This is a good fast-paced kidnap mystery. It's great for kids.

A missing film nearly ruins a science fiction convention, but Frank and Joe help look for the film.

The Secret of Skeleton Reef is a book that will keep you guessing. This book takes place on the island of St. Lucia. The Hardys find there way into yet another mystery. This time they need to find out how their new friend Crissy got on the beach one night.

When Callie is mugged, she insists on helping the Hardys find out who did it and why. The fact that the good guys are no longer immortal makes this book even more exciting.

Check Your Review of Shepherd in the Wilderness by Edward Franklin Ripley

Here is your review the way it will appear:

A Closer Look: Puritans in the Wilderness Reviewer: Thomas P.Hughes from Philadelphia, PA USA

Edward Ripley, a full-time Philadelphia investment adviser and part- time historian, has written an engaging life of Peter Hobart (1604-1679), a Puritan minister who emigrated to Massachusetts seeking to practice his faith free of constraint. Ripley uses his biography of Hobart, a founder of Hingham Plantation, now Hingham, Massachusetts, as a window on the political, social, and economic life of 17th century settlers. Only a few original sources about Hobart exist, but Ripley deploys them imaginatively to leave readers with a feeling that they know Hobart and his times. A Hobart sermon is particularly moving: "the forest around us, the sea at our shores, the expanse of cleared fields warmed by the sun and clothed with a bountiful verdure--all of these will yield us manifold by the toil of our bodies.... Friendly intercourse with the red people...will work only for good...." Learned and, according to Cotton Mather, displaying hearty love towards pious men, Hobart, nevertheless, engaged in a fractious dispute with John Winthrop, the renown governor of Massachusetts. Taking a stance counter to some admirers of Winthrop, Ripley argues that Hobart courageously opposed an arbitrary decision of a sometimes autocratic governor. Readers who treasure the early history of Massachusetts should find this carefully crafted book an edifying account of an admirable man who shaped the community of Hingham Plantation and its countless descendents.

This is a very good book in the Dorling Kindersley style, lots of details, sidebars, photos and facts. In 2-3 page sections, the book covers ski jumping, skiing, downhill racing, the slalom, freestyle, cross-country, and other snow sports (e.g., very brief mentions of dog-sled racing, the luge, bobsledding). Although too brief, and by now, quite outdated, it's a good short introduction to snow sports. Includes a glossary and an index, and lots of photos in its 32 pages.

This is a terrifically funny novel, written in a breathless, rambling style, that takes a little bit of dedication to make friends with. I'm the sort of dedicated fan of Miles Franklin who doesn't mind the here and now of the first few chapters, but someone not so big a fan wouldn't be quite as interested in the point of view character's opinion of the minutiae that Franklin chronicles, before she gets right down to things.

For example, Franklin brings too many characters at once into the story, instead of holding them off until they become necessary to the plot. She has these characters so well developed in her mind, that she can't resist sharing them in clever detail; the result, however, is confusing. I'm fond enough of simply reading what Franklin has to say, that I don't mind, but I suspect many people would give up in frustration.

Maybe the reader could skim the first chapter for proper names and highlight them, then go back for quick reference when the characters become part of the story.

The story itself is brilliant: the vote has come to women in Australia, and in the small town of Noonoon, the two male candidates have posited themselves, one as the "women's" candidate, and the other as the "men's." The women's candidate spends his campaign shamelessly flirting, while the men's candidate grunts, stomps around, chops a lot of wood, and questions the masculinity of his opponent.

Dawn, the title character, is a beautiful young woman, the granddaughter of the narrator's landlady, with whom the narrator is quite taken. The narrator is a woman, and her attraction to Dawn is intense. It is never labeled as sexual attraction, and the narrator never makes any overtures that could be interpreted as such. What she does, however, is orchestrate a meeting between Dawn, and a young man of her acquaintance, who is very like herself, and whom she is absolutely convinced is the only man for Dawn, so by proxy, she in a sense, seduces Dawn.

So all the while the narrator is endlessly amusing herself over the silliness of the local election, and sharing her disdain with Dawn, whom she considers superior to the "everyday folk" that populate Noonoon, she is herself engaging in her own silly subterfuge, and blithely unaware of the self-serving motive behind her orchestrations.

Miles Franklin was just twenty when she wrote this book, but has remarkable insight into the mind of a middle-aged woman. She is also already a master of the type of prose that keeps you giggling as you read. Even though Franklin has presented the narrator as lacking in personal insight, she still has lent the narrator her own gift for the amusing quip. Every description is perfectly apt and perfectly amusing.

If you're looking for something to read that's out of the ordinary, without being out of this world, you'll find it here. I recommend this book, and anything by Miles Franklin.

Bryce Wright has come full circle with the seasons, and as
he looks back over the past year he feels a supreme sense
of accomplishment. This Vietnam veteran now employed as
a Mental Health Counsel is ready to annotate his files with
closure and hopefully one success story.

His client Franklin Cooper has been plagued with the diagnosis
of a Manic Depressive Disorder with Drug-Induced Psychosis.
Bryce, has been where Franklin is and so he is empathetic
toward the suicidal, drug induced behavior of Franklin. He is
committed to helping Franklin so he will not become just another
statistic, just another young black man lost to society.

Franklin's existence hinges on the hope he has in a cardboard
shoe box left to him by a father he loved unfalteringly. It
was the death of his father that heralded the beginning of
Franklin's detachment from life. And it is that very shoe box
that serves as a life preserver, rescuing him each time he
feels the waters of life eclipsing him.

Franklin's Shoe Box tells two stories, one about the challenges
teens and young adults confront when they choose to abuse drugs
and alcohol. And one about a Vietnam veteran who gets to tell
his story with hopes that it will be therapy for those who lost
a part of themselves in 'the Nam'. A catalyst for Franklin is
the fact that Bryce served in Vietnam with his father and can
fill in some gaps peppering his confused life. Along with
Franklin's issues Bryce realizes he has to help family members
who are co-dependent to Franklin's illness.

Mr. Davis has written an intuitive story with a pace that keeps
the reader in step with all that is evolving. The character-
ization could have been tighter, but this is still excellent
therapy, saturated with painful realism, and renewed hope in the
human spirit. This is a good read.

Reviewed by aNN Brown
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

This book gives an inside view of how US government and indeed, the nation's first nationwide corporate entity, struggled with the combined pressures of politics & business 200 years ago. The problems USPS managers faced were remarkably "modern" as were the solutions remarkably "modern." Since I work with an agency that is similar in many respects to USPS, it was fascinating to see them crafting unique solutions in 1835 that we think are innovative in 1998. The book is "dry" in a way, but also very revealing to the persistent reader.

This book was'nt really that good! Personally I prefer the other Hardy Boys books( you know the ones with the blackish cover.) Anyways in this book the Hardy's friend Jamal is worried about another friend of his who's been acting weird. The brother's are suspicious and look into whats bothering this other guy. Asusual they end up uncovering a mystery and eventually solving it. Read the book to find out what happens.