I read this book for a class project. It's a very good and I think it's a great book for all types of audience. It could keep the attention of teenagers as well as adults. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone younger than fourteen. It covers a lot of different times throughout the main character, Mya's, life. It let's you experience what she goes through during her life as well. She goes through many events such as; her parent's death, her aunt's death, finding her other aunt, being separated from her siblings as a child and losing her best friend. This is a very easy book to follow, it doesn't get confusing at all. The whole book is a flashback, except for the beginning and end of it. It shows how loving and caring an individual can be to somebody. This book has great characterization. It really lets you get to know the characters one by one. It explains where they are from, who they are related to, what their importance is, and it really shows they're different kinds of attitudes towards things in life. It also has good description. You can really picture the towns that Mya goes through and the type of people living there, for example whenever anything small happens at the Greythorn house, the whole town talks about it for a really long time because they have nothing better to do. There is a lot of foreshadowing as well, for example the death of Emily. This keeps the book interesting and keeps your attention. Overall I would recommend this book to anybody interested in reading a nonfiction book. It's a good length, easy reading and very interesting. It also has a great ending. Mya's life has never been perfect but in the end she gets what she has always dreamed of and life turns out perfect for her.

Someone reprint this book -- and fast! Hylton wove a tapestry of colorful personalities in a backward little English town, a delightful drama narrated by an intelligent young woman with a steady mind.

Maya is a privileged little girl in Africa, where her father is a prosperous farmer. Her parents are killed in a raid of their farm, and the bewildered child is sent to a particularly dreary part of England to live with her uncle and aunt. Her uncle is a piously self-righteous snoot, who disapproves of anything enjoyable or pretty for Maya. His only goal is that she grow up obedient, marry young to a pious dull guy, have lotsa babies. And the aunt has submerged her individuality under her husband's.

The only bright spot is Maya's life is her best friend, Emily, a spirited redhead who plays with her for many years. She also befriends a young woman of the "gentry," but must deal with Gavin Gaynor, the girl's brother.

Her uncle claims she is too innocent and unworldly to have further education, but Maya manages to get permission to have further schooling. She knows the town is backward, and that she wants to do more with her life than marry and pop out children. After her uncle sabotages her attempts to become a teacher, she has to come home and help - and is given work as a governess.

But the tide of evil in the Gaynor family becomes apparent when Emily, pregnant, unwed, and disgraced, disappears after refusing to name the father of her baby. And Gavin has taken a decided interest in Maya...

The writer's old-fashioned style and vivid characters leap off the page. In a subtle manner, she presents women as they were viewed back then, and Maya's constant efforts to remain intelligent, strong, and capable of looking after herself are heartwarming.

If you find a copy, then by all means read it!

My fiancee and I have purchased and used many different books that have places to get married in the bay area. The thing that this book had over all the others is that a picture is worth a 1000 words. You can look at the picture, and instantly determine if it is the right decor for your wedding. This book provides a great description of the place in flowery grandiose language, but lacks on the details needed to choose the site. That would be fine, because you can always call the provided phone number to get that info, right? Not in this case. Of the ten places I decided to call this morning, only one phone number was correct! So, now I have to hunt for the phone numbers, which will be difficult for the places like the Rose Garden in Golden Gate Park, do I call the City's Parks and Recreation?

The best thing about this book is that it has actual photos of the locations. It's much easier to make a judgment based on this than just words or a hand drawing, as in some cases. The descriptions were pretty accurate as well.

This is an outstanding pictorial guide and an iIn addition it also a wonderfultravelogue ofthe bay area highlighted by mportant source of information for weddingsand a wonderful travelogue.

One of my friends recommended this book to me. But she also wanted her doctor to "knock her out" as soon as possible and not wake her up till the baby was born. The impression this physician-author gave me was that he comes from that old school in which the mothers *were* knocked out and a pregnant woman didn't need to worry her pretty little head because the (male) doctor would take care of everything. Although it's fun to have a new section to read every week instead of only every month, I found the condescending tone so annoying that I stopped reading it with about twelve weeks to go. The actual information in this book can be a useful supplement to a more comprehensive book, but this is not a "stand-alone" pregnancy book.

I bought this book when pregnant with my second child so that I'd have something detailed to read each week about the pregnancy. The book does contain very detailed information each week: the approximate size of the baby, physical developments of the baby, physical changes in the mother, etc. But then almost every chapter goes into some very detailed explanation of something that can go wrong during the pregnancy or delivery. Usually I feel that "knowledge is power" is a great motto but this book was frightening and worrisome to me - feelings no pregnant woman needs to have amplified. I feel particularly sorry for the first time mother who chooses this as her primary resource; there are other good books that provide great detail without spending so much time emphasizing the things that might possibly go wrong.

Being first time parents, we had many questions, but most of all were excited and anxious to learn all that we could about our little miracle. This book details week by week what you should be feeling, how your body is changing and how the baby is changing. It addresses topics when they are relevant to the development of your baby and your pregnancy. It also gives you something to look forward to each week to sit down and read, rather than month by month! So much happens in one month during pregnancy, I can't imagine reading a book that sums it up all in one chapter! (And I did...but I didn't like it nearly as much!) I would say this is a MUST HAVE for every new mommy and daddy! It's especially helpful during those first few months, when not much seems to be happening, it gives actual size illustrations, so you can see exactly how big your little one is!

The biggest problem I have with this book is its weight. It's just too big and clunky to hold up to read. Splitting into two bindings would have been nice. But it does cover a lot and it needs to be large to do so.

I bought the Beginners Guide to Linux Programming and I really liked that book. This book is a very good follow-up, but it doesn't give the reader more programming tips.
It covers many topics which makes this book a great reference for anyone who deals with Linux and even other flavors of Unix on a day to day basic. Buy this book if you are looking for a reference book on developing software on Linux that covers advanced topics.

This book is a follow-up to Beginning Linux Programming, but with a wider range of authors. The book is a series of chapters on various tools and applications, all of them Open Source, based mainly round things that application developers might use, though there is a single chapter on device drivers.

Most topics only get a single chapter, so there isn't as much depth as you would find in a dedicated book on each topic, but there is a very wide range of material all covered in enough depth to get the more experienced programmer started with a new topic. There are one or two weaker areas, but overall a good choice of material succinctly presented for the more experienced application developer. I've given it 5 stars as it was exactly what I was looking for - a single reference to help me create a Linux-based web database application, your mileage may vary. I recommend you at least consider it.

This book is okay; it provides all of the basic information on pregnancy and would be sufficient if you were interested in a minimal level of information. I found the book to be very easy to read, and very straightforward, but a little superficial. The appropach to many topics (back to work?, your career and your pregnancy, how your body changes) is so superficial, it almost seems like the author stuck in the chapters because she felt she had to, rather than because she had valuable information to present. Each chapter begins with a statement that is true, but so trite ("Pregnancy is an exciting time") that it seems as if the author is pandering to the reader. The book includes a number of short one-paragraph anecdotes about women and their preganncies. Again, I found most of these anecdotes to be very superficial, without enough detail to make them very interesting or useful. One thing I found to be VERY odd -- the author has "Time-Saving, Energy-Saving Tips" in every chapter, set aside & highlighed in the text. These time-saving tips have absolutely NOTHING to do with the text. For example, in the chpater on your baby's growth, sandwiched in the paragraph in which the author is discussing whether a baby can perceive sounds within the womb, the set-aside tip is If you don't have time to wash your hair, try puttling baby powder in it, brush it out, and style as usual (something I learned from Glamour magazine twenty years ago, but didn't expect to read in a pregnancy book). In the chapter on being a single mother, the "Time-Saving, Energy-Saving Tip" is as follows -- "If your kids string beads or have projects that have a lot of small parts, one easy way to keep them neat is to use an ice-cube tray to hold everything in easy to get to compartments." As if what to do with your kid's craf supplies is the most pressing issue facing an unmarried pregnant woman. The author has tips on how to get spilled soda stains out of carpet, how to store plastic bread bags and grocery bags in old paper towel tubes, and things like that -- and these tips are often more detailed than her tips about pregnancy. One of my favorite "Time-Saving, Energy-Saving Tips", that gets equal billing with bead organization & stain removal is "If you have other children at home, make plans for someone to pick them up from day care or school if you go into labor when they are not at home. Update school or day-care permission foirms to include those whom you want to pick up your children." Duh (my reaction to a lot of stuff in the book). Another anoying fact is the tremendous amount of redundance & repetition. Like magazine & newspaper articles, the author often takes sentences out of the text and highlights them in enlarge, italicized font -- so they are in the text AND in the highlighted form. Problem is, the highlights are often right next to the excerpted text, so you end up reading the same thing twice -- without anything else in between.

On the positive side -- the book is very easy to read, and it contains a great glossary of terms and list of resources. You won't need a copy of Household Hints from Heloise if you buy this, as the author tries to cover pregnancy and household management in one text. The book contains good illustrations. And (this is pretty important) -- this is a reassuring book about pregnancy, not a scary if-you-don't-eat spinach-and-walk-three-miles-a-day-your-baby-has-no-chance-of-being-normal book. Overall, this is okay, and it might be just the thing for some people, but I found it to be a little pandering & superficial.

I too was one of those chapter 8 students. I waited for what seemed like forever for this book to arrive, only to be greatly dissapointed. Like the other reader stated it was great for newsletter information, but managed to miss the true soul of the school. What I found in my amazing experience there was, yes other schools were not capable of dealing with us. The book makes our generation sound like rejects, when the truth is Glade valley strived to build it's student body with highly intelligent kids who were bored easily in regular schools or having difficult home lives that was affecting their studies. ( Did the author actually talk to a cross section of students who were there? Obviously not.) What I feel happened with this book is it missed a basic difference. A body is built of organs, bones, blood, and assorted other things, just like a school is made up of many parts. Until there is a life force, soul, spirit (call it what you will) the body is just a thing. The author missed the life force of this school and just goes on about the anatomy missing what truly made this school unique. She also missed the incredible bonding that has only been found in this school (to my personal knowledge). If you are looking for memories this book is not the place to find them. Although it is an excellent source to read about the inner workings and find out what really happened when the school shut down. It would have been a much better book had the author sought out students from many generations to get a real feel for the subject matter. It just reads like an outsider looking in.

I am one of the students from Chapter 8 'Final Years'. I did find the reading a little dry, a lot of satistics. But it was nice to read how the school was founded and grew. It is sad to see the school now ..abandon and empty. The concept of the school was like no other in my generation and GV gave me lessons and values that I will carry on in my life...

I take issue with the previous reviewers - I think this books speaks very well of the people and the area of Glade Valley School, especially those like Jim Little who were instrumental in constructing a community from little more than hills and rivers and a couple of horse trails in the early 1900s. This is a true account of how some of the last elements of American frontier spirit settled into part of God's country and carved more than just a living, more a way of life, in a land that can be harsh and giving all in a given day. The school embodied much of this spirit, and I believe Ms. Dickson's book reflects her own admiration of - and even magical fascination with - that spirit. If the readers who are actually alumni of Glade Valley can not see that, than perhaps their vision is clouded with the fact that they played a role in weakening the spirit that built the school in the first place.

Reading this book should remind anyone that a school is more than just a place we went in our formulative years to keep us out of trouble or give out parents a break, it is the beginning of the social contract, an opportunity for each of us to learn that we have to develop life-long skills and use those skills to build more institutions of learning, whether figurative or literal in modality. This is one of the benefits of such a narrative history; we get some of the secrets to building said skills without having to learn the lessons on our own.

Bravo!

This book attempts to be an all in one source for your post-partum recovery. While it does cover everything from breastfeeding problems to losing weight to burping your baby, it's not done well. It tries to cover too much information in too short of a book, the result is a lot of subjects, but not a lot of subastance. It's probably better to get a separate book on breastfeeding (Dr. Sear's Breastfeeding book and the Breastfeeding Answer Book by La Leche League are excellent), a separate book on baby care, etc... I even found the post-partum section in "What to Expect the First Year" to be more informative and helpful than in "Bouncing Back After Your Pregnancy". Incidentally, "What to Expect the First Year" is another excellent source for baby care issues, it's far more in-depth than this particular book. I'm so glad I checked this out at the library rather than buying it, the cover of this book has a lot of appeal, it's just too bad the content doesn't match.

This book concisely covers the basics of recovering from childbirth. Chapters include information on everything from taking care of yourself following the birth of your child to nutrition and exercise. This was one of several I kept on hand to reference.

The information in this book was scattered around too much. I would have prefered there to be more information in each week about that specific week and all the medical info at the back (unless really pertaining to that week.) Also, the weeks didn't conform with the months. For example, my baby had just turned 7 months and was 30 wks. old. The book refered to 30 weeks as 8 months old and scared me into thinking my baby should be crawling at that age. Luckily I have other books that confirmed that at 7 months, most babies aren't crawling yet (though a few might be.)

I loved this book! I was very disappointed to read all the bad reviews about this book. Both my husband and I read this book weekly and found it very informative. The only major difference I found in this book was weight and length at the beginning of each week was very different from my daughers actual size. But in week 1 this book states its growth changes are based on a baby weighing 7 pounds and 20 inches long at birth. My daughter was almost 9 pounds and 22.5 inches long at birth! If you can get past the fact that your babys weight and lengh might be different than what the book states this book is a must! It has a lot of great information on health, development and lots of ideas to help your baby learn through playing.

Every friday my 14 weeks old daughter turns a week older. Every friday,she and I sit and read the book and we work on the weak points she having and praise the strong points. This is a awesome book and I started reading it right after delivery in the hospital. My husband surprise with it after our daughter was born due to the fact that I followed the pregnancy week by week each saturday.This is my new favorite baby shower gifts. For first time moms, I recommend it highly.