I have thoroughly enjoyed reading both of the printed works by this author, BATTLE ON! and HOW GOES THE BATTLE? . His collection of humorous short stories take us to where we 'used to be'... the rural upbringing we wish we had, or if we did, in these stories, we can see 'the loner up the road', the cousins we spent the summer with, or just wander up the path for memories of how life was. He has us spell bound, holding our breath, and then laughing within the space of a few pages.

The river Battle, which flows through each of these stories, could be any river or path in our lives, each story touching and unique.

The author has the ability to visually create people, that we are anxious to learn more about. We feel what they are experiencing, through the descriptive passages and catchy dialogue.

Every story, though standing alone, and easy reading, leads us to the next...and the next...never wanting the excursion to end always wondering what adventures the next individual will have to share with us.

Well worth the read !!

Great to see a book here I've actually read. "Battle On" was enjoyable to read. I like the format where you can read a story at a time and go back to it whenever you wish without having to finish the whole book at once. It's good if you enjoy hearing about the past, or rural areas. I find that interesting and if you like that kind of stuff the author tells it well. I'd recommend it for anyone who likes rural stories or isn't afraid to try something different. It's also important to remember to read the local Canadian and Alberta authors, not just the big names from the states.

Will Ferguson's best known work in Canada is called WHY I HATE CANADIANS -- a title only a Canadian could come up with, since no one else could muster so strong a feeling about the country (by the way, I'm Canadian too). This work is a worthy follow-up, a light, readable, but useful reference, traipsing through Canadian history. Ferguson is more interested in political questions than cultural ones, but it sort of goes with the territory. He does a reasonably good job of making a subject I always found dry and uninvolving (back in my high-school days) very engaging and readable, and, to his credit, gives lots of attention to Native issues (and refrains from too many potshots at Quebec separatists). Ferguson also gives abundant links to cool sites on the internet, to supplement his research. This is, needless to say, very much a populist work, but, well, it IS in the FOR DUMMIES SERIES... I like it. I teach English in Japan, and am using it as a reference, in case I need to quickly explain what an inukshuk is or so forth...

Why didn't Nova Scotia become the 14th American colony?

This difficult to find book is an excellent introduction to Canadian history; perfect for the American who is looking for the highlights of Canada's past, and, as for the above question, it provides wonderful information about America's past, too.

So far I've found this manual to be very useful for rpairing my 86 CRX, but am now back looking for another Manual that has wiring diagrams.

For those of you who own the '88-'91 Civic/CRX, this book is for you. This particular book contains wiring diagrams that are VERY detailed, down to the plastic connectors. This version is much more detailed than the '84-'95 book.

Lovely stories of growing up in British Columbia, of the native Americans and her efforts to capture their art of totem poles. Humorously told stories by a great Canadian artist of the boarding house she opened and ran to make a living. Simple language with lovely metaphors.

Emily Carr has been a most critisized and misunderstood woman of her day. Born in the late 1800's. She did not fit the mold of the Victorian woman. Instead of staying home, raising children, and attending social functions, she befriended the often shunned Native population of Canada, most notably the Queen Charlotte Islands. She traveled to remote places by way of canoe with the Natives of the land. There, she lived in their homes, sketched and eventually painted their totems, their people. She captured their spirit, both in her heart and on canvas. Emily's art was not acceptable to the Victorian art patrons as women were not "real" painters - it was a mere hobby. She was not taken seriously. She always heard and saw what most people could not. She inhaled the woods, the land, and the Native peoples. She followed her own mind and heart, which put her in a position of being called "difficult". Emily Carr is still a breath of fresh air, a maverick of her day. Her view of the world, and how she translates a forest into words and canvas is truly an amazing experience. Her books will give you a walk through the forest, her life as a child, and her views on people as well as her affinity with the Native population. Emily will open your world up into a new appreciation for life itself.

Gaffen shows our guys serving in each other's armed forces from the War of Northern Agression, through the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf.

Gaffen begins each section with a history of the conflict.The first part brings to us the lives of Canadians who served in the Federal Army, including several Medal of Honour winners, and details how Canada was a tacit ally of the Confederate States of America. This part also tells the stories of several Americans who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during 1914-1918, including author Raymond Chandler and several Victoria Cross winners. The 1939-45 section begins with Americans in the RAF and RCAF, and goes on to the accounts of several Americans and Canadians serving in each other's militaries, including the only member of the US Coast Guard to win the Medal of Honour. The Korea part is shorter, but does briefly mention one American from New Jersey who was KIA while serving with the Royal Canadian Regiment. The Vietnam chapter is patterned after Gaffen's previous book <>, and includes two of Canada's greatest heros, Fidele Joseph Bastarache, and Michael John "Bat" Masterson. The Gulf section discusses two Canadians who served in the US military during that war. The appendices on Canadian Medal of Honour recipients (including some from the Indian Campaigns, the Spanish American War, The Mexican capaign against Pancho Villa and others in between), Canadian casualties of Vietnam, Medal of Honour recipients buried in Canada, and American recipients of the Victoria Cross are informative and inspiring.

The only thing Gaffen missed was the death of US Special Forces Sergeant Robert Deeks, killed by a landmine on 2, March 1993, while serving with the Canadian Airborne Regiment in Somalia. However, this can hardly be a fault or a flaw in the book, as Gaffen was probably doing the research or writing during that time frame.

This is a very heartwarming and inspiring book. In an era when Canadian politicians and wrestlers, and Canadian and American sports fans work very hard to foment enmity between our people, Gaffen's book reminds us that we have a lot more in common than a border and a language. Gaffen also shows he truly cares about the people of which he writes, expressing his personal support for the cause of Canadian Vietnam Veterans. Given that Gaffen works for the Government (the Canadian War Museum), this took guts.

A very informative and touching tome. I would make it required reading in high school history classes on both sides of the border.

Canadian military historian Fred Gaffen's book Cross Border Warriors attempts to fill in the gaps in Canadian and American military history. He shares detailed anecdotes of the Americans who fought in the Royal Canadian Forces and the Canadians who fought for the American military, while grounding their stories deep in a macro-historical analysis of the conflicts and cooperation between the two nations. He recognizes both the strong anti-American sentiment in Canada and the occasional fear of Americans that Canada was about to attack the U.S. Ultimately, he wants to tell the stories of the 60,000 American and Canadian citizens who served in each other's armed forces since 1812.

Gaffen begins with the American Civil War, which is commonly thought of as an American only conflict, but it had a definite impact on Canada as well, not only because many Canadians served in the American Union and Confederate armies, but because the civil war was the backdrop for Canadian confederation. As skeptical as Canada's founding fathers were of the civil unrest in the United States, many Canadians "with a taste for adventure " enlisted in the American forces both North and South. Many Canadians also fell prey to crimpers from the States who enticed them under false pretenses or even drugs and alcohol to join the war in the States, usually taking the place of someone rich enough to buy his way out of service.

Crimping occurred on both sides of the border, however, and in World War I before the U.S. joined the war, Americans were crimped into duty for the Canadians. The American Foreign Enlistment Act of 1818 was supposed to prevent such abuses in recruiting, and it was finally enforced and the crimping came to a halt. Canada joined WWI in 1914, two and a half years before the U.S., and since the U.S. was officially neutral, it could not compel or explicitly let its men fight for the Canadians.

However, Canadian minister of defense Sam Hughes assembled a brigade of Americans living in Canada to fight overseas, and then when America joined the war, an agreement was reached that Canada, the U.S., and Britain could all draft each other's citizens into any of their armed forces. Many Americans chose to join the British Air Force for the chance to fly.

It is interesting to note that despite this seemingly open cooperation and trust between the two countries during WWI, the U.S. and Canada both had contingency plans in case of attack or invasion by the other or by Britain before World War II. When Canada entered WWII, many Americans crossed the border to join the Canadian Air Force Special Reserve, which they could do without losing their citizenship. They would take an oath of obedience to the Canadian army, but not an oath of allegiance, and therefore retain their American citizenship. However, when the U.S. entered the war in 1941, many Americans returned to the U.S. forces because of national pride and better compensation.

Canada also had the Clayton Knight committee dedicated to recruiting American pilots to fly for the Royal Canadian Air Force, which many Americans joined because of the more relaxed education and training requirements.

Canadian participation in American conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf was much less pronounced, mostly because of the smaller scale of these wars and less need for foreign soldiers. Canada did send a brigade of its own to fight in Korea, but most Canadians who fought in that war did so under U.S. command. Generally, Canadian Korea veterans had a much more positive experience than Canadian Vietnam veterans. Many Canadians went to fight for the U.S. in Vietnam seeking glory and adventure, but they were sadly disappointed, and most felt "used and abandoned by the American government." More Canadian veterans than American suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the horrors of Vietnam and they receive less public support. Canadian Vietnam veterans face considerable hostility from the Canadian public, and they are treated even more as outcasts than American Vietnam veterans in the U.S. Canadian involvement in the Persian Gulf war was limited mostly to Canadians already living in the U.S. or special forces assigned to help with the battle.

Through detailed historical facts and personal anecdotes, Fred Gaffen makes an important contribution to the often neglected soldiers who fought across borders in the past two centuries. He provides the recognition that these brave men and women deserve and have often not received. He emphasizes the important and lasting ties that veterans from Canada and the United States keep to this day, and hopes that the two countries will continue their friendly relations and willingness to help a neighbor in times of crisis.

This is one of Lynn Johnston's earlier works before she became famous for her cartoon strip "For Better or Worse".

Unlike the strip "For Better or Worse" which is centred around the Patterson family and usually has a continuing story line this book contains one panel gags (101 in total) and has a variety of characters in it. Although for those who have followed her cartoons you may be able to find a young Elly & Michael Patterson in the book.

The book has a lot of funny gags told from a variety of perspectives including from the first time parents, expectant mothers, fathers, siblings etc.

It would make the ideal present for someone who is expecting or for someone who is a Lynn Johnston fan.

Throw away the Brazelton. Throw away the Spock. Buy the set of Johnston books on pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenthood. You will gain far more wisdom. Well, maybe not wisdom. Certainly perspective! Lynn helped me and many other incipient/new parents put the whole "kid thing" into perspective. You gotta laugh at the whole situation from time-to-time.

I read this book to my nephew and we giggled our way through the whole thing. The poems are quite imaginative. Some are long, others short. All very funny. My nephew is only 4, and he enjoyed picking out the things "that really wouldn't happen." He and I both loved it

Dennis Lee is a treasure. My daughter and I devoured Alligator Pie when she was a little girl, chuckling merrily over author Lee's zany humor and vivid imagery. I have subsequently given each new Lee book to the children (and even some of the adults) I know, happy to introduce this outstanding author to those who haven't yet discovered him. Want to make your children/grandchildren/neighborhood kids laugh out loud? Get them anything Dennis Lee has written. He's truly gifted, truly tapped into the mind of the child in all of us.
My highest recommendation.

OK, there is some new information here. Mostly it seems that Hayes has helped illustrate the travels of Mackenzie, something that was not available previously. Barry Gough's book is notoriously lacking in any illustration of Mackenzie's voyages and Mackenzie's own book is virtually without useful illustration. Maybe having read the previous two books makes me jaded but Mackenzie's voyages can only be retold so many times.
Hayes has presented us with a slightly new take on telling the story with pictures, maps and historical vignettes but I hunger for a more thorough job. Perhaps more in the nature of Moulton's "Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition". Finding someone willing to wade through Mackenzie's rather impenetrable prose may be a challenge.
Notwithstanding the above this is probably the best explanation of Mackenzie's voyages since the original journals.

First Crossing by historian Derek Hayes is the amazing story of Alexander Mackenzie, and his trailblazing journey across the North American continent before civilized society conquered the North American wilderness. Illustrated throughout with maps and photographs in black-and-white and color, the deftly researched and meticulously reported details of Mackenzie's voyage vividly reconstruct an 18th Century expedition of truly insurmountable bravery and pivotally important discovery.

As an Arab-American woman growing up in the United States, I found this book to be very refreshing. I noticed as a child in America that Arab women were either perceived as very docile and covered from head to toe or as whores that danced seductively for men only to have alternative plans to get ahead as in the case of the book One Thousand and One Arabian Nights which I read when I was younger. either way, Arab women were not seen in a good light by Western culture. This is a book that presents Arab women and women all over the world as thinking, intelligent, and talented beings that deserve a say on today's social issues and women in society in general. I actually went to a reading that featured the poets in the book as a way to promote the book in 1995 and found myself to be proud of who and what I am. I recommend this book to any women (or men) that are of Arab or Western decent. You will not be bored, that I can assure you. Thank you.

This is an excellent anthology of arab-american feminist writings, each essay and poem discussing how it feels to be an Arab-American woman growing up in the US.

As an Arab-American woman, I felt comforted and empowered by these writings.

I picked up this play because I really liked the title. I really enjoyed reading the play. At a few points I was laughing uncontrollably, but at others I was unable to grasp the concept at what I should be laughing about. Take into account that I only read this play last night, and it was my first read at it. I think that this one would be difficult from my point of view as a director because the Narrator (one of the two chars) never leaves his chair until the end. It would be difficult for me to keep things interesting, but It would be a nice challenge to be able to pull it off. I, as an actor, would love to be able to pull off learning one of Nana's HUGE monologues, but since I am not even close to the age of that character I won't bother for now. I think that it is a wonderful play which has a lot of hidden meaning in it, and I am planning on reading it again this weekend so I can discover more. Thanks Michel.

Another brilliant success from Tremblay.. He makes us care profoundly about his own history and family, bringing us into his world completely. I continue to marvel at his skill in confounding time without confusing his audience. His humor is as profound and entertaining as ever, his insight touching and relevant, and the staging he builds into this play... two characters, one seated until the very end and then a sensational and spectacular ending that is impossible to read without laughter and tears and must be a thrilling experience to see on stage. Amazing connections and linkages with his previous work.