I live with my mom & dad on Herring Bay on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. One morning, all I could see was mud! When I asked my parent where did all the water go, they said not to worry, the water would be back. My dad thinks the wind has pushed the water away. I imagine the wind blowing all the water across the Bay. I think of where all the water went.

What a long day it was at school, I couldn't stop thinking about how all my friends, the fish & the birds who would perish without the water & the school bell couldn't come soon enough. What would I find when the school bus dropped me off at the Bay? Would the water still be far away?

With David Aiken's enchanting & whimsical artwork, Carolyn Stearns has written an informative & exciting little book about the comings & goings of salt water bays. Delightful & a keeper! Do check out my full review & many others of neat children's books.

Childhood is the most wonderful time of discovery -- of the world and of self. Author Carolyn Stearns evokes this sense of wonder -- and concern -- that all children (and most adults) feel when their world suddenly changes dramatically and they don't know why. The story is about a true natural phenomenon that occurs once in a while on the Chesapeake Bay -- that cosmic wonder! -- when the tides and the wind and the moon and other weather factors are just right. Surprise, consternation, a sense of loss, fear, worry, skepticism, reassurance from wise and understanding parents, joy and renewed faith are all a part of the story. The illustrations of David Aiken are stunning and inspired, and complement the text beautifully. This is a timeless book of spare and direct prose for children of any age, to be read to younger ones aged 2-8 and read by older ones aged 9-99. And is the storyteller a girl or a boy?

I read Dellenbaugh's reprinted "Canyon Voyage" (the much abbreviated title) as a young man in the flatlands of western Kansas in the 1960's. The romance of the period of Dellenbaugh's youth, and the Powell Expeditions in particular (1869-72), stimulated in me an ongoing interest in the history of the region. I have read the edited and published diaries of most of the participants of the two expeditions, and continue to invest in an array of scholarly and coffee table books that even remotely address the subject. My annual crossings of the Colorado and Dirty Devil rivers to pursue research interests in southeastern Utah never fail to regenerate my own wish to have participated in such an epic adventure. Thus, when I saw the notice of publication of Maurer's book about Dellenbaugh on the second Powell expedition, with the expression in the title "the true adventures," I was expecting something on the order of D.D. Fowler's book about Jack Hiller's, another expedition participant. That is, a pretty serious biography of the man and a pretty faithful reproduction of the daily diary kept during his time in the field. Well, it might be the former, but it is certainly not the latter. Unlike the other expeditioners who kept diaries, Dellenbaugh's original diary has never been published. Perhaps this is because his 1908 "Canyon Voyage" was a timeline-based (albeit compressed) narrative and researchers may have believed there was nothing more of value in the original diary. While Maurer read the diaries of all the participants, including Dellenbaugh's, as well as Dellenbaugh's "Canyon Voyage" and the earlier "Romance of the Colorado River," Maurer's timeline is even more compressed than Dellenbaugh's. Consequently the book lacks the rich detail of Dellenbaugh's diary and earlier publications. For example, unlike the present book, the consecutive daily diary entries of "Looked for the Major today but of course he did not come; carried the rations over," "Looked for the Major again," and "Still waiting,"conveys a real sense of frustration at being in the same camp, on the bank of the Colorado, day after day, laying up under a boat to avoid the oppressive August heat, with nothing to do, waiting for the Major and Prof to come in so the party can continue the trip down the river through the Grand Canyon. Maurer acknowledged that in the writing of the book he "sometimes resorted to the methods of historical fiction to flesh out some of the stories" and that "footnotes would be out of place in a book like this." Thus despite having the best possible materials at hand from which to draw, this book was never intended as a scholarly work. In that context, the writing was a success. Maurer did locate some great historical photographs and drawings not published elsewhere, and that alone is an important contribution. More than that, though, the book was a really entertaining read. I can well imagine some person, like me once, never having heard of either Powell or Dellenbaugh, picking up the book and just marveling at what they did. And, interest aroused, they have an avocation.

Richard Maurer's new book chronicles Powell's second expedition through the eyes, words, and illustrations of Fred Dellenbaugh - a 17-year-old boy from Buffalo, NY who, along with some rowing experience on the turbulent Niagara River and a facility for drawing, had the gumption to make his dream come true. This story is very well written and quite compelling and will appeal to those who love adventure stories set in the Old West. The photographs and illustrations are remarkable. My hats off to the author!

I have the good fortune of knowing Greg and have paddled and fished a bit with him. Always a strong writer, "Wild Shore" surpasses anything of his to date with its blend of frank honesty (about the frequent terrors of the Big Lake and about loneliness), humor (in confronting edgy weather and wind and lakeside culture), and deep respect for nature and history. It's also a bit of a romance, though not ostentatiously so. Beyond all that it is a marvelous kayak trip on which he leads us.

I really enjoyed Greg Breining's new book "Wild Shore--Exploring Lake Superior by Kayak." He loves history and nature and it shows. He starts north of Sault Sainte Marie, Canada and goes west. He goes for little pieces at a time, usually with a friend or his teen-age daughter. He talks to the local people. He explores what's near the shore (such as the Pukaskwa pits) and what is unique about it. He tells you about the Canadian WWII German prisoner of war camp near Ney. He looks for the woodland caribou and discusses their relationship with the wolves. He visits the Rossport Inn and tells about the sinking of the Gunilda. He visits a ship captain and the Indian man who manages the Grand Portage State Park (in MN). He kayaks around Isle Royale with his daughter, describing its interesting history. He goes to the Apostle Islands (in WI). He meets a fellow in a folding kayak going around the lake like him, but in one trip. He visits a crumbling lighthouse and the very private Huron Mountain Club in the UP of Michigan. He fights the waves and has a good time exploring. He finds interesting places you'd never find in a car. He talks about the then and now. He camps at night and enjoys his cigar and a good cup of tea. It's a very different book than Ann Linnea's book of kayaking around Lake Superior, Deep Water Passage. Much more interesting. He does not focus on himself. He takes many pictures. It is an excellent book. My only problem with it were the pictures and maps. The pictures (which are very good) were very dark. The maps were much too small. Have a good Lake Superior map tucked in your book when you read it. Now you can go around Lake Superior--without the work!

"Woman Lake", a book of poetry by Richard Broderick, is sensitive, nostalgic, and witty. Broderick describes his childhood, family relationships, fatherhood, memories of his parents and grandparents with a zest for the human spirit. A sense of personal loss also echo's throughout the book, as Broderick lost his father and both sets of grandparebts at the age of fourteen. One example is found in "Bully Boy"; Broderick describes himself as "the boy who tried to fill the emptiness with pain.". Friendship is also prevalent in these writings. One can feel the warmth of his memories, playing with the boys in summertime, watching his mother hang the laundry out to dry, and Grandmother's pie-making. This is truely enjoyable reading.

Woman Lake is very reachable and "there" for readers, simple stories about events and observations that usually morph into something deeper and more mysterious. His poems do what poems are supposed to do -- they take something familiar, allow you to examine it in your hands, until you locate the secret inside that makes the object holy or heartbreaking or hilarious.

I hear it in "Hanging Laundry Out to Dry," a poem about his mother -- "the last generation of mothers to make clothes by hand" -- pinning clothes to a line. It seems to be about shirts and sheets and washday, but as you read it, it enfolds you like billowing sailcloth:

I think now
of her lips, the tastes her mouth must
have held over time: wood and steel,
stone and soil, and finally ash.

Hey -- all of life is in those lines, all our striving and eating and dying. And Rich gets to it with a homely memory of his mom in a New Jersey backyard. It is very lovely.

In a companion poem, "Lost in Audubon's Birds of America", Rich thumbs through the old lithographs of birds in their natural habitats -- and suddenly is seeing his father's death:

... the evening
that divides everything into before and after,
as if in dying he fled into this book
to furl his wings in the feather of my eyes.

It is more than melancholy that pulls the poet and reader deeper into these poems. I sense an enormous yearning, in a world of cheap distractions and pretensions, for the things of substance, the real things, the hard-won achievements of those who have gone before, and those who are yet to blossom. One of the nicest poems is this one about his daughter Emma ("Photocopy of My Daughter's Face"). This poem begins as whimsy, which is then put in the service of a parent's terror, the image of one's offspring frozen like a fly pressed in amber. Here is the poem in its entirety:

Young girl, trapped beneath the ice,
What are you trying to tell me?
That life is a cold, deep well,
A series of gray tones
Falling off suddenly into black?

This distortion makes the living
Look and shiver.
How long must you wait, child,
Face pressed against the light?
In what world will you wake up
And take your next breath?

I like very much the unmistakableness of his approach and tone; it's very hard to misread Rich Broderick. He takes care to guide the reader in and through his ideas and images. He's very much a controlling poet in that sense, sure-footed and well-plotted, and he reminds you that poets are supposed to be guides.

Also recommended is a 30-line poem, "Repairing the Five Story Globe," about a replica of our planet on display on the campus where Rich works. Somehow the plastic continents of the globe had come askew, and a girl from the exhibit company was refitting these tectonic sections via a crane. She floats at the end of a cable, restoring the earth to its proper condition. The poem is by turns sexy and mythopoeic:

Dressed in shorts, T-shirt
and climbing boots,
she rappels down the slope
of the Northern Hemisphere
fits one boot into the Yucatan
And commences to set
Jamaica right....

These poems about grandmothers and grandfathers, and mothers and sisters, and daughters and sons, about transoceanic crossings and the still moon over a Minnesota lake, speak to a more complex insight. They say our struggle and suffering reveal both what is heroic in us and the fragility that is our human signature. And what can we do but honor our efforts, and grant safe passage to all departed souls:

They look so peaceful, spinning
and rolling slowly into the arms
of the water, their white limbs folding
and unfolding with the limbs of the river.
I watch until they disappear, until they drift
Out of sight around a distant bend.

Our family read this series. We thoroughly enoyed this series.
I felt like the author took us in with the family and we became apart of their family. It was like being with them when Bro. Thomas had to let his children grow up and make their mistakes.
We hurt for them when they hurt. When they were seperated by war and his mission. Gene's captivity in the war and all he went through. To find out he was still alive was such a relief.
I was so excited to find out Mr. Hughes started his new series.
I just ordered Vol. #1 today. I can't wait for it to arrive.

I loved this book! The charactors seem so real, and I learned a bunch of stuff about the 60's I didn't know before. If you like historical fiction, romance, and action, this is the book for you. I would recomend it to any teen looking for a good book.

I am not a writer or a reviewer, just your average run of the mill horse raceing fan. This is not a review like the ones above but a recommendation, I really enjoyed this book and will loan it to all my horse raceing buddies. Any other books written by Mr. Murray I will purchase with no hesitation. I couldn't put it down and enjoyed each and every paragraph.

William Murray is, like many of us, hopelessly addicted to the track -- not to betting (although he does that often and, despite the modesty displayed in this book, probably very well), but to all the sights, smells, experiences, highs and lows of the race track. His tales of the track (from the highs of DelMar to the lows of the fair circuit) are sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious, always with an edge. If you wondered whether the characters that inhabit the Shifty books are real, read this. They are all here. And if you wanted to learn a little more about William Murray, then read this. Though essentially a private man, he does share with his readers some wonderful stories on himself -- my favorite is the cribbing horse -- and also lets us know (if we didn't already) that he thinks Del Mar is all the heaven there ever needs to be.

Cris Kohl has written a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. This book covers 100 shipwrecks from the histories of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. What I enjoyed most about this book was the history and detail that the author goes into in describing the wrecks and stories about the actual sinkings. Anyone who appreciates the shipping history, as well as the cultural history that surrounds the Lake Superior and Lake Michigan will enjoy this book. I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys history.

This is the best book on sea shores for such little money. a great way for children to learn about the coastline and its inhabitants, while still entertaining to the parent.

This easy to use guide has good descriptions and easy to follow maps. Since I was not familiar with many of the back roads, it was very useful. The authors write with an easy style and help you get into the feeling of the areas by providing interesting bits of history.

Hiram Rogers has done it again! As an avid outdoorsman, Hiram's trail guides have helped me navigate my way through the Black Hills of South Dakota and some equally rewarding trails in Kentucky. Hiram's latest book incorporates wonderful photography and a meticulous description of what one will see and experience. Having read both books before traversing the respective trails, I could almost anticipate what was behind every bend. I look forward to his next release!