Helen Keller was a blind and deaf child who learned how to read, write, talk, and communicate with the world. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, helped her become a huge success in life and it's shown by the wonderful examples Helen sets for everyone: anybody can overcome his or her obstacles. Helen even wrote a book about herself, and all the celebrities wanted to meet her. I thought that the book was so inspiring. It teaches people that anybody can accomplish anything, as long as they put hard work into it. I recommend this book for people who are insecure, or want to become a better person in life.

Not just for children, adults, too, will find the secret world of the White House fun, disguised education. Learn how a president personally communicates from the phone operators, calligraphers, special stationary, to how he signs so many letters. There's sections on how the President entertains that is a must for those who like to host elegant parties, includes menu cards. There's lots of fun first-family trivia that history buffs enjoy. For the sports enthusiast, learn how a president keeps fit and trim. Naturally there's a chapter on guarding the First Family. A great reference book to be enjoyed again and again.

Father O'Sullivan briefly goes through popular prayers and their powers such as the Sign of the Cross, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed, the Gloria Patri, etc. His meditations for the Rosary are some good ones that I'm going to use. The only reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 is because he repeats some things that he covers in other books of his.

I enjoyed this book. It is a mystery during the hurricane season in South Carolina. The mystery is about the Alden children looking for a pirate treasure but someone else is looking for it too! Who do you think will get it? I think you will like this book because it is a mystery to solve and you learn about hurricanes.

India has a cultural heritage of a wide variety of myths and legends linked to religious beliefs and philosophical interpretation of the universe. These are contained in the written and oral traditions of the Indian epics like the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the stories of the Puranas and Vedas. "Indian Myths & Legends" gives an excellent introduction to these stories and narrates a few important ones along with paintings and illustrations. There are more than fifty such full-page color illustrations, which is a great strength of the book. A glossary of Sanskrit terms at the end is also helpful to the western reader. For anyone interested in the stories from India this is a valuable book of introduction.

I used this book as a manual for doing exactly what the authors did in the fall of 1994. I did not find an opera job in Germany, but I had a lot of interesting leads and I think if I had had more time and had taken a slightly different strategy with what kind of job I was looking for I might have found something.

The book was fairly accurate except for a couple things. First, the market in Germany for American singers has dried up considerably since the first few years the wall came down. Many houses in eastern Germany are closed due to loss of government funding, or have smaller budgets. In the beginning there was a clamor to show support for the West by hiring American singers, and now they would much rather hire German singers. The economy in eastern Germany was not too good when I went in 1994, which contributed to the trend.

The second reservation I have about this book is the text of the business letters requesting auditions. There were grammatical errors in some of them and one in particular (the one with "ausserordentlich" in it) was too gushy. I highly suggest anyone using this book to have a native German speaker check their letters before sending them out.

One thing the auditioning American singer will find is the book's comments about agents' and Intendants' strange behavior are extremely understated. My kudos to the authors for being so careful, but here's the poop: There is one very well known and prestigious agency with an assistant director who is unbelievably rude. Not only did he scream at someone for warming up in the hallway, but he threw someone out for chewing gum in the lobby the year before.

Some advice I would add to the book, or give to those contemplating a German audition trip is: Germans want much less vibrato (at least for soubrettes and other light sopranos) than is normal in America. If you are a soubrette and do not speak FLAWLESSLY and with NO ACCENT you are not going to get a solo job. But chorus jobs often pay more and they give you a chance to absorb the language.

Do NOT audition sick, EVER. If you get sick, it's much better to miss the audition than to make a bad impression. They will remember that you sang sick which is a waste of their time.

If you sing for ZBF and they don't like you, none of the ZBF's will like you because they can be kind of a Saftladen. On the other hand the ONLY audition I got from an agent was from ZBF, so maybe I should be nicer.

Americans might have better luck auditioning for Broadway type musicals in Germany than for opera since it's often in English. I met several Americans who had careers in that. Toi toi toi! - Emily Baehr

Adults and children will love this illustrated anthology of Kipling's best-loved versed. Many of us are well acquainted with Kipling's prose works that have given readers great joy throughout the years. In this particular work we encounter Kipling the poet whose verse was profound enough to attract the attention of both young and old.

Allow yourself to savor the wisdom from Sussex, 1902 and be inspired with his memorable poem If. Chant along with your children "The Law of the Jungle" and become enriched by its music. Kipling is a great balladeer of the the english language.

This anthology is illustrated with a selection of paintings that were inspired by his poetry. They provide a rich complement to this collection. I highly recommend this edition as gift to give to poetry lovers and to inspire others as they reflect upon their life's journey. It is certainly a "must have" in your poetry library.

A wonderful tale of a wonderful dog. However, the alternating chapters between White and Sullivan are annoyingly disruptive. A different format would have focused more on the dog that readers grow to love.

This Legalines edition is the best one yet that I have used. It briefs all of the important cases in the Kadish casebook, as well as offering insightful comments. The book serves as a useful tool because it uses a step-by-step analysis of the court's reasoning. This analysis is essential to understanding how the different cases support, contradict, and stray from prior caselaw. This edition is also more useful than other study aids that I have purchased because it follows a specific casebook. My class used the Kadish casebook, a volume containing over 800 pages. Organizing and outlining all of the essential points from 800 pages is a task that would be almost impossible, yet the Legalines book does it and does it well. I used this casebook to help me study for my exam and it really made a difference. I was able to finally see the 'big picture' of the course and to remember the finer points of the major cases. I highly recommend this book to anyone taking Constitutional Law. As most law students know, digesting and remembering all of the important details of a course can be difficult and time consuming. I would recommend Legalines because it is keyed to specific casebooks and because it is packed with all the right information.

This is a memoir about the late Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago written by his press secretary. It explains how Daley was able to win support from substantial majorities of that city's voters from all racial and ethnic groups in six consecutive elections. The author, a former newspaper reporter, tells the story fairly but with obvious admiration for his subject.