Wow! What a remarkable book! The authors' insightful and ingenious book brings forth a fresh twist to improving life! Truly inspiring!

Creative, captivating and remarkable manner to help people find their life purpose, realization of potentials and exciting new possibilities for their life. The 'Quests' have given me strengths and showed me possibilities that I was unaware existed within my life. Congratulations to the authors for creating this unique and refreshing book!

This book is one of the best I have read and experienced. This book is an experience into a person's life and into their future. I recommend the book to people of all ages.

The Gumbs family knows their Kwanza and shares wonderfully! This is an amazing and enlightening little book on how to celebrate Kwanza with your children and (if you're still together) spouse. There are recipes (including one for an excellent spiced rum chicken) and ideas for party games (Coffee-pot suprise is our family's favorite). I highly recommend this book if you are looking to educate yourself in this misunderstood holiday.

This is one of the finest books I have read on the subject of a Kwanza celebration. It is a how-to book that will give anyone interested in learning the many aspects of Kwanza the tools to prepare and enjoy a memorable and festive occasion.

In fact, this book not only discusses other Kwanza events but has many timely and tasty recipes that will make the advanced and beginner cook take notice.

This is one of the most important books I have read to date and I would suggest that anyone wanting to know the true meaning and cultural message of Kwanza, read this book!

This is one of the finest books I have read on the subject of a Kwanza celebration. It is a how-to book that will give anyone interested in learning the many aspects of Kwanza, the tools to prepare and enjoy a memorable and festive occasion.

In fact, this book not only discusses other Kwanza events but has many timely and tasty recipes that will make the advanced and beginner cook take notice.

This is one of the most important books I have read to date and I would suggest that anyone wanting to know the true meaning and cultural message of Kwanza, read this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and could barely put it down. It was intriguing to explore the English world through Ida's eyes and the stark realities and harshness of the Amish life as she lived it, even down to the most basic female needs. The book left me wanting more and I am looking forward the the sequel "Shadows of the Past"

What an absolute delight. This book is refreshing and a great read. I would recommend this book to everyone. Julie has a wonderful way of showing the simplicity of Ida's life.

Wonderful book. I didn't want to put it down when I started reading. I had an opportunity to meet Julie and received an autographed copy of the book which made it very special to me.

It's a greatest book that I have ever read on Electromagnetics.
It will be very competible with the Book of Balanis named Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics.
Really Great.

This is really the best book on electromagnetics I've seen until now. It is very complete and very practical. The author has a clear style and the students can follow the text almost without any help from the teacher. There are a lot of review questions and problems (all with answers). It is really a great value book !

I really think this is a very good book. It has a major advantage over other books in this area in that it covers fundamental analytical theory and then numerical calculations. Thus the reader can go from start to finish and learn the theory as well as how practical solutions are found for many types of machines. This book is especially interesting for those who need to study electromagnetics in order to design better electric machines. Both senior electrical engineering students and mechanical engineering graduates students could learn alot from this book. It explains both the variational approach and the galerkin approach to the finite element method in the context of the theory explained in previous chapters.

It is a travesty that the name of Ida B. Wells-Barnett is not more widely known in the most common lists of American heroes. This great woman, though little in stature, was a giant in the fight for justice and racial equality in this country. This book was a very thorough look at the life of an early champion of the civil rights movement in America. After my chilren an I read about her being physically thrown off a railcar, sueing the railroad company and actually winning her lawsuit, we could not put the book down. Although many of the discriptions and photographs were gruesome, they offered a realistic and brutally honest look at the horrors of lynching. I would recommend this book for sixth grade and up.

Grades 5 and up will find this an excellent biographicalcoverage of the mother of the civil rights movement, providing 178pages packed with facts and black and white illustrations. Thisexamines the life and times of Ida Wells, considering her early years, her civil rights campaign, and her anti-lynching campaign which succeeded in nearly abolishing the popular practice. An eye-opening account of not only her life, but her times. Highly recommended and vivid.

If you are not familiar with Ida B. Wells and her work, by allmeans become so immediately. I will be recommending this book toeveryone I know, and I am a children's and young adult librarian. Ida B. Wells is one of the greatest Americans of all time, and most of us have never heard of her. What she did to better the lives of African-Americans and, especially, to stop lynching, is moving, stirring, and heartbreaking. I never knew that people were burned at the stake in the USA, but they certainly were--and the crowds who came to see them die were happy to have so much fun watching "the nigger burn". A great book.

This is a must have book for teachers!! The illustration in the book is wonderful! There is just enough color to make it inviting and the writing is so great. You could work on rhyming or your colors with this book. The color words within the text are actually colored that color. Ex. The word Green is written with green ink!! It is also good for special education and the lower elementary students. As a fellow Mississippian it's a great way to show our local talent! At this great of a price why not add it to your collection!

Ida Claire Does Fabulous Hair is an excellent childrens book. It is delightful,well written, has good rythm and interesting illustrations. This is a book any child would enjoy. They can learn a lesson while entranced by the rhyming, use of color and wonderful imagination.

We need more children's books like this.

Ida Claire comes to life through the delightful illustrations of Sunny Dai. The accomplished storyteller/author, Louis Rowles,creates a story of human character in this promising children's book. Valuing one's self as a worthy person, one of life's most important lessons, is the underlying theme to be gleaned through Ida Claire's adventure.

Through ear pleasing rhyme and informative vocabulary, the reader follows Ida's quest for popularity with the town's folk. Only through being herself does Ida find true happiness. What better way to teach young people about acceptance in today's seemingly foreboding world?

Great book for fostering phonemic awareness in preschool children and teaching the literary element of theme to students of all ages. A must for character education instruction!

Definitely a 5 star book whose popularity is sure to rival the classics of old.

From the Mississippi Delta is the memoir of Endesha Ida Mae Holland, Ph.D. - a well respected author, playwright, and scholar with a personal story that both enlightens and inspires. As a civil rights pioneer, Dr. Holland was instrumental in the success of organized efforts to eradicate racial discrimination from her home state of Mississippi.

From the Mississippi Delta is even more compelling because of the circumstances from which this remarkable woman came...to think that a one-time prostitute, thief, and convict could rise to become a Pulitzer Prize nominee, critcally acclaimed author, and tenured professor at the University of Southern California! The fact that Dr. Holland has survived and persevered despite having every possible obstacle placed in front of her - it should make those of us who were born to better circumstances rethink our roles in life.

I was extremely humbled by this autobiography. The sacrifices that Dr. Holland and her peers made as part of the Civil Rights Movement should never be forgotten or dismissed. After being repeatedly exposed to the murderous deeds of those who have sought to paint themselves as the brave patriots and heros of a new world order, I am grateful that there are books like From the Mississippi Delta that provide examples of those who can rightly take on the mantles of bravery, heroism, and patriotism - and bear them with the pride, dignity, and respect that they deserve.

The occasionally encountered graphic material didn't bother me, since the scenes and language in From the Mississippi Delta are non-gratuitous, accurate, and true to life; it would be a travesty to dilute them. I am horrified at the prospect of people being subjected to the conditions and abuse that are described as being part and parcel of young Ida Mae Holland's everyday existence.

In my opinion, any distasteful moments are fully recounted in the text to make sure that we don't forget our past mistakes - lest we give in to the ever-present danger of committing the same errors in the future.

A gripping and well-written account. An absolutely incredible read. Highly recommended.

Aside from being a celebration of the human spirit, Ms. Holland's Memoir offers a fresh, interesting, and unique glimpse into the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. This focus alone, I believe, renders the book meritorious.

Ms. Holland tells the civil rights story from the perspective of individuals born and raised in the muck and mire of Mississippi's lethal brand of white supremacy and racial hatred. Through her eyes, we get a close-up view of what had to be overcome; and, what was required of ordinary folk brave enough to get involved in a situation that could and DID, literally, cost them their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

These unsung heroes deserve national attention and recognition if the story of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States of America is to be told in its entirety.

But, if this isn't reason enough to add Ms. Holland's book to your "must read" list, I believe the author's superior craftsmanship will certainly convince you her work is worthy of the acclaim she is sure to receive once her book gains a wider readership. And, above all, the Memoir is a magnificent read!

Usually, I find it awkward and sometimes unnerving to read books written in a black, southern, vernacular. However, as in the case of Zora Neale Hurston, Endesha Ida Mae Holland writes with such a pure and authentic voice, I found myself falling effortlessly into her rhythm.

I'm a voracious reader and the authors I most enjoy are great storytellers. My current favorite is Barbara Kingsolver, and of course my all time favorite is Zora Neale Hurston. Endesha Ida Mae Holland "puts me in the mind of" both these writers.

She also reminds me of Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes & 'Tis). Like McCourt, Ms. Holland transports you back to her childhood and growing up years with such seamless ease, you find yourself sharing her heartbeat through every single experience she lives to tell about. Almost immediately, I found myself caring deeply about her; I grew to love her mother, her child, her neighbors, her friends; and, I found no strangers among those who populate her world.

What an exquisite gift of storytelling she has! I certainly hope she plans to write more "from the Mississippi Delta," because her talent is as rich and fertile as her source.

Obviously, I've become a devoted fan of Ms. Holland and her work ~ a designation I'm hoping you and I will soon share.

Who knows, your reading experience with Ms. Holland may inspire you to join me in asking Oprah Winfrey to feature the author and her book on the Oprah Show, as well as making "From The Mississippi Delta," an Oprah Book Club selection.

I was moved to make this appeal to Ms. Winfrey because I believe we all benefit from an increased national and world exposure of brave and talented women like Ms.Holland. These women are profoundly inspirational and deserving of our applause and recognition.

This is an excellent book that captured my attention from start to finish each of the three times I read it. I cannot think of any people in America that would not benefit from reading this very touching and true story of the deep south. The history of the south after slavery is eloquently highlighted in this very moving story by Endesha and should be fireside reading for children of all ethnic backgrounds.

I greatly admire Endesha's strength to overcome the tragedies she experienced, her ability to forgive those responsible and her wisdom to share this achievement with the world. I congratulate Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland on her accomplishments as a strategic survivor, a courageous civil rights activist, a concerned citizen, a stellar scholar and an accomplished author. There have been many books written about the south after slavery, and I have read several of them. From The Mississippi Delta by Endesha Ida Mae Holland, Phd. is the one you must read.

I do hope Ms. Bivona has a signing in Atlanta. I would love to visit with one who can write about friends, friendship and life the way she does. Ida Mae shares her existence, her life and her experiences of everyday living with you. Ida Mae is always true to herself, even with her self-doubts. Jane, her lifelong friend, leaves town as soon as she can to make for herself an interesting life, but keeps coming back to her taproot of living, Ida Mae. From grade school best friends throughout forever-best friends, Ida Mae and Jane let us touch the textures of friendship. Ida Mae and Jane are two very different, very tough, common sense women, each in her own way. They believe that one makes a decision, lives with it and if it needs to be changed, then change it and move through. To make the ritual of afternoon teas be warp and fill for the fabric of life is to have great mastery; Ms. Bivona does a wonderful job. This story about friendship is different from any that I have ever read. The friendship-bond story can be over used; Ms. Bivona did anything but.

Long after I had finished the final page, Ida Mae has stayed with me. This small jewel of a story revolves around a number of inter-related themes--romantic love, the love of mothers and daughters, the rites of passage through this crazy life, the connection we feel with those to whom we can confess. But it is this last--the pure though convoluted relationships we forge with our friends that weaves through this story with such subtle power. If you have ever had a best friend, you will instantly connect with this book. And, if you're lucky enough, you may even feel the whispers of that friendship brush across your skin while you read.

Ginnie Bivona captures the essence of friendship in her warm novel, Ida Mae Tutweiler and the Traveling Tea Party. I originally purchased the book to give as a gift, but after glancing through it, found I couldn't put it down. I read it from start to finish in one sitting! Ginnie's artistry will place you in the story where you will live for a time to experience friendship, loving ties which bond a mother and daughter, and in the end, you'll be left with a longing to call YOUR best friend, mother or daughter. It's simply, a wonderful read!

Guiltied by 12 Galaxies! of a Rocketronic Society!

Others who have posted reviews of this book are certainly correct in their assessment -- it's engaging, harrowing, enlightening, etc. HOWEVER, nobody has addressed the actual CAUSE of Schreber's insanity which, of course, is key to the reading of his memoir. The patient in most cases, and certainly in this case, is unable to tell us matter-of-factly what is troubling him. Instead, he tells us of his dreams or his imaginings, or his horrible delusions. It is then the psychiatrist who untangles the web. I can't recommend highly enough, as a companion to Schreber's memoir, the book "Soul Murder: Persecution in the Family," written by the psychiatrist Morton Schatzman. The book is now out of print, but can still be found used. Instead of describing the book,I'll quote from the jacket flap: "Daniel Paul Schreber (1842-1911), an eminent German judge, went mad at the age of 42, recovered, and eight and a half years later, went mad again. It is uncertain if he was ever fully sane, in the ordinary social sense, again. His father, Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber (1808-1861), who supervised his son's upbringing, was a leading German physician and pedagogue, whose studies and writings on child rearing techniques strongly influenced his practices during his life and long after his death. The father thought his age to be morally "soft" and "decayed" owing mainly to laxity in educating and disciplining children at home and school. He proposed to "battle" the "weakness" of his era with an elaborate system aimed at making children obedient and subject to adults. He expected that following his precepts would lead to a better society and "race." The father applied these same basic principals in raising his own children, including Daniel Paul and another son, Daniel Gustav, the elder, who also went mad and committed suicide in his thirties. Psychiatrists consider the case of the former, Daniel Paul, as the classic model of paranoia and schizophrenia, but even Freud and Bleuler (in their analyses of the son's illness) failed to link the strange experiences of Daniel Paul, for which he was thought mad, to his father's totalitarian child-rearing practices. In "Soul Murder," Morton Schatzman does just that -- connects the father's methods with the elements of the son's experience, and vice versa. This is done through a detailed analysis and comparison of Daniel Paul's "Memoirs of My Nervous Illness," a diary written during his second, long confinement, with his father's published and widely read writings on child rearing. The result is a startling and profoundly disturbing study of the nature and origin of mental illness -- a book that calls into question the value of classical models for defining mental illness and suggests the directions that the search for new models might take. As such, the author's findings touch on many domains: education, psychiatry, religion, sociology, politics -- the micro-politics of child-rearing and family life and their relation to the macro-politics of larger human groups." For me, this book shed a great light on "Memoirs of My Nervous Illness." In reading the other reviews, I get the sense that some people have concluded that Daniel (the son) "simply went mad," or "something went wrong," when the truth is that his father was a border-line personality and one sadistic man who inflicted his own brand of insanity on his children. If only we had something to document the father's childhood . . .

Shortly after the death of Daniel Paul Schreber, Sigmund Freud used his (Schreber's) memoirs as the basis for a fantasy of his own. Everyday readers are lucky that Schreber wrote down so much of what he saw, heard and felt during his many years in German mental asylums, for his own observations are far more artistic and harrowing than anything Freud ever wrote.

In this book, Schreber takes us into his world--the world of the genuine schizophrenic. He writes of the "little men" who come to invade his body and of the stars from which they came.

That these "little men" choose to invade Schreber's body in more ways than one only makes his story all the more harrowing. At night, he tells us, they would drip down onto his head by the thousands, although he warned them against approaching him.

Schreber's story is not the only thing that is disquieting about this book. His style of writing is, too. It is made up of the ravings of a madman, yet it contains a fluidity and lucidity that rival that of any "logical" person. It only takes a few pages before we become enmeshed in the strange smells, tastes, insights and visions he describes so vividly.

Much of this book is hallucinatory; for example, Schreber writes of how the sun follows him as he moves around the room, depending on the direction of his movements. And, although we know the sun was not following Schreber, his explanation makes sense, in an eerie sort of way.

What Schreber has really done is to capture the sheer poetry of insanity and madness in such a way that we, as his readers, feel ourselves being swept along with him into his world of fantasy. It is a world without anchors, a world where the human soul is simply left to drift and survive as best it can. Eventually, one begins to wonder if madness is contagious. Perhaps it is. The son of physician, Moritz Schreber, Schreber came from a family of "madmen," to a greater or lesser degree.

Memoirs of My Nervous Illness has definitely made Schreber one of the most well-known and quoted patients in the history of psychiatry...and with good reason. He had a mind that never let him live in peace and he chronicles its intensity perfectly. He also describes the fascinating point and counterpoint of his "inner dialogues," an internal voice that chattered constantly, forcing Schreber to construct elaborate schemes to either explain it or escape it. He tries suicide and when that fails, he attempts to turn himself into a diaphanous, floating woman.

Although no one is sure what madness really is, it is clear that for Schreber it was something he described as "compulsive thinking." This poor man's control center had simply lost control. The final vision we have of Schreber in this book is harrowing in its intensity and in its angst. Pacing, with the very sun paling before his gaze, this brilliant madman walked up and down his cell, talking to anyone who would listen.

This is a harrowing, but fascinating book and is definitely not for the faint of heart. Schreber describes man's inner life in as much detail as a Hamlet or a Ulysses. The most terrifying part is that in Schreber, we see a little of both ourselves and everyone we know.

In this enchanting historical romance, Mahalo is the sugar plantation home of the heroine Laelani Winton. It is also the Hawaiian expression for thank-you. Two high spirited young women, one Hawaiian and one English, arrive in turn-of-the century Hawaii each with a different dream and background. Companions and friends they set the island astir.
The vivid descriptions of Honolulu in the late 1890's take you back to that time and set the stage for a royal ball, dual romances and the eventual overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Laelani, after being introduced to the social circles of Honolulu would rather be at Mahalo than in Honolulu. Again the vivid details of the plantation, the hideaway falls, the customs and the people, transport you to a far off time and place.
Having been married in Hawaii myself, I especially enjoyed the Hawaiian wedding scene rich in detail and full of emotion. In the back of the book is a dictionary of the Hawaiian words that you'll encounter through out the book. It is a delightful story that takes you away from the fast track of today to two timeless love stories in a lush and lovely island.

Ms. Hills delivers a fine novel uniquely set during the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Laelani Winton, half Hawaiian, half English returns to her beloved Hawaiian sugar plantation only to have her dream of running her father's sugar plantation thwarted by her scheming brother-in-law. Traveling with Laelani is her English companion who has a different dream.

Under the tropical breezes and lush surroundings each spirited young woman finds adventure, success, and romance. Readers will enjoy the two love stories. Expect to laugh a little and shed a tear or two in this well-executed tale of passion and betrayal. Kudos to Ms. Hills, and kudos to Beagle Bay Books for a wonderful read and a quality edition.

This book reads like SENSE AND SENSIBILITY meet GONE WITH THE WIND and go to BLUE LAGOON! I could almost feel the tropical breezes, the hibiscus, the ocean, the ripening sugar cane as the characters met and fell in love. I was especially interested in the multi-cultural themes of anglos and polynesians being drawn to each other, even as the American sugar barons conspire to steal the Kingdom of Hawai'i away from it's lawful native ruler. Intriguing and beguiling characters swept me along. But I have to say, the love scenes really captured me. I am running out to buy a peacock feather right away!