"Happy Easter, Little Critter" by Mercer Mayer was a good children's book, especially for around Easter time. Children would most likely like the illustrations because they are cute and bright. I think the book would teach kids about Easter, and the different things that go on on Easter day. It starts off in the morning and tells about him and his sister getting their Easter baskets and getting ready to go to church. The book also tells about what they do in church and the lunch and Easter egg hunt they go to with other families after church is over. I think there are some good morals to the story such as helping others and getting along with your siblings. It shows children how much fun a family holiday like Easter can be.

This book is about what Little Critter does on Easter day. Some of what he does is find his Easter basket, go to church, and have an Easter egg hunt. A nice story that isn't too cutsie.

Using curt language complemented by black and white illustrations, Konigsburg presents four short stories for the young reader. Yet, the simple story lines hide a deep message about life. Each of the four children in Konigsburg's stories endures a difficult situation while growing up and realizes how our world is filled with both good and bad. When Lewis visits a meteor shower with his grandmother, he begins to understand the duel emotions older people face. At Camp Fat, Miss Natasha teaches chubby Clara issues about her weight. The reader also meets a young African American child through a story told by her daughter and young Jason who debates inviting Stanley to his birthday party.

This book provides an excellent example of a short story collection. The teacher can use the stories to show how plot development for short stories is similar to that of novels, the difference is just in length.

Henry Mercer produced one of the standard books for the history of woodworking tools. It, together with W.L. Goodman's _History of Woodworking Tools_, is an invaluable guide to ancient (i.e. Egyptian to 19th century) hand tools. He surveys each type of tool (drills, saws, planes, or what have you) and provides many photos of archaeological finds and museum pieces. His work suffers from some bias, however, in the assumption that "everyone except moderns knew and understood the sound of the saw and the ring of the blacksmith's hammer" (to paraphrase the introduction from memory). Such an idealized conception of the pastoral nature of western society before the industrial revolution is unfounded, but his book nevertheless provides artifactual examples of what "everyone" would have known, were his belief correct.

Mercer does not deal in any depth with mass-produced planes, saws, etc. that are so common to and sought-after by woodworking tool collectors. Rather he concentrates on how it was done before mass-production corrupted the honest trade (my interpretation of his stance). Still, it is a valuable book - sadly effectively out of print - and is widely sought after by historians of woodworking.

Steven Walton
History of Technology - University of Toronto

This interesting book is a history of commune or communistic living. Starting with the imaginary communes of Plato and Thomas More, the book then moves onto monasticism, religious communes (such as the Adamites, the Hutterites, and the Diggers), and then continues on to touch on the communes formed during the 1960s.

The book is rather a hit and miss affair, trying to cover a lot, without giving any real detail. The author uses no foot- or endnotes, and makes unclear and unsubstantiated statements such as, "The Bible shows that women's monasticism began before that of men." Worst of all, the book's poor sentence structures often leave the reader unclear as to what exactly the author is trying to say.

However, for all that, this is a good, quick book on communes. It covers the communes of the 18th and 19th centuries well enough to be quite informative. Overall, I thought that this is a good introduction to the commune phenomenon, but far from a very good one.

The book is really funny, specially for little children. I think that bottlefeeding is showed as the only possibility. Breastfeeding is important and the book has no place to mention it, because mother is not there to feed her baby.

I'm Sorry is a good book because it teaches children to say their sorry when they do something wrong. Even though it might be an accident the little critter still tells you to say sorry. Sorry can make a person feel better if you hurt them or something they owned. That is why if you have a little kid who doesn't say sorry this is the book that will teach them why it's good to say your sorry.

The International Psychiatric Directory is an a must for any Library who always get asked for contact details of psychiatric organisations. The layout is concise and self explanatory. It clearly lists contact details and links well to other similiar organisations in the country concerned. However the major fault is that it hasn't been updated for some time. An update is badly needed, as with all directories they expire with age very quickly. If the author reads this please publish another as it is much needed in this small community.

One day some sage will write a comprehensive biography of Johnny Mercer. Until then we'll have to settle for this tripe. Part coffee-table book, part biography, part social history, part songbook for the karaoke-impaired.... This book pursues all these goals, but really succeeds in none. The lack of focus is disorienting, and all the elements are thereby diluted. Still, it's a nice book to have about the house...along with Fowler and the Communist Manifesto....not entirely uninformative, but simply not truly satisfying. And let's face it, it's the best we'll get for a long time.

This guide is useful only on a basic base because it reports a lot of infos over this consulting firm but with lower value than the site guide:what are the pros and cons of working for them, how Mercer compared to McKinsey and The Boston Consulting Group.... My advice is to read the last two books written by Mercer, that's "Value Nets" and "Profit Patterns": they are very helpful because they bring a lot of real cases developing a smart mind on the reader.