I used this book in my preschool class during the month of November. We first read it as a large group, then in smaller groups of 3-4. My students really soaked up the message that we're all the same even if our skins are different colors. They even wanted to act it out for our parents. So they each chose a "color" to be, painted paper grocery sacks the corresponding colors, chose to rehearse about 15 times before they were satisfied that their parents would get the message too. They put on one of the best performances I've ever been a part of. Many parents were very impressed with the message. I have returning students telling new students that it's ok to be different colors because our hearts are all the same and that's what counts.

I was first introduced to this wonderful book at the day care I teach in. I continue to use it every week. The message it gives to young children is most valuable when trying to instill patience and understanding. It teaches that we are all the same, reguardless of the color of our skin. I hope that it will be reprinted again and again so that others will have the oportunity to enjoy it as well.

I read this book to my fifth grade students as we study the Civil Rights Movement. They love the story and the pictures! Eventhough it is a book for early readers, it has a strong message. The Land of Many Colors teaches us to judge each other "not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character."

Excellent narrative that provides the historic context for what is emerging as one of the most difficult and contentious fights between economic and enviromental interests anywhere in the US. The photography is outstanding and Kittredge's discussion of the people and the issues in this beautiful area provide concise insight for anyone interested in understanding the tragedy of US government policies on the management of the land, the people, the fish, and the birds of the Klamath Lake basin. Strongly recommend!!!

This book is an epiphany. Kittredge is the best essayist writing about the American west living today, and the photographs are almost perfect. This book will introduce readers to an area that has remained mostly obscure, an area where huge environmental dramas have long since began, and are still being played out. Many sympathies are presented in this book; lots of heros, too. An amazing read.

Hathaway Jones was a rural mail carrier in at the turn of the century. He delivered "mail" and various mail order catalogue items from West Fork to homesteaders, miners et al along the Rogue River. He had lots of time to make up stories as he led his pack string of anywhere from two to 15 mules and horses. Most were stories on himself.

Tall Tale telling is an American tradition being recognized with swaps all over the country. It helps stir the imagination and the stories are great, especially when told around a campfire.

Also gives incentive to make up your own tall tales. Look around you and you'll see lots of stories just waiting to be told. This book provides the incentive to do just that.

Folks around the Rogue River STILL talk about this guy. Some even do impersonations of him. Hathaway Jones could have been the Aesop and the Garrison Keillor of his time.

This book is a wonderful way to teach children how to use their imaginations with everyday things to create exciting stories. For adults, Hathaway's humor makes great reading next to the fireplace or around a campfire.

A note of thanks to Steven Dow Beckham for compiling these stories. Hathaway Jones was truly a remarkable man and it would have been a shame to have lost the wit and wisdom of this simple mail carrier.

This little (fits in a jacket pocket. Handy!) book is a masterpiece and worth every penny. Not only do you get detailed maps and descriptions of trails in the Kalmiopsis wildland, Red Buttes and High Siskiyous, but you are also given good advice: walk it(don't ride, bike or drive). Pack everything out with you (rather than burying it. The bears *will* dig it up). John Hart tells you how to access some very obscure and little-known trails, how to follow trails which are faint, neglected and devastated by natural or human-inflicted disaster(s), gives you a "heads up" about areas where you might otherwise unwittingly trample salamanders and/or rare plants and speaks about wilderness areas that were (and still are) threatened by the activities of loggers and miners in Northern California and Southern Oregon. He gives potentially life-saving information, pinpointing locations of clean drinking water and shelter, weather conditions and recommendations for clothing and gear. Even if you never get off the sofa and go for a hike, this book is a terrific read!

When Pam Livingston, Chuck Ovens and Nora Ryan lured historian Paul Fischer to Jacksonville, Oregon, he thought they wanted him to write a biography of Doctor Hollingsworth. Instead, the trio hoped that Paul would find proof that Pam was Kate Baker's granddaughter and heir to a vast fortune. Although Paul found the proof, he never gave it to them.

Although Paul thought he whole incident was in the past, it reopens when his home, office and garage are broken into and the only thing missing is the research on the Walker sisters. When Paul receives a call from Pam informing him that somebody beat Nora up, he flies to Jacksonville to find out what is going on. After Chuck is murdered and the killer visits Nora two more times. Pam and Paul go through the estate records and learn about a large sum of money that has not been found. Before the killer strikes again, Paul and Pam are determined to find the money and end the nightmare they are living.

KATIE'S GOLD is an exciting amateur sleuth tale but it is the antagonist who captures and holds the reader's attention. The killer is so single minded and determined, that he will use whatever means necessary, including murder to get what he wants. The audience will like reading about a woman who made her will so airtight that ever the lawyers can't find a loophole. Pam has grown since her last appearance (KATIE'S WILL) and the audience will find her more approachable and likable. Paul is a mench that is impossible to dislike and KATIE'S GOLD is a novel that is good, if not better, than it's prequel.

Harriet Klausner

NORTH BANK explores the patterns and the feelings of recreating a home place. After the author and his wife buy a home beside the Rogue River, he sets about discovering the locale--the hillsides, the neighbors, the rivers, the fly-fishing riffles. What began as strange landscape gradually takes on a familiar and valued quality. This book engages the process of rediscovery that we all experience, in some form, when we move from one place to another and set about putting down new roots. Because the author loves rivers and flyfishing, his particular process has much to do with the rivers and smaller coastal streams of the region. But there is more than fishing here. A wonderful read.

From early in the 20th to the birth of the 21st Century, little changed along the banks of the Klamath in 95 years. The path these women followed remains little altered from when they traveled tho now covered in asphalt, it is still a remote and rough territory for the uninitiated. They stepped off a ship in Humboldt Bay and then walked off the map into the unknown. Surrounded by wilderness, the Marble Mountains and the Trinity Alps, as spectacular and rugged peaks today as they were then. Great Grandchildren of some of those who taught these adventerous ladies the skills to survive in this wild country still live on the same piece of ground. This is the canvas Mary and Mabel painted a wonderful picture of the world they found here. Let them show you the neighborhood and see if you could follow those footsteps down the trail.

Since the world was created at Katimin, the Klamath River has been home to the salmon runs that fed the eagles and fattened bears and filled the smokehouses of the people. The river is the life-blood that flows thru the canyon veins, like a puzzle, each piece necessary to make it complete. A blood transfusion 150 miles away only slowing foreclosure on farmland in another state, no crops must die. Now less water flows downstream and is murky colored and too warm for the salmon to survive in but the life of a potato was saved! A river with no fish is a watershed dying, when the life of the river dies will life along that river follow? These hardy women managed to live without fries, but a river without salmon would be both unbelieveable and inconceivable to them.

Mary and Mabel wandered into my part of northern california to be schoolteachers. From their story you can see how they knew nothing of what the territory was like, how the people were, or any local customs. They seemed to have a vague sense that it was a 'wild' land. They fit in amazingly well in a land where killing another person meant you had to pay that persons family $100 and law was either non-existant or uneffective. They seem to throughly enjoy themselves and set to learn the culture around them and teach what they can. Surprises are around every corner, from rattlesnakes to mountain lions to injun devils. Surprises such as their trusted friend telling them he couldn't go into one town because he had to 'pay $500 last time.'
A great story that is easy to read and gives a glimpse of the hidden corner of northern california where the hupa, yurok and karuk indians reside.

This is an amazing account, by two very adventurous women, of their time spent in an extremely remote area of this country. Even with the speed of modern automobile travel, the tiny communities along the Klamath River, in Humboldt & Siskiyou Counties of northern California, are still remote. Mary & Mabel's sense of adventure, humor, tolerance & joy radiate from this book. It's been 20 years since I lived near the Company Ranch, in Orleans, and read this story. I'm looking forward to owning my own copy and re-reading it. Another reader recommended a wonderful book of similar format. It's exact title is "Tisha: the story of a young teacher in the Alaskan wilderness". It is available through Amazon. I lent my copy several years ago; it's time to buy another copy and re-read it, too. These books are very difficult to find in bookstores. Thank you, Amazon.

Wallace is first an explorer, then a writer. He explores the wild places of the Kalamath Mountains, from the "wonder of dreams" of the upper canyons of the Chetco River, to the scrubby peaks of the Siskiyou and fits it all together in a fasinating evolutionary story. I have explored many of these same areas and found this work to best capture that feeling of being in truely wild places. Read it, then go explore!

Wallace takes on evolution (and the way we were taught about it) the way Annie Dillard lifted the veil over nature in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek": you are forced to replace the myths with a newer, even more mysterious understanding. Ironically, the theory of Sasquatch is retold as common-sensical, scientific fact. The steelhead trout, in fact, comes across as the greater nystery!

I count this book among my all-time favorites, a sort of heir apparent to "Walden."

Inviting book that made you want to visit the Klamath Mountains and learn about the wild plants of any forest system.

Details the flora and landscape of the hike; degree of difficulty of hike in a straight forward, useful manner. I have used the book for several day hikes in the Lake Tahoe and Bay Area and the book has helped make the hikes enjoyable and fun. Heed the degree of difficulty listing, they are accurate.

BUY IT and ENJOY!!!!!!!!

I had a short time to spend in the backcountry and needed some succinct guidance for choosing the best trail for my time and experience levels. The 100 Hikes guide filled the bill - got me from Reno to the Sand Ridge Trail. The trail guide and map was way ahead of the material I picked up at the Forest Service Ranger station and I had a great two nights on trails that were just right for the equipment I had with me. Well written, guide from guys who've obviously been there on the ground. I'd even buy the book someday if the library copy is checked out next time I'm heading for northern California. Dick Williams 10-30-97

I've recently moved to Southern Oregon and this guide has been an invaluable introduction to the hikes in the area. The book is well organized, and does a good job of ranking hikes according to difficulty and seasonality. One failing, however, is the large number of factual errors such as confusing north for south, or mis-stating the number of road miles to the trailhead. These sorts of errors had the positive value of making one more self-sufficient.

Hi, this is Bill Sullivan, the author of this book. Because of the large fires in Southern Oregon this past summer, I've decided to completely update this book. I've rehiked the trails and discovered some interesting new paths. The old edition is now out of print, but I'll have the new second edition available April 1, 2003 -- at the same price. I think it will be worth the wait!

I'm a bit puzzled by the previous review, because Sullivan'sbooks really do have fewer factual errors than most. In fact, he claims to offer a reward to anyone who reports an actual error -- this info is on page 2 of the book -- and he updates the book often, as you can tell by the copyright dates. If the reviewer above really has found a glitch, I'd suggest he report it to Sullivan (the address listed on Sullivan's Website). Maybe the reviewer has an old edition of the book?