Charming book, but I thought it was missing some of the heart of earlier Caroline books. I thought the author did a great job with researching the period and capturing what it could have possibly been like to be a 15 year old in Milwaukee.

This book is so well-written that you get educated and have fun reading at the same time. Jerry Dennis is a thoughful yet humorous writer who has done scads of research. I've lived on the Great Lakes all my life and didn't know half of what is in this book. His stories are memorable, from the fateful coho frenzy to the Chicago-to-Mackinac sailboat race, and the trip on the Malabar that ties everything together is really a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. I'm glad I was able to travel along vicariously through Jerry Dennis' wonderful prose.

This is a fun book to read-aloud to 4-6 year-olds. The story is a delightfully silly one about worm-sellers gone awry! There's lots of humour in the illustrations by Dean Griffiths and his work complements the playful text very nicely. The portraits of the local residents are loaded with details which should keep this story fresh even after multiple readings.

Trevor Leggett is unquestionably one of the best Western practitioners/teachers/scholars of Asian wisdom traditions. In this book, the author presents stories drawn from India (Lotus Lake) and Japan (Dragon Pond), the scenes of his own spiritual training and scholarly study. The entries are short, 1-3 pages each, making good spiritual reading before bedtime, and are easily finished in a month or so. One of my favorites is about a novice who doesn't want to give up his desire for a heavenly apsara (or human female resembling one), and his teacher says, You don't give up the idea that you would desire her; what you do give up is the expectation that such a beauty might appear and want you. (Get it?--expecting something divinely fleshy to appear, we hold something back from our practice or committments.) Another story concerns a devotee dutifully polishing his temple: in youth, to impress visitors; in old age, out of sheer devotion to his deity--which then had the effect on visitors that he so longed for in his youth! I respect this author a lot for his accomplishments and his generosity in bringing the authentic teachings (Zen, Yoga, Gita) to the rest of us in the West. The stories are not typically about bhakti-like love and adoration of a Sufi or a Krishna devotee (but then there's the first story, about a devotee's unceasing loving acceptance of the local atheist, who worshipped the divine in his own way). Instead, they tend instead toward austerity, dedication and hard practice, and that austersity can be off-putting at times. In that sense, this is not his best work (for that, see "Realization of the Supreme Self: The Bhagavad Gita Yogas"). That said, these stories are well worth pondering in silent moments.

Politicians tend not to be problem-solvers. This becomes especially obvious in practical matters like the environment, where private citizens are motivated less by political philosophy than by the desire to clean up a local river, to cure a sick relative, or to reduce the pollution from a local factory.

Gordon Durnil's book is about the tensions between his role as a problem-solver and the Kafkaesque operations of government which usually have little to do with solving problems. A lawyer from Indiana and former Republican State Chairman, Durnil was appointed to an international commission to investigate toxic substances in the Great Lakes region. Of particular concern was the growing evidence that persistent toxic substances were having a dire effect on human health, as demonstrated by increases in cancer, reproductive problems, and in children, learning disabilities and immune deficiencies.

Durnil spent most of his time going to meetings and writing reports. He interviewed scientists from the U.S. and Canada from industry, government, environmental groups, and academia. Although it appears that one of the purposes of the commission was to figure out its purpose, Durnil believed that the commission functioned best as a catalyst for action by gathering these groups together, trying to get them to listen to each other, and then releasing information to the public. More specifically, he found sufficient evidence that the commission ought to do what it could to eliminate toxic substances from the region.

The reader gets taken into this world of government almost as if it were a science fiction novel. There is the strange, legal language of abstractions and acronyms; the tangled web of authority and numerous committees, where responsibility is difficult to locate; the contradictions and illogic of numerous actions and inactions; the exasperation that Durnil felt from trying to negotiate this maze. The incompetence of government might be comic if it didn't have dire consequences. There are numerous obstacles to the truth, which Durnil divides into separate chapters as reactions from government, industry, environmental groups, public, press, and health-care professionals. Sometimes it seems there are nothing but barriers, leaving Durnil with nothing but questions.

One of the more interesting obstacles was the resistance by fellow Republicans. Few were interested in the consistency between conservatism and conservation, the constitutional obligation of government to protect its citizens, or the common-sense desire for clean air and water. On this issue there ought to be nonpartisan consensus. But then that would imply that problem-solving is a high priority among politicians, and politicians tend not to be problem-solvers.

In Manufacturing on the Move, Crandall deftly answers why manufacturing moved from the U.S. Rust Belt from 1967 to 1989. In particular, novelty marks the thoughtful manner in which he weaves the tale. The story is a series of topics, each of which addresses the main subject and which emerges directly in response to questions raised by investigations into the topic it succeeds. Hence, the connections between research topics are unusually strong. For example, the issue of manufacturing relocation is couched as part of the answer to a question regarding regional income divergence in the U.S. (He goes on to explain that regional incomes increased more in the Rust Belt than elsewhere, despite larger drops in manufacturing's share of employment, because labor-force unionization rates fell more slowly there.)

He knocks the widely held belief that Rust Belt manufacturing employment has declined since the 1970s because it was home to several troubled industries: steel, machine tools, and motor vehicles. He shows that employment growth rates were much higher for the nation in these key two-digit SICs than they were the Rust Belt states between 1977 and 1989. Crandall skirts any further analytical detail in this investigation by acknowledging that intraindustry demand shifts could largely explain the interregional growth rate differentials for these industries, thus requiring data at the three- and four-digit SIC level. Duffy (1994), who was able to make a stab at two-digit SIC analysis, showed that the Rust Belt's relatively higher wage (caused by its increasing relative unionization rate?) and tax rates are largely responsible for its higher rate of employment decline in these sectors. Crandall reworks Wheat's (1986) analysis of manufacturing employment change at the labor-market (metropolitan) and state levels. He repeats this analysis for new plants, plant expansions, plant contractions, and plant closures by using the Small Business Administration's database, which is known for its dubious integrity (it is also no longer produced). He also repeats the state-level analysis for nonfarm employment and gross state product. Little new is gained from these additional exercises. Two novel explanations of manufacturing employment shifts to which Crandall draws attention are the costs of compliance to environmental standards and the effects of exchange rate fluctuations. Unfortunately he opted not to include these variables in his regressions, despite revealing evidence of their strong relationships to interregional employment shifts.

The weakest part of Manufacturing on the Move is the motivation for its existence. Crandall acknowledges the research that explains U.S. interregional manufacturing shifts, but fails to note the new contributions his book offers this large literature. Indeed, the book is mostly an update of Wheat (1986) but with an eye toward explaining income convergence/divergence among census regions. The link between employment and income made through an analysis of relationships between employment and earnings.

In summarizing the book, Crandall simply notes that labor market variables are key to interregional employment shifts. This finding is not new nor was it ever much of a surprise to industrial location analysts, especially in light of the increasing influence that world markets have been levying on the U.S. economy. This is because, on average, labor costs compose approximately 70 percent of the value a firm adds to its product (by definition, the value a firm adds to its product is the sum of the price components over which it can directly impose cost controls).

In summary, I found Manufacturing on the Move a solid book that offered little new in the form of substance. Hence, it would serve as a good class room text on industrial location that should be supplemented by articles with more detail on selected topics. Since it is easy to read and also rather brief, I also recommend it to the economic development practitioner, despite its lack of new contributions to the literature.

This book is worth while as it is loaded with information. Though it maybe a older book, the information makes it a great resource.

Once again, Gail Gibbons has done a wonderful job introducing 4 to 8 year olds to another natural realm. In Marshes and Swamps, Ms. Gibbons writes and shows through her illustrations where both freshwater and saltwater wetlands are found, how they developed and are maintained, the plants, animals, invertebrates, plants and insects who live there, and why they are threatened by humans. The book explains a bit about freshwater marshes, saltwater marshes, freshwater swamps, and mangrove swamps. Marshes and Swamps can launch a great classroom unit on the importance of wetlands to migratory birds, on food chains, on pollution and its impact on the environment, on the different adaptations of plants and animals to wet/brackish/salty environs. I am using this book with my third grade classroom and it is so full of information that we will use it for a month. Wading Into Wetlands, by the National Wildlife Federation is a great companion book of hands on activities that enhance the Gail Gibbons Marshes and Swamps book.

Sanna Baker does a marvelous job describing a part of the Mississippi River few people ever hear or know about. Baker's description makes you feel as if you are actually traveling with her on her journey. The illustrations bring Baker's story to life. The book is also a good source of factual information and Indian folklore. a wonderful resource for Social Studies teachers!