I first read this book when I was 14-years old. Now 20 I look back and still this is my favorite book. It hit me at the right time in my life where not only did I relate to it...but I learned something about my self from it. At first glance it just seems like any other "child has runaway" story, but in no way is this book anything close to normality. I am a fan of many writers from orwell to salinger. If you ever had anything that troubled you as a child even if your are way past those days pick this book up and read it.

This is a brilliant book. Although I read it for the first time in second grade, it is my no means for children. Every time I read it, I discover a new layer of meaning; some plot point becomes clearer to me; an even is given new shades of color. It is impossible to absorb the book fully in one reading.

The author captures Claire's plight quite well, with poignant characterizations of her and the rest of the kids in their street gang. It's a fascinating, compelling book with deeply sympathetic characters; my personal favorite is Racer. This is a good read for anyone!

I think this is a good book about runaways. I thought it was neat how they made Monopoly a game of real life, except they steal stuff from the places instead of buying it.

This book was simply fun to read.

The title in this one is extremely apropos, as the dialogue sparkles and flashes without getting cutesy or self-concious. A large number of sly little asides add to the humor; I frequently found myself laughing at a bit of dialogue, or at Temple's internal thought proccesses. Louie himself is an elegant Greek chorus of one, while behaving at all times like a real live cat. Matt and Max are superb foils for each other in all aspects, and the supporting characters (Fontana Inc, Danny Dove) are delightful while avoiding two-dimensionality. All of her books give a quick, in-depth sketch of life in the real world of various trades or professions...people wanting to become published authors could do worse than to read this particular one.

With the return of her ex-lover, magician Max Kinsella to the Circle Ritz, home of her new beau, Matt Devine, ex-priest and hotline counselor, Temple Barr finds herself in need of a refuge. Accompanied by the colorful Electra Lark and Temple's aunt, romance novelist, Kit Carlson, Temple attends a romance writers convention at the Crylstal Phoenix. However, Temple once again finds herself embroiled in murder as entries in the Incredible Hunk contest begin turning up dead. That ever reliable feline, Midnight Louie springs to the assistance of his favorite roommmate as they work to uncover clues to the identity of the killer. Louie must contend with his spitfire daughter, Midnight Louise, who has little use for ther father, while Temple faces Lt. Carmen Molina who not only searches for the killer of the hunks, but continues her search for the elusive Kinsella, a suspect in yet another murder. All the while, Temple searches for the Midnight Louie shoe which promises its own reward for the high heeled heroin. With each novel, Douglas draws us further into the lives of her charachers and weaves internal mysteries that carry through from book to book. We await the next book to find out more about Matt Devine, Max Kinsella, and the rest of the human characters as well as Louie's romantic and family entanglements.

This book is insightful, thought provoking, and practical. This isn't a "how to" book, so anyone looking for a step-by-step book should look elsewhere. However, Murray offers something much more--an approach to church-planting that is both practical AND based in solid ecclesiology. Ecclesiology is lacking in my faith tradition (evangelicalism). This book helps to fill the void. Anyone considering being a part of a church plant MUST get this book.

Murray and Kraybill have produced a comprehensive book that examines Church Planting from a very balanced perspective. Their treatment of the objections to church planting is extremely valuable. Although their efforts to stay balanced cause the book to occasionally "bog down," the net effect is a classic work that will stand the test of time. This book will be a helpful guide for the leaders and participants in any church planting movement.

This is by far the best of the best. It challenges pragmatic approaches by most popular models/methods of church planting and calls for planters to understand their greater purpose as the missio Dei (mission of God). It is a trenchant critique of the idols of "purpose," "programs," and "personalities" over and above kingdom principles and perspectives.

Thoroughly biblical, yet liberating!

This is a wonderful book for all doll artists.
It show step by step the process the late Robert McKinley
used to complete one of his dolls. Excellent!

Many dollmakers relish anything they can find from the late, great Robert (Bob) McKinley. His outstanding work and terrific personality made him a real hit with anyone who knew him, and influenced many others who only experienced his genius "second-hand".

At this time, his book, "Sculpting Dolls in Paperclay" is almost completely unavailable, with used copies fetching prices upward of $200. However, there is a source of his four video collection and his other book, "Dollmaking: One Artist's Approach" online at dollvideos.com.

Many doll aritsts who have either seen the videos or read this book have said that it is almost like being in the workroom with Bob. Can you imagine a better way to learn his terrific dollmaking skills!

It is unfortunate that the terms of Mr. McKinley's will prevent the sale of his books or videos by any other means.

If you want to learn to sculpt the human figure -- buy this book! I had struggled for a very long time to learn to sculpt, then I found this book. The very next figure I did was radically better. While I have evolved my own "hand", my basic technique is based on the fundamentals I learned in this book.
This book covers every aspect of the dollmaking process. From sculpting the head and hands, drafting a body pattern, constructing the body and armature, to drafting and constructing the costume and finishing the base. Every stage of creation is documented in step by step photos of a single doll, which is an especially invaluable feature unique to this title.
I was fortunate enough to have met Bob briefly and this book captures not only his working methods but also the giving nature of his personality. We are all of us fortunate indeed that this book was written, and that this information is still available to anyone willing to learn and grow as an artist.

Cunning as the Devil was Nathan Bedford Forrest and this book indicates just how quick and clever this military genius was. Little wonder then that Lee considered this dark knight to be his finest soldier, above even the legendary Stonewall Jackson.

In terms of his impact on modern warfare, no general of the Civil War had more than Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Not Grant, not Lee, not Longstreet or Sherman. This is the man. No less a general than Erwin Rommel studied Forrest's tactics and implemented them with modern weaponry when his Afrika Korps marched all over Libya and Egypt in World War II.

The reason I say this book isn't for the "politically correct" is that it was written some 70 years ago, by a man of the old South who obviously idolized Forrest and everything he stood for. As you know already, not everything Forrest stood for was good. He was 100 years ahead of his time as a soldier, but stuck in 1860 in his personal beliefs.

But...getting into the book. He was a brilliant commander who never had enough men under his command to turn the war in the South's favor. Still, he was a hero to the people of the Tennessee river valley where he won most of his victories, with good reason. When the Union troops overran these areas and placed them under military rule, Forrest made sure they treated the citizens decently. Once he even saved a group of innocent men from a flaming death at the hands of vengeful Union soldiers whom he was defeating in battle. Reading these and other stories makes you understand why he was such a hero to the author, who would have heard first-hand accounts of Forrest's exploits.

Lytle believes that the South would have won the war if Forrest had been placed in command of the main Confederate army in the west, and he's probably right. Forrest was an extraordinary individual who had more impact on the 20th century than any other Civil War general.

I never fully appreciated the intellect of Forrest until I finished this book. It peels away the myths about the man, and tells about what he was really like. I loved it, and often flip around in it from time to time. A must for Civil War buffs!

In his early days, the subject of this true-crime history was so weird and insane-acting that no one in their right mind would allow him near them. But when he was sent to an insane asylum, over the years he learned a skill that made him one of the most dangerous predators in serial killer history: he learned to be perfectly, completely charming! Landladies had no hesitation showing this handsome, polite and obviously highly religious man their upstairs room to let... and they never left that room alive, as Ferral induced them to look up--- "what caused that stain?"--- broke their necks, and then raped their cooling corpses! As harrowing a true-crime account as I have ever read.

Schechter's book is a great read. It is a well written account of an American serial killer from a time before the term serial killer had been invented. The pleasant surprize of "Beastial" is the excellent treatment he gives the Social environment of America during the 1920s. The result is a greater understanding of the mind set of a country that was terrified by the sick twisted, corpse raping, body concealing "Gorilla" of a man known as Earle Leonard Nelson. I absolutely could not put this one down!

As a writer, I truly respect Schechter's ability to give a reader facts, while telling an incredible, and true tale. Particularly, "The Bestial" left me unsettled, yet captivated. I had difficulty thinking about his book - especially after the lights went out!

This book covers what should be the most important Issue to all people in the human-rat race. It's an attempt to make people realize how fast we are using up our natural resourses.
I can only hope that this book makes it to the top 10 best sellers list, so that it gets read by a large segment of the population. It's a vary important message and it's easy to read in a short amount of time, and once you read it it would be wise to give it to a friend and have them read it and pass it on to someone else.
Why can't an American president stand up, and run on smaller population and less consumption? Humans will gain less and less with over-population.

"Beyond Earth Day" gives an amazingly thorough look at the state of our planet, then and now. Discussions of issues are well-referenced and Gaylord Nelson courageously presents honest solutions to problems that many people take pains to ignore. He offers history, wisdom, and guidance in an age when "environment" is an important issue to Americans, yet many are unaware of the seriousness of the issues our water, air, soils and biodiversity face. An America united by the knowledge offered by Senator Nelson has the capability to change the course of catastrophic events involving the very elements needed for life. Share the intelligence of this important book with everyone you know.

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson holds no punches in this book. He brings the question of the ability of the planet to sustain today's consumption-driven American lifestyle into clear focus in "Beyond Earth Day". His report card on the planet is dire but believable.

The book provides a strong case that more dire consequences are up ahead for all of us, unless the current political leadership in Washington abandons its "business as usual" mentality regarding the environment and begins to recognize the urgency and gravity of the situation we are getting into with regard to air, water, land and climate.

"It is time for the president and Congress to reach an agreement that sustainability is the challenge of our time and design a plan of action for the future... There is no room, nor time, for partisanship. The president and Congress should face this issue in a unified and cooperative way and should persist until we reach the goal", laments Nelson.

Nelson recommends that the president of the United States deliver a "State of the Environment" speech to the American public and the world which outlines environmental challenges meriting the nation and the world's immediate attention, and the challenges that lay on the horizon. Such an address, Nelson says, is what is needed "to start public dialogue on the serious environmental problems facing the country and world today". People everywhere need to realize that maintaining the environmental sustainability of the planet is the most important responsibility we all have, because all life on Earth is interrelated, and because our economy is inherently dependent on the environment's "underlying resource base of forests, water, air, soil, and minerals".

I purchased this book for my neices but found myself using it for my own personal Bible study on David. The stories flow like a story book rather than "scripture". The simplicity of the translation bring to life the characters and places. Although, I know how the stories end, I still find myself wanting to know more. It has been written on a third-grade level but can be used by all ages. This translation has inspired me to study more for which I am greatly thankful.

I first got this bible for my son when he was in first grade. He is now in 7th grade and has moved up to a NIV and my daughter who is in first grade started using his old one. The cover is torn completely off it and I picked it up to bring in the house after church on day and mentioned it was looking pretty bad and my daughter said "Please don't throw it away, it is the only bible I can read by myself and understand too." Needless to say, I kept it and ordered her a new one for Christmas.

This Bible works. It's not a dumbed-down or inaccurate paraphrase but a full translation. Missionaries are using this version as the basis for Bible study materials because it's accurate and simple. Try it with confidence.

When the first self-published edition came out in 1974, Ted Nelson's two-sided classic about the current and wished-for state of computers-as-cultural-tool had the memetic impact of a big ol' 2 x 4 to the forehead on the few who read it.

In an era when IBM dominated the industry, and the best most social critics could come up with vis-a-vis computers was an incoherent babble about punch cards and Big Brother, it revealed a side of computing few had seen, and dared to dream about knowledge-sharing networks and graphic interfaces.

In 1989, I bought two dozen copies of this book (Microsoft Press edition). I gave some copies to friends, but most went to my co-workers at a small home-PC company. It was a coolness test. People who talked about it, who GOT it, I had hope for. Those who didn't get it, or scoffed, I marked as duffers. Alas, this included many of the company's higher ups.

Why only four stars for what was once an utterly invaluable tome, a source of inspiration, a shining literary beacon of hope? Mostly because much of what Computer Lib / Dream Machines advocated has come to pass (albeit in ways that Nelson would probably not prefer). Partially because the battle to complete the job has moved into other spheres: Legal, commercial, and the nitty-gritty work of actual product creation.

If you see a copy, or either edition, BUY IT.

I discovered this book while working at Microsoft. They have 3 copies! It is the most profound book on computer systems, information networks and how to become a literate computer user/advocate ever written. If you find a copy I will pay top dollar for it!

Theodor Nelson is an academic and computer visionary who is generally credited with creating the term "hypertext" in 1965. While hypertext had been conceived of as early as the 1940s, Nelson was the first to construct it within the context of the emerging computer technologies of the 1960s and 70s as a new mode of publication.

The word "visionary" gets thrown around quite a bit when one talks about computers and the Internet: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos ... all visionaries. And then you read this book, which originally appeared in the 1970s, based on ideas Nelson developed in the 1960s, and you discover what visionary really means.

Dream Machines is a bona fide computer culture classic; it is shocking that such an influential and important book is out of print.

This charming tale has much usefulness for a classroom setting. It ties in with the themes of writing, friendship, families, imagination, St. Patrick's Day and Leprechauns. A book with this many possibilities for curriculum tie-in is worth the expenditure for school and public libraries.

I have never seen a leprechaun, but author Martin N. Burton made me feel as if I was experiencing the magic of the leprechaun who was his childhood friend. The well written story is the reason why I loved this book and why I loved reading it to my own children. The writing style is fun for young readers and for their parents who may find themselves reading out loud in an unintentional Irish brogue.

Mr. Burton captures the gentle magic of childhood that is enhanced by loving parents and lasts a lifetime. The friendship and love revealed between the child and his father makes this a perfect story for Father's Day. If your children believe in fairies, Santa, and other magical beings, they will find irresistible the possibility that they can have their own leprechaun friend.

Dear Mr. Leprechaun discretely encourages children to write their own letters so they too can discover what might happen. The illustrations are beautiful and convey the magical world of childhood.

I can not possibly start to express just how wonderful this book is. I & my children enjoyed it so much, we bought a second copy to donate to their school library. Young children delight in the idea of corresponding with "Mr. Leprechaun", but the real joy of this book is in it's demonstration of the deep & heartfelt love of a parent for their child. The artwork is exceptional as each page simply begs to be poured over again and again. While it is an excellent childrens book, I also believe it is a wonderful addition to any adults library as well.