Mrs. Frizzle's class gets some skeleton costumes, and they are all missing something. They go to the costume designer to get some spares, but they are frightened by The Ghost Of John! Will they get over the fright?

I THINK THAT THE BOOK "SIX SICK SHEEP" WAS A FUNNY BOOK. I WAS READING IT AND COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN.NOW IN SCHOOL WE ARE DOING A FUN PROJECT ABOUT TONGUE TWISTERS AND I KNOW THEM ALL. THANKS TO THIS BOOK.

Albert Schweitzer wrote on a wide range of topics. This book is an excellent introduction to Schweitzer's views on art, music, philosophy, religion, ethics, colonialism, science, and more. What I found frustrating is that the book consists of short extracts from Schweitzer's writings. It is like looking at still photographs of scenes from a movie rather than watching the complete film. Or eating appetizers and never getting the full meal. The book's format did not allow me to experience the fullness of Schweitzer's thoughts on any subject. To be fair, the editor, Charles R. Joy, states that it is his hope that the reader will be motivated to read Schweitzer's works in their full as a result of reading this anthology. I appreciated the biographical chronology at the end of the book. It gave a good overview of Schweitzer's work and extensive travels.

A brief overview of one of aviations greatest mysteries, and particularly emotional when describing the recovery of the victims and the suffering of relatives. It does, however, lack in accuracy in some places. For example, it states Capt. Snyder handled the takeoff, when Capt. Kervorkian flew while Capt. Snyder handled radio communications. Ralph Kervorkian was a Captain, not First Officer, and was in the left seat being on his second 747 qualification flight after swapping from L-1011's, under the supervision of Capt. Snyder. It was particularly tragic for the father of trainee Flight Engineer Oliver Krick, himself a highly experienced TWA pilot. Let us not forget that TWA also suffered the loss of many employees.

My daughter and I read this book together and with each page you look for the letter that it talks about. I gotta tell you there were many pages in which we were stumped! It got so that we both lost the point of the story and just looked for the letter in the illustrations. My daughter liked this book but I personally have seen better alphabet books.

I think that every child that is in at least first grade should learn about sex or "how babies are made" and if they learn earlier, thats their parents' desicion. I hate how some Sex Ed classes only take place in Six or Seventh grade, and by then, it could be too late (if you know what I mean). Also, every kid has the right to know where the come from!!
The reason I did NOT like this book, though, is because of two reasons:
The first reason is that it portrays the parents as immature as children, too paranoid to tell their kids the real way that babies are made. So instead they come up with all these crazy stories (virtually every old wives tale concerning the matter) that they tell their kids. Then the kids, acting more like the adults their parents should be, make an undetailed diagram using childish words decribing reproduction. It's as if the kids think that the parents, after having babies, don't know what it really is. Well, of COURSE the parents know, they, after all HAD the kids, for gods sake!!!!
The second thing I don't like, I already mentioned. The undetailed drawings that the kids did of the reproduction cycle, is too, well, UNDETAILED. If you want your kids to learn about "making babies" at least you should show some better diagrams! For instance, it shows a three edged mound where the man's oragans should be, and a half circle where the woman's should be!!! It also uses childish words like "tube" "seed pod" and "seeds". This is supposed to teach children about how babies are made and it doesn't even have the right termology and diagrams!!! I think that the best way to teach your children about reproduction is if you tell them yourself, or get a more informative, detalied book and read to them or have them read it.

I can't believe the horrible reviews I've seen of this book. Lighten up a little people. I'm a conservative person, but I'm not repressed. This book isn't a good introductory explanation of reproduction; instead it's a silly and cute supplement for a child who already knows the basics. The parents in the book tell their children just about every old wives' tale you've heard about where children come from. The pictures show babies being mixed out of sugar and spice and baked in an oven, babies growing in pots like plants, etc., with very funny illustrations. Then the children turn around and tell their parents how reproduction really takes place. My only problem with the book is that it doesn't use the correct terms for the anatomy and instead uses "seed," "seed pod," and "tube." I would use this more as a humorous supplement than as a basic learning tool.

...BE READY TO DISCUSS IT. I definitly would not leave this book lying around where it could accidentally make its way into a bookbag and onto the school bus.

HOWEVER, I do not think it's as horrible as the other reviewers said. They may be educators, but I'm a parent, and I thought this book was a great gateway to discussion for me and my 6 year old child.

Children see REAL people in more graphic situations on TV commercials or shows before you can change the channel. Surely a cartoon of stick people isn't THAT offensive. (I dont' think kids should be taught about sex at their elementary school anyway. that's my job- I'M THE PARENT.)

If you are ready to really explain what they are reading/seeing then this is a good book for parents of younger kids who want to know more then just "daddy and mommy decided we were ready for a baby".

I am not familiar with the particular family that is the focus of the book and documentary, but having lived in Eastern Kentucky all my life, I can attest to the fact that this family represents the exception and not the rule. It is quite dangerous to generalize that the entire region is full of families living in such conditions. There are poverty-stricken people in every region, even in inner-cities. Documentaries like this serve to perpetuate the "hillbilly" stereotype that is so demeaning and destructive to the proud people of Appalachia. Most of us are not living without modern conveniences, technological advances, or even advanced education. I would have appreciated the spirit of this effort if there had been any attempt to distinguish the experiences of this family from the majority of the population of Eastern Kentucky. Instead, they are presented as a typical example of the "modern" Appalachian family. That is a shamefully deceptive myth.

I am not from Kentucky but I personally know relatives of this family and I have visited this mountain area with them. This is really how this family lives and I find the documentory and the book to be actual fact regarding this situation. Many of the relatives have left the area over the years and do lead fine lives in other states. This would represent the remainder of the family that chose to stay with their roots.

In my opinion, the American Hollow is not the author's literary and photographic perception of life in Appalachia. It is an unbiased view of life in the hollow as seen by one family. The author did not attempt to label the family as being representative of the population in general. Whether the family is atypical of the average Appalachian family is irrelevant. The determination of authenticity can be more appropriately evaluated by the participants, the actual family members depicted in the book and film. If the family and neighbors recognize the depictions as creditable, then the author has done a good job of telling it like it is, without approval or disapproval, but merely acceptance that this is one Appalachian family. I missed the documentary on HBO and have searched high and low for it without success. Would be interested to know where I might obtain a copy...all comments welcomed.

This book attempts to persuade the reader that businesses are best managed by customer portfolio management, a method consisting of three general parts: (a) mathematical modelling and computation of "customer value" (b) segmenting customers in "value groups" (c) optimize revenue by focusing on the "value groups" offering highest revenues

The authors' calculation of value does not include the indirect results of the customer's patronage. Will their buying habits influence others, such as their children, to remain loyal to the brand? Will their recommendations influence others to buy? This whole chain of reasoning appears absent from the text -- a puzzling omission since the importance of referrals as a positive influence in affecting sales has been known for eons.

Similarly, the authors are strangely absent with regards to providng value and quality across all products and services, not just those offering the most attractive "customer value". It should be remembered that today's carpenter, may be tomorrow's subcontractor and then may be a future home builder. By selecting and focusing only on select groups, the company's performance may be viewed by such a customer as inconsistent or spotty. Indeed, such a customer may very well ask themselves, "Will I be in the next group slighted because I'm viewed as 'low value'?" (NOTE: This is not to say that differing services can be provided to different types, levels or classes of customers. On the contrary, to fail to offer this would be foolish. Companies can, however, offer customers the *choice*, and not pre-ordain their fates, esp. when such a fate is dictated by such an abstraction.)

Relying on a highy volatile measure such as "customer value" is inherently very, very risky and one wonders if the recurrent churning of those calculations would, in fact, yield meaningful results in a fast-paced business environment.

Customer connection
After reading this book, you will know what is the customer relationship model, that is the value compass and foundation of customer connection strategy.
I do agree that the author did present the book in an academic way which is quite bored. For the value compass, it is a complicated model and it is not easy to be understood. However, I remember that the author did distinguish the difference among the product manager, process manager and the network manager, this part is quite good and clear.
Also the author did explain the customer equity by using the equation, it¡¦s quite good and impressed.
Generally, I think you can learn something from this book, for example, we know that we need to create long term relationship with our customers and the critical success factor for running a business is to create value to the customers but not to reduce cost for the business.

I found that this book is useful as it introduced a useful tool for customer relationship. The author introduced a great customer relationship model, ¡§The Value Compass¡¨.

I think that it is important for the company to understand that ¡§reduce cost¡¨ is not the most important element to achieve success. Instead, company should put effort on creating value in order to achieve goal. And we have already known that the cost of retaining customer is much lower than the cost of acquiring new customers. So, why look for new customers, when you can improve the ones you¡¦ve already got?

Customer satisfaction is one of the elements of retaining customers. And customer satisfaction can be done by ¡§creating value¡¨. This book introduced you with ¡§The Value Compass¡¨ which provided you a great tool to create value and thus build up long-term customer relationship.

With the help of ¡§The Value Compass¡¨, company can position itself among different dimensions of relationship value. After know ¡§where you are¡¨, company should decide ¡§where are you going to be¡¨, according to ¡§The Value Compass¡¨. Then the company can achieve the target position by prepare customer connection strategy, which has discussed by this book.

So, if you are in the management level of your company, if you want your company to create value to the customers in order to build long-term customers relationship, you may read this book to achieve your goal more efficiently and effectively.

I have taken many math courses and as a result have read many math texts-from Abelian group theory to nonlinear functional analysis. I am convinced that this book is absolutely the worst math book ever written. The author is simply incapable of expressing the material. He believes that "theoretical and abstract" are synonymous with "making things it difficult to understand." For instance, in chapter 11 when he is trying to teach nonparametric estimation methods, he rambles on for whole page on how the data should be ranked. It's elementary stuff that could be expressed in 4 sentences. Also, he provides the tables (not very good ones) for the t distribution; yet, there is not ONE comment on how the tables are to be used. Most students use outside sources to learn the material. Furthermore, the author doesn't provide the intuition behind most of the concepts. Statistics in inherently an applied subject and without grasping the intuition behind why you do what do you, the student merely memorizes formulas.

As a graduate student in statistics, I learned to hate this textbook. The text is filled with plenty of formulas, but lacks plain English explanations and illustrations. Many of the subjects, such as the treatment of functions of jointly distributed random variables (Z = X + Y, Z = X/Y, etc.) in Chapter 3, are completely inadequate. I needed more diagrams so that I could wrap my mind around these concepts and understand them at an intuitive, geometric level. I also failed to understand the importance of Sufficiency and the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound in Chapter 8. These subjects seemed to lack any real-world applications and are just math games as far as I'm concerned.

Avoid this book like the plague if you're a beginner in statistics. It'll turn you off to the subject!

This book is so far the best mathematical statistics and data analysis textbook I've ever read for an undergraduate intermediate level statistics course. The topics are well chosen and the book is well written. The previous bad reviews of the book at Amazon.com are from people with absolutely no knowledge of statistics and trying to find some short-cut to "prepare for a exam" or whatever. So if you are a serious reader and with intermediate level statistics understanding, go for the book. It is not only good to be used a textbook, but also excellent for reference purpose.

I expected much more content. This book was no use to me at all

The book consists of numerous sketches of decks, patios, entries, etc. It was perfect for my situation because I was simply looking for design ideas to make my patio unique and not just the traditional rectangle shape. The "how-to" books I found on patios and decks had lots of instruction but very few pictures. I was able to combine ideas from a couple of the sketches in this book and come up with a great design. Be advised that the book contains no building instructions or dimensions. It is simply a lot of ideas presented as sketches.

I am a graduate architecture student, and my education did not include much on landscaping. I use this book frequently to get ideas on how to integrate the landscape into my buildings. The book contains hundreds of watercolor illustrations of small outdoor spaces. It is useful for exploring material options, getting ideas on landscape integration, color options, learning how to render an outdoor space, etc. This book is good for showing broad ideas for inspiration and adaptation, not exact copying. The many styles presented could also be useful for a client who wants to describe a style to a designer but may not know the technical name or how to describe it.