I'm happy to say that I've never been disappointed with anything I've read by Wayne Rice, and he's keeping his record with me intact here. Lots of good ideas. Of course, not everything works for every group, the large group games I'm sure are good, but I'll have to wait till camp this summer to try them out. Overall, another great resource for youth leaders.

Mr. Rice gives some very good planning strategies for the small business. It helps a business owner really review and look deeply into the functioning of their business. He helps you organize your facts gathering to really write a well prepared business plan. He helps a person understand all details are important especially in dealing in the business world.

Our son LOVES this book and asks for it almost daily. We returned it to the library and bought our own copy. He is terrified of swimming pools this summer and perhaps is working through some of his fears. I enjoy the loving looks each family member has for each other in the illustrations, and the text describes the enjoyment the father and daughter get from sharing their love of swimming. The family members left behind are happy for the swimmers even if they are left at home to do mommy baby things. It is lovingly written and illustrated and the reviewers that said nothing exciting happens in it probably enjoy ninja turtle entertainment. Real life and love ARE important and exciting enough for children, at least for us, and our son really enjoys this story.

"The Beasts of Tarzan" is the third novel about the Lord of the Jungle by Edgar Rice Burroughs. "The Beasts of Tarzan" finds the ape lord settled in civilized London as Lord Greystoke. But he becomes the target of his enemy, Nikolas Rokoff, and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. The pair abducts Tarzan's Jane and their infant son Jack. Tarzan ends up stranded on a desert island, but with the help of Sheeta the panther and Akut the great ape he makes it back to the mainland. There he meets Mugambi, the giant chief of he Wagambi tribe, a character who goes on to become Tarzan's lifelong friend and ally (a welcome relief after the way virtually all of the natives were just a different sort of jungle animal for Tarzan to torment and kill). This odd group heads off together after the kidnappers into the deep jungle and when Tarzan finds them he lets his inner beast come up with creative ways of making them pay for the mistake of taking his wife and son. If you start reading the Tarzan novels in particular, or the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs in general, in the same order that they were written, then "The Beasts of Tarzan" is pretty much around the time that it becomes clear that the storyline is usually the same. Our hero is separated from the woman he loves and spends most of the book getting her back. You can throw a baby into the mix, change the impediments placed in the way, or alter the locale from Africa to Mars, Pellucidar or the Land That Time Forgot (far and away the best part of the recipe), but the basic plot remains the same. Burroughs was also getting tired of having to write about Tarzan, which he would prove in the next book in the series, "The Son of Tarzan," where baby Jack grows up to become Korak the Killer. Unfortunately there were more than twenty more Tarzan novels to come, which would rely more and more of a formulaic approach.

"Tarzan and the Ant Men" is the tenth novel about the Ape Man by Edgar Rice Burroughs and sets the tone for the rest of the series where Tarzan was constantly discovering new lost regions of the Dark Continent. This time around there is the Great Thorn Forest, which has never been entered until Tarzan takes his first solo flight in an areoplane and crashes on the other side. There he finds the Alali, strange stone-age giants where the women consider all men to be slaves. After escaping from their clutches Tarzan enters the land of the Ant Men (the Minunians), who are eighteen inches tall. Tarzan is the honored guest of the Trohandalmakus, but then he is captured by the warriors of the Veltopismakus, a rival Ant Men tribe. There Tarzan is shrunk to their size and set off to be a quarry slave named Zuzanthrol, owned by Prince Zoanthrohago Zertol (Nobody had as much fun coming up with names as ERB). As an added treat, we also find out what happened to Esteban Miranda, the Tarzan look-alike who went mad and became the captive of Chief Obebe and his tribe of cannibals. Obviously "Tarzan and the Ant Men" is going to remind you of "Gulliver's Travels," but only in terms of the little people capturing the visiting giant. You are not going to find any sort of Swiftian satire here. What you get is pure adventure in what becomes the standard formula for ERB's Tarzan adventures. If it was not for the fact that Tarzan is now a grandfather you might never know this was the tenth Tarzan instead of one of the earlier works. Ironically, you enjoyment of these Tarzan novels depends on how many you have read, because the more of these you have read the less you will be impressed with this one. But it is a ripping yarn in its own rights, even as an ERB potboiler written because of the public's insatiable demand for Tarzan novels.

"Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar" is the fifth book in the Tarzan series and is generally considered one of the better of Edgar Rice Burrough's tales of the Lord of the Jungle. Tarzan once again returns to Opar, the source of the gold for lost colony of fabled Atlantis. Ever since Atlantis sank beneath the waves, the workers of Opar have continued to mine the gold. Tarzan follows a greedy Belgian and Arab into the jungle, where the evil pair manage to stumble upon the lost city, at which point our hero loses his memory after a fight. This is good news for La, the beautiful high priestess who serves the Flaming God, because she has had that big crush on the apeman since their first encounter. However, while his amnesia opens the door for her amorous advances, her high priests are vowing that Tarzan will not escape their sacrificial knives a second time. Meanwhile, Jane is in trouble back at their African homestead. As you read "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar," you will pick up on the fact that Burroughs liked the character of La a lot more than he did that of Jane Clayton Greystoke (who he would attempt to kill off in a few books). Of course, this second visit to the land of Opar is not as exciting as the first and the amnesia bit is pretty old hat, even for Burroughs. This is definitely one of the author's pot-boilers and for the pulp fiction era it is pretty solid stuff. Things get a bit predictable, but the tension between Tarzan and La gives the book a bit of bite. You just need to make sure you go through the first four Tarzan books before you read this one, or you are going to be a bit lost.

This volume is the third in a series offering reprints of two early Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels. "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar" is the fifth book in the Tarzan series and is generally considered one of the better of ERB's tales of the Lord of the Jungle. Tarzan once again returns to Opar, the source of the gold for lost colony of fabled Atlantis. Ever since Atlantis sank beneath the waves, the workers of Opar have continued to mine the gold. Tarzan follows a greedy Belgian and Arab into the jungle, where the evil pair manages to stumble upon the lost city, at which point our hero loses his memory after a fight. This is good news for La, the beautiful high priestess who serves the Flaming God, because she has had that big crush on the ape man since their first encounter. However, while his amnesia opens the door for her amorous advances, her high priests are vowing that Tarzan will not escape their sacrificial knives a second time. Meanwhile, Jane is in trouble back at their African homestead. As you read "Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar," you will pick up on the fact that Burroughs liked the character of La a lot more than he did that of Jane Clayton Greystoke (who he would attempt to kill off in a few books). Of course, this second visit to the land of Opar is not as exciting as the first and the amnesia bit is pretty old hat, even for Burroughs. This is definitely one of the author's pot-boilers and for the pulp fiction era it is pretty solid stuff. Things get a bit predictable, but the tension between Tarzan and La gives the book a bit of bite. You just need to make sure you go through the first four Tarzan books before you read this one, or you are going to be a bit lost.

"Jungle Tales of Tarzan" is the sixth volume in the series and pretty much goes back to the beginning for a collection of short stories when Tarzan still lived among the great apes. Tarzan has learned how to read from the books he has found and it is opening his young mind to new questions, like where do dreams come from and where he can confront Goro, the supreme being that is the moon. There is also the love triangle between Tarzan, his first love Teeka, and their rival Taug, as well as his adventures tormenting the people of the local Mbonga tribe. "Jungle Tales of Tarzan" is actually a nice companion volume to the original "Tarzan of the Apes," provide more depth and detail to the early years of the Lord of the Jungle. It also marks a coda to what we would now consider the original story arc of the Tarzan novels. Burroughs would write another 21 Tarzan novels but they would become increasingly formulaic. In many ways this is the last time we would see the original Tarzan.

Hollywood had its own take on Tarzan of the Apes beginning with Elmo Lincoln and then going off in its own direction during the Johnny Weismuller years. In "Tarzan and the Foreign Legion" a soldier notes that Tarzan does not look at all like Weismuller. That was a good crack, but Edgar Rice Burroughs got even more digs at Hollywood in the seventeenth novel of the series, "Tarzan and the Lion Man." The Lion Man in question is the movie character played by Stanley Obroski, an actor who actually looks like Tarzan. Of course this element will come into play over the course of the novel and poor Stanley will prove himself to be pretty far removed from being a hero when the cameras are not rolling.

Milton Smith, the Executive Vice-President of B.O. Studios (hmmm, I wonder what that is supposed to mean) leads a safari into the heart of Africa to make a movie (remember, this is years before John Huston went on location to film "The African Queen"). Even with Major White, the big game hunter hired as a studio consultant, the safari is almost wipe out by the Bansuto tribe led by Chief Rungula. The survivors flee farther into the jungle and find a hidden valley of diamonds ruled an old Englishman who calls himself "God" and who has created gorillas named King Henry the Eighth, Buckingham, Suffolk, Cranmer, Howard and Thomas Wolsey. There are also gorilla wives named Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. Fortunately, Tarzan and his friend the great Golden Lion are tracking down the lost party.

On the one hand "Tarzan and the Lion Man" is an example of the formula that ERB was using for Tarzan novels at this point: Tarzan has to rescue people from dying in a lost land. This scenario describes over half of the twenty-four Tarzan novels that Burroughs wrote. So even with the crazy guy with the apes named for Tudor nobility, the lost land bit is nothing special. But Tarzan's encounter with Hollywood, both in Los Angeles and in Africa, gives Burroughs an opportunity to comment on what tinsel town did to Tarzan. I would not hazard a guess as to who people like Ben Goldeen, producer for Prominent Pictures, are "really" supposed to be, but my bet would be that ERB is taking shots at some specific targets. Clearly the movie character of the "Lion Man" is a fair representation of the watered down Lord of the Jungle ERB saw on the big screen. It is this aspect of "Tarzan and the Lion Man" that gives this particular novel a bit of an edge and an above-average ranking.

It's very good and keeps you in the plot but try not to judge it by today's standards. The language shows what we would call today bigotry, prejudice and racism

"Tarzan Triumphant" is the 15th novel in the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. There were two basic plot lines ERB used in these books: either the bad guys invaded Tarzan neck of the woods or he followed them to some lost city. "Tarzan Triumphant" actually combines both of these approaches. No less a person than Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin has ordered John Clatyon, Lord Greystoke a.k.a. Tarzan to be killed and sent Leon Stabutch to take out the Lord of the Apes. Stabutch and his henchmen cut a path of looting and killing through the land of Tarzan and he takes off in pursuit, which leads to the valley near the Ghenzi Mountains where there are the people of North Midian and South Midian. Led by their respective prophets, Abraham and Elijah, they are religious fanatics who have perverted the faith passed down from their Roman Christian ancestors. Just to make things really interesting in addition to the killer Soviets there is also the English aviatrix Lady Barbara Collins who is going to be sacrificed by the Midians, meaning that once again Tarzan has to come to the rescue as well as ushering the bad guys to their just reward. "Tarzan Triumphant" is a standard ERB yarn but still one of the better ones in the series, especially with the take on the perverted notion of Christianity practiced in Midian. The supporting cast is particularly colorful, such as Dan "Gunner" Patrick the small-time Chicago mobster, along with the traditional European bad guys, and the only apes are a tribe of baboons rather than the great apes that raised Tarzan. So, all in all, this is an ERB potboiler but a solid one in the series. But from hereafter things get totally formulaic with one new "lost" city after another.