I enjoyed this book because it was fun to understand a little about what the people I know from the seris went through as a person my age.

Breakaway is such a good book. I am ten years old and I don't like soccer, but I was really into the book. I felt like I was Luke. The book was well written. Breakaway even made me feel like I wanted to play soccer. Thank you, Ms. Little, for writing this book. I enjoyed it very much.

I believe that this was a very good book because I like to learn about my favorite charater, Deanna Troi. She learned a very important lesson about aliens. I am only 12, but I know a good book when I see one. -Elizabeth Keeler

This Hamilton and Weiss book was given to us as a gift. It was our first experience with their books. We are very grateful to have this book in our collection and what a great place to start!

The length of each story and child friendly layout of the book really encouraged my kids to, not only read, but to tell these stories. The "How and Why World Tales..." are right in line with questions kids are always asking. They love to ask and they love to search for answers. These multi-cultural tales stimulate the thinking power of children and encourage their imaginations.

The illustrations and stories are in perfect harmony. After a wonderful collection of tales, Hamilton and Weiss offer a master's class at the end of the book. They suggest many ways to read, practice, and tell these stories. Their energetic support to tell leaps off of the page as if they are right there to coach. They offer more story prompt ideas which expand the book even further. They are masters.

I have great respect for the work of Hamilton and Weiss in helping children tell stories. Their first book, 'Children Tell Stories: A Teaching Guide' is a classic that should be in every school and public library. I have also found 'Stories in My Pocket: Tales Kids Can Tell' to be very helpful. I was very excited to see that they had a new book, and used it in my third grade classroom last year. The children loved the stories. All are simply retold in a lively manner and are shortenough to make them accessible to young tellers. The size of type, amount of white space, and use of illustrations by Carol Lyon all add up to a very appealing volume. How & Why Stories is an excellent book for youngsters to use on their own and for teachers and group leaders to use with children."

This is yet another excellent book authored by two world-class storytellers. I speak from experience as Beauty and the Beast taught my daughter's class how to tell stories a number of years ago. The same care, expertise and insight into children which they employed as teachers can be seen in compiling the stories in this book.

These are wonderful stories which seem as if they would be great fun to tell. The range of stories is fantastic as is the very diverse, multi-cultural background of the chosen tales. I enjoyed reading the stories for their own sake but can see how readers would love to use them as stories to tell to others. What a wonderful collection!

This book is a great read for young storytellers and their parents-even if you never tell a single story it is a great read for the stories themselves.

I have read both Leo Hamilton's Collection I and Collection II and I especially enjoyed the second. I thought the idea of a story book to color was great and my child and I really enjoyed coloring the fantastic pictures together. It is so nice to have real quality illustrations in a coloring book. We're looking forward to the next book!

Loved the book. The whimsical nature of the drawings is a perfect complement to the stories. Everyone (yes, adults, too) will love to bring out the crayons and indulge in some coloring book therapy.

I have 3 children and they all love the book.Its not to often you find a book you can color in! The stories are simple and easy to understand.I reccommend this book to any child who loves animal stories and loves to color.

Y2K Connections is the best scenarios learning tool I have ever used. Each time I use this learning tool I am treated to another demonstartion of how creative and resilient groups of people can be when offered the opportunity to think for themselves and grapple with developing solutions for a wide range of potential challenges. Y2K Connections supports creative thinking and empowers groups to generate ideas that I, and they, know would not have come up individually.

It is affirming individually to be part of a successfully creative group and it is inspiring collectivelly to encounter such stirring examples of effective group solutions. Even though the situations posed, are theoretical - the soultions generated during Y2K Connections are workable.

I am surprised and delighted every time I facilitate this game. Every time groups coalesce differenctly and come up with unique solutions that reflect the particular circumstances they imagine and respond to.

Y2K Connections informs people about the wide range of possible challenges. Rather than causing alarm . . . people leave reassured by their own creativity and the positive support to be found in groups of people working together to solve problems and care for the people in their communities.

The fact that each scenairo card has a piece of a map of the world on its flip side creates a visual opportunity to bring the world together and simultaneously challenges the group with a real-time puzzle.

Y2K Connections is a 5 star learning tool, suitable for all ages and all walks of life.

"Y2K Connections™" addresses a wide range of therapeutic goals such as problem solving, critical thinking, social skills, communication skills, and how to develop a plan of action. Few games or books I've purchased offer both a therapeutic value and a social impact. I highly recommend it." Rondalyn Varney Whitney, MOT, OTR

This game provides its players the opportunity to learn from each other through group scenarios. The game promotes unity, compels quick-thinking, develops problem solving skills, and requires creativity. This is a great game for team building at the office and for encouraging more interaction among family members at home.

This is the most incredible, awesome book on the founding of the great American Republic I have seen. If you are wondering what's happened to America and American politics, you can find the answer in this book. American Schools have created an uneducated generation of people who have forgotten their roots. Because of that, Americans have no idea what rich heritage their founding fathers left for them: an everlasting covenant of freedom from government-over-man. But the price was high. Those men, our fathers, paid that price with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor--literally. This book ought to be required study from first grade through High School. Once you start it, you can't put it down. It will revive dried out patriotism with fire in your soul. It will make you angry at what our politicians are doing to our Constitution today: they totally ignore it when in their own best interests. I just simply cannot say enough about this book, except that if you can find it, get it. It's worth the price no matter what they charge for it. But they may be hard to come by. I'm buying every one I can find, for my kids, interested friends, and my grandkids. If this book could get into the hands of enough Americans, there would be a revival of fervor for our Constitution; we would absolutely put politicians back in their place, i.e, back in the "chains of the Constitution" as one founding father stated; Americans would once again experience what real freedom was, as intended by the fathers. This book simply lights a fire in your soul. I could talk about it all night.

I count myself among the truly fortunate readers to have come across this book.This work, rather than passing on should be resurrected and made required reading for all students in our grammar and high schools. I find as much comfort from it as some would from a bible, as I am truly frustrated with the direction our uninformed society is heading. I am searching now for a copy to send to the new President as an infallible guide for his presidency. Search high and low, but get and read this book.

Hamilton Abert Long is perhaps the most important American political philosopher, statesman, and scholar of this century. Not only does he provide a sound well-documented summary of the American Ideal, he destroys the most significant anti-American philosophies that have been romancing our educational establishment for decades. Sadly, academe will have to play catch-up with Long after they find out that socialism, in all of its permutations, is deadly to fatal, and destructive of life, liberty, and, of course, private property. This book is as authoritative and comprehensive as it gets. It might even be the best remedial tool available for curing many of the worst enemies of the Constitution among those in the legal profession and on the Bench.

This is the first of the Matt Helm novels. It gives a lot of background on Helm, and shows how he was forced out of retirement after 15 years to return to work for the nameless secret organization for whom he killed Nazis in WWII. Although this is in the espionage genre, the writing owes more to the hardboiled school of Dashiell Hammett. If you saw any of the sixties films with Dean Martin, you have no idea what the books are like. There is no spoofing here, and the prose is lean and crisp. This is the place to start if you want to begin a new series from the sixties, or just read one of the Helm books.

Many people believe that one of Ian Fleming's strengths was as a travel writer. Similarly, Hamilton is strong as an outdoors writer. Warning: Hamilton is as sexist as Fleming, but less racist and fascist.

Death of a Citizen is the first of a 27 novel series about Matt Helm...and a threatened #28 The Dominators (hopefully he will finish it.) For a full list of the series (each book has its own report) and other books written by Donald Hamilton (Line of Fire is my fav). Drop by htp://members.aol.com/MacBorden/ "Matt Helm: The Unofficial Homepage"... In DOAC, Matt cain't escape from his past, so he does what he does best..tackle it head on! Mild Mannered photographer hasn't forgotten a bit of his skills that saw him through many missions behind enemy lines in WWII...just a little trouble figureing out who his friends are...

This is a first in a series of must read spy novels. He pulls no punches. He has good common sense. He gives many good lessons on what to watch for when you are in a dangerous business. Does anyone know if he is still around.

Mr.W.H.Lewis, brother of Mr.C.S., projects his fondness for the 17th century with bravado in The Splendid Century. The word splendid, derived from the latin for "illuminated", allows the reader to understand his thesis of the Grand Siecle without turning a page, by simply judging the book by its cover. Here is a profoundly pious Christian man composing some of the most glorious prose about a controvertial subject and succeeding where so many others have failed.

By not limiting himself to Versailles Mr.Lewis creates honesty. But he does not stop there, he remains true to the popular understanding. The Sun King's world brought to life.

The wealth of detail in W.H. Lewis' book The Splendid Century is incredible, but even more incredible is Lewis' ability to see the forest and the trees, to intelligently distinguish between what is useful and what is irrelevant and to leave the reader with a definite impression of Louis XIV's France.

Like his brother, C.S., Warren Lewis has that stereotyped but still very real and precious commodity of English commonsense. His good-humored rationality flavors the book but not to the detriment of the subject. Lewis was, afterall, writing about Louis XIV's France, not 20th century England. As with all the best historians, Lewis has the ability to see the world from outside the ideologies and pressures of the present. More than once, he cautions the reader against applying current century thinking to a 17th century problem or event.

But tone is where Lewis excels. Personable without being chatty, humorous without being sarcastic, A Splendid Century is amazingly relaxing to read, especially allowing for the subject matter and Lewis' fact-filled prose.

Recommendation: Buy it.

W.H. Lewis wrote this famous book (dedicated to his brother C.S.) in 1953, but it has stood the test of time very well and provides an excellent introduction to the history of France during the reign of Louis XIV. "The Splendid Century" is history in the grand manner, written in the style of Trevelyan, Runciman and Roy Porter. The erudition is everywhere apparent, but it is worn lightly and the story is told in fluent prose enlivened by the odd flash of sly humour.

As the author points out in the introduction, the book might have been better titled "Some Aspects of Life in the Reign of Louis XIV;" rather than present a sequential narrative, Lewis chose to structure the book as a series of essays on particular aspects. There are chapters on the king and his court, the religious situation, the organisation of the army and the state of the peasantry. Among the unexpected pleasures of the book are the chapters on sea voyages, the world of the galleys and the education of women. A surprising omission, however, is a discussion of Colbert and his attempts at administrative reform. Nevertheless, this is a fine work of history that can be strongly recommended.

I read the paperback edition of this series, and absolutely loved it. The first book I found a little slow and tedius at times, but was generally enjoyable. And it set up a lot of the story for the next two books, which just got better and better. The detail in the books and the sheer depth of the story (planets, cultures, technology, etc) was awesome. I would give the series 7 stars if I could...

This is probably my favorite book series of all time. Hamilton weaves a complex and engaging storyline that actually manages to bring an entire world to life. And unlike other sci-fi series, this vision of the future actually seems believable. The culture he describes could have easily developed from our present one, and the technology (aside from the FTL) is remarkably realistic. This is definately the sci-fi version of Tolkien, without the madeup languages and unnessary appendixes. I rank this series up with Heinlein's "Future History" as one of the greatest sci-fi epics of all time. (This review is based on the paperback novels).

Have you ever decided to seriously examine the implications of whether or not a soul exists and what happens to the soul after it leaves the body? This is the scientific journey that takes you to that place where one such dimension of this idea is explored on a cosmic scale. Not only is this "trilogy" a great read but it keeps you going with all of the lines of expansive thought explored and intertwinned.
This book took up 19,000 pages on my IPaq - It kept me going through a 10 day vacation and made me an anti-social animal for at least 10 other days.
If you enjoy exploring the implications of a simple thought - the soul - this is the book to read.

I read this to my daughter, Rachel, and she really enjoyed it. She smiled throughout the entire book. She loved the animal folktales about Bruh Rabbit, and Bruh Fox. She trembled with delight at the reading of the scary tales. As for her mother, my favorite was the title tale, The People Could Fly. It was magical!

I read this book as a child. The lessons that I learned from it have lasted well into my young adult, I am now 23 years old. The illustrations are first rate. This book should be a literary standard for all children books. Anyone with a child needs to have this in their children's personal library.

Fascinating folktales from an African-American perspective, this work evokes memories of the strength of a people to find magic, wonder, and spirituality in a time when oppression was the norm. Miss Hamilton, along with illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon, has produced a work of timeless importance. One of the few books that I can't keep on the shelves of my classroom, it is an essential for every teacher or person interested in exposing children to a wealth of literature.

I too read this book some 25 years ago while in high school. My dad was in the fire department, read it and passed it along to me, saying if I wanted to read what his work was really like, this book said it all perfectly.

If you can find this book, buy it and pass along to anyone who wants to know what being a firefighter is really all about. Descriptive, accurate and pulls no punches in the job-warts and all.

Highly recommend it, even if only to read true adventure which novelists can't match.

I read this book, when I was in college. This is a very well written testament about the careers and experiences on New York City Fire Fighters. Ten years later, I am still trying to locate copies of this book, to give to my friends, who now work for the FDNY.

This is the book to find. Like one of the other reviewers, I had this book many years ago, and read it until it literally fell apart. I found it again at a public library about two years ago, and I long to once again have it in my collection.