people were 100% angels and the bad ones were totally evil. Only black & white here, not many shades of "Gray."

I shouldn't discourage anyone from reading this, because it is a wonderful historical view of Richland County, ILL. and an entertaining read. Willard Gray, the author, did his homework and it shows. This book may not be remembered elsewhere, but I bet the people who know and love Richland County will proudly keep copies for future generations.

Thanks Willard! (and if you need a used copy, ask at the bookstore in Olney, IL)