Bravo to Carol Avery for writing such a wonderful book! "And With a Light Touch" contains chapter after chapter of helpful ideas that can be implemented in the classroom, but the author also has such an honest and insightful voice, I actually put aside the novel I was reading and looked forward to reading about Avery's adventures in the classroom! Avery books gives a gold standard of value to the often overlooked teacher's anecdote, I wish more folks would share the way she does. As a mother of a first grader, I was very curious as to what the experience of teaching and learning in the classroom was like, and this book gave me a real inside view. I balked at the textbook price for a paperback, but this book was worth every penny and I would recommend it to anyone interested in teaching, children, or a good story.

When I entered my first year of teaching, I did not know where to begin. This book helped me implement and find success with my students' literacy development. This book has been a very valuable tool. We are lucky to have such a fine teacher's footsteps to follow.

This text was an extremely easy text to read and one can relate so well with the real life classroom situations. I have taught for five years in the primary grades and by re-reading this book, it brought back the sense of fun that I have long since forgotten about with my classroom children.

The focus of this book is the Collection in Trafalgar Square but is not exclusive to it. It contains works of art that either picture a representation of Christ or allude to Him. I found my reading to be a delightful and awe-inspiring theological journey. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of how Christ is perceived. Several authors have compiled brief descriptions of the works that explain their significance and meaning. The book traces it course through predominately Catholic art. This may have been done mostly out of necesity because the plethera of art from the 13th to 20th centuries is largely by Catholics. However, it would have been nice to see some more Protestant imagery to complete the respesentation of Christ in art.

I have noticed that Christian Art books have been growing in popularity. Many of these are cheap opportunities to jump on a commercial bandwagon in an attempt to make a quick buck. This book is the REAL THING. It is outstanding. The pictures are large and sharp. The articles are informative and written well. This book values its subject and covers a wide spectrum of Christ centered art. I found this book both thoughtful and moving.

This book is equivalently the catalog of an art exhibit at the National Gallery London from February to May, 2000 on how Christ has been portrayed in art from a fourth century Good Shepherd statue to Stanley Spencer's 1926 Resurrection, Cookham. The magnificently illustrated 79 items in the show are supplemented with photographs of 52 additional pieces of art that develop the theology out of which each set of images arose. It is a thing of beauty and pleasure, useful for prayer and theology, and the sort of thing needed in today. Too many postmodern art students have lost contact with the Christian symbols of the western world and are unaware of the depths of their own cultural heritage. This book will be very informative for them and even for the already theologically educated.

I too bought this book in 1977, when I had also started in Astrology. In 1986, I too lent this book to someone...and it dissappeared forever. I felt like my eyes had been gouged out, and I have been searching for it, for YEARS!. This book is so incredibly accurate that is is scary. All the astrology charts that I use to do, I always augmented with Avery's Numerology charts. The path that Quinn's Numerolgy and the transits and progessions in an astrology chart, dove tail so perfectly that after I lost this book, I was not satified with the charts that I did. I felt the interptation was incomplete. I have studied many different interpetations of Numerology, but Numbers of Life, is by far, the truest. This book is a find!

I purchased this book new in 1977 and used it so much the pages were yellowed and dogeared. My professor in college asked to borrow it and never returned it to me. He retired and never answered letters or e-mails and I felt my favorite book was lost forever. I've looked all over for even a used copy because the reference material is so wonderful - easy to read and interpret. I'm so glad Amazon had it and I've ordered a replacement book and recommended it to my friends.

Kevin Quinn Avery was my teacher in 1975. He was great! He practiced what he preached. This is a man who studied in Tibet, and the knowledge he brought back is written in Numbers of Life. When I studied with him, I reviewed my life according to the book, and it is right on target. Do yourself a favor, and buy this book.

My parnter and I just spent two wonderful weekends in Portland - all due to this great book. We followed five of the walks in the downtown portland area and got so much out of it (due to the book) that we flew back to Portland three weeks later to visit again and did an additional four walks. This is a great book - I thoroughly recommend it.

I have lived in Portland all my adult life and yet was surprised when I found the description of walking trails that I did not know existed. The descriptions are clear and inviting. The planning of the walks are easy to identify with in terms of distance and time required. I think this is a must-have book for the walkers in the Portland area both for visitors and residents.

I really like this book! It's thorough and easy to understand and includes a guide to help with choices about what walk you'd like to take. The directions are clear and Ms. Cook has included interesting tidbits of information you can follow along the way, as well as maps and photographs. It's not easy for me to get around because of a disability, but I don't need to be afraid of setting out with this guide. It lets me know how long the walk should take and the difficulty of the walk. What an exciting and fresh way to see the city!

I have a friend - - - One of the most beautiful people I've met. He was depressed, angry, and miserable. He was caught in one of the worst prisons in the country. The prison made CNN it was so bad. In a short time after reading the book "The Way of Change" his life changed. He is now in a new prison where he has a job, he goes to school, and he has an opportunity to play sports. Is this a major turn around or what?

I have read this book again and again, and each time my life has taken a turn toward higher and higher joy. My greatest compliment is that I insisted my chidren read it.

I needed a boost in my life. It was a sad, complicated world. I read, "The Way of Change," and gradually my life began to change until now I smile.

The book entitled "Teamwork is an Individual Skill" is quite interesting. I work at a large semi-conductor manufacturer as a non-exempt fab technician on a self managed team on night shift.

I am the most experienced and capable person on my team, yet with all of my background I have come to realize how relatively little influence I often have on team performance, and on my ability to push the team in the direction I think it should go. The very first sentence in your book on page 1, "Do you share responsibility with others to get work done but don't have authority over them (and they don't have authority over you)?" absolutely floored me, 'cause that is me to the tee.

I had only gotten to page 8 of your book when I was thoroughly blown away by the directness with which the differences between flat and hierarchical structures were addressed. At my company there is no mention of this approach; even once when I mentioned the term "semi-autonomous team" to the most qualified tech (who happened to be on day shift--arguably a more hierarchical environment due to the presence of many exempt employees) he did not know what the term meant. The company has this structure in place almost as an unwritten agenda.

Your comment on page 5, "Many individuals--especially smart, high achievers--can experience great angst if asked to serve in teams." is in retrospect a great source of comfort to help me understand my angst during my three years with this company. In all of the areas I have worked in during that time I am sure that I had (at least on paper) more qualifications than any one other person (B.S. deg, two A.A.S. degs, 12+ prior years of technical experience, and a whole host of other skills that my teammates do not exhibit.) Plus add to that, that my experience has almost exclusively come from a strongly tilted hierarchical background in retrospect is why I struggled with teams, as you describe them.

Every page of your book is quite thought-provoking, causing me to pause and reflect on how your observations compare to my situation.

For years, I have resisted the popular notion of "there is no 'I' in "teamwork" because teams are a collection of individuals working toward a common goal. Each of us brings our own values and skill sets to the table. It is our choice to work together (or not) as a team.
Christopher M. Avery has captured this idea and more in his latest book, Teamwork is an Individual Skill: Getting Work Done When Sharing Responsibility. Chris suggests that individuals take responsibility for team success versus blame others He challenges the reader to be proactive and work through team issues rather than avoid or accommodate others.
This is a perfect book for team members who have been on teams before. It will validate good team behaviors and point out areas to upgrade...in a gentle and non-threatening way. The book is easy to read with lots of stories and examples to highlight the key points.

I have assigned this book as required reading for my MBA level course in managing individuals an teams. It has been a big hit. I have used other books in the past, but this is the first that really addresses the concerns that students have. I, and they, like the emphasis on the "individual" skills involved in
teamwork.

It will be a long while before the reader forgets the Goodpasture family members. This superbly written first collection of interrelated short stories depicts a seemingly dysfunctional American family that, on reflection, are not all that unusual in their struggles with life and with each other. The collection includes two of the funniest scenes I've had the pleasure to encounter in a long time. The one in "If I Were You," the final story in the collection, had me giggling hysterically, albeit a bit nervously, since the devastating truth that the sharp humor cloaks is revealed only at the end. I look forward to this writer's next effort, whatever it may be.

Flannery O'Connor, John Updike, James Joyce, and now: Chenoweth! Each story does the work of a novel, and the novel does the work of twelve stories. They intertwine in a threnody of hope and longing. Congrats, I say. Highbrow style covers these poor cousins to the rich in a multi-hued texture of language and wit. The view from the outside, like a poor boy staring at the candy store window, or F. Scott looking longingly as the belles of the ball circulated in their pastel dresses inside the country club of his imagination, is the predominant flavor of the book, and a haunting one too. Wilde wrote that all of us are in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars, and Chenoweth renders this aphorism into fiction that both dazzles and despairs. Next time, though, he should go for the money with a novel that reaches the folks in the trailer park as well as those in the halls of literary academe.

These stories connect on many levels; I found them very entertaining. My favorite was Going Back-- a universal story of college days done as a complex of witty and constantly shifting dialog. This one ought to be a movie!

This book is packed with very good, detailed information about colleges' use of early application options, particularly early decision. This book--more like a report--backs up what every good counselor knows: colleges admit applicants early that they may not otherwise admit. But this book is not an admissions process "how-to" guide. If you want that, try Allen's "College Admissions Trade Secrets." It's a very detailed and sometimes controversial book that reveals much of the same insider information that "Joining the Elite" reveals but in a more "how-to" format. Buy "Trade Secrets" with Princeton Review's "Best Colleges" and you'll have just about everything you'll need to tackle this process. Buy "Joining the Elite" if you need the fine details and justification for the things that Allen says.

This book is for those young people who have Ivy League dreams. Avery and his colleagues have written a guide for high school students and parents who don't know much about the game of early admissions. It's written in an accessible way. The authors bolster their advice with strong empirical evidence.

In the not-too-distant past, the college admissions process was fairly straightforward. It was not fair, but it was fairly straightforward. Some recent changes to the process have brought more fairness, some have brought more complexity, and some have reduced fairness while increasing complexity. A change that has both reduced fairness and increased complexity is the preponderance of "Early Admissions" (i.e., "Early Decision" and "Early Action") plans.

Whatever one's opinions on Early Action (EA) and Early Decision (ED), they are realities that present high school students, their parents, and their counselors with a dilemma: To EA/ED or not to EA/ED?

When looking for answers to this dilemma, students, parents, and counselors have had to rely on unclear messages, equivocal statements, anecdotes, and urban myths.

"The Early Admissions Game: Joining the Elite" shines a bright and needed light into the darkest recesses of a murky maze. The book combines irrefutable statistics and the words of high school students, college students, and admissions professionals to present a clear and readable picture of a complex, often hermetic issue.

I don't use the phrase "irrefutable statistics" loosely here. Statistics are too often used to "prove" a theory that looks a lot like the preconceived notion that the researcher brought to the research. However, in this case, the authors possess the objectivity to report their findings with clarity and without baggage. Also, their backgrounds in economics, public policy, and college admissions give them the qualifications and abilities to present a comprehensive and in-depth review of the subject.

"The Early Admissions Game" explains both how to play the game by the current rules and, at the same time, advocates for a better, fairer system for the future. Information for the debate on EA/ED and practical advice for those coping in the "Age of EA/ED" are well presented.

Whether you love EA/ED, hate it, or just want to better understand EA/ED and the rest of the admissions process, this is a great book to read.

By 1922, World War I was becoming a memory, but the United States began a new war as the battle of Prohibition started. Some communities like Fertile, Missouri remains calm because everyone knows each other on a first name basis. Twenty-year old Julie Jones left school early to raise her younger siblings.

War hero Evan Johnson returns to Fertile only to find rampart destruction to the family farm caused by his low-life father. Although angry, when Evan meets Julie for the first time, he falls in love immediately. Julie reciprocates his feelings. However, before a Jones and a Johnson can hook up permanently, they must overcome problems starting with trouble making Birdie Stuart, who has the interest of Julie's dad. Birdie gets Evan arrested forcing a torn between two lovers Julie to choose between her father and her soul mate.

THE EDGE OF TOWN is an exciting historical romance that showcases the abilities of Dorothy Garlock to tell a good story. The plot takes the reader back in time to a simpler era. The lead couple provides the basis for a luscious Americana novel. Fan of Ms. Garwood will know they have another treat from a delightful talent.

Harriet Klausner

"The Edge of Town" is a really nice, believable story about Julie Jones who unexpectantly but willingly falls in love with Evan Johnson, as she cares for her 5 siblings and her father Jethro on their farm in the edge of town--a"contrified" American town in the early 1920's.

The novel surrounds itself around the issues that threaten to tear Julie's life apart: Jethro goes head over heals for a woman that no one approves of and the town has a serial rapist who the town believes to be Walter Johnson, Evan's Father.

Like all of Dorothy Garlock's books, you are intorduced to Julie's life altering event right in the very beginning, which is why it's hard to put the book down. "The Edge of Town" is a heartwarming experience and I highly recommend this read.

The Edge of Town is the first book by Dorothy Garlock that I've read, but it will not be the last. Set in the 1920's in Fertile, Missouri young Julie Jones cares for her five siblings after her mothers passing four years previous from a flu epidemic. Julie is feeling her life passing her by, caring for her siblings. Meanwhile, Evan Johnson, son of the lewd drunkard, Walter, returns home after the war to take care of the family farm. He was away many years, having lived with his grandparents, then going to war. Evan is nothing like his horrific father, and when he rescues Julie from his fathers assault you know its true love.

Too bad there is something (or rather, someone) evil in Fertile. There have been brutal (and graphic) series of rapes that coincide with Evan's return. The townspeople can only assume that it is he, and the only person who stands by his side is Julie.

What I liked...and disliked....

The descriptive writing in this book brings the time frame and the characters to life. You feel yourself slipping in the past, of a youthful sweet love story and all the represents America. Except for the rape, who wants to think of that? I know it's a part of the story, but the graphic nature of it, dragged the story down. But, any other writer couldn't have pulled off two ends of the spectrum, love and brutal hate, so perfectly.

In Short...

I will definitely pick up another Dorothy Garlock book, but next time I'll make sure the villain isn't involved with sexually deviant activities, it was a bit much for me.