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Why don't we have more Barbara Ucko fiction?! No one has ever described eating in bed with such inventive elan. As funny as anything you'll read these days.

Occasionally a little too snide too often, Scarlett is nonetheless a mesmerizing character desperate to leave the south and her ersatz southern parents for the north and what turns out to be an impossible grandfather. Funny and moving.

Abner Greene opines in his afterword how, while the legal decisions in the 2000 presidential election aftermath seemed politically motivated, law itself remains above politics. This comes 175 pages into an analysis that carries mostly a political slant on the outcomes.

I commend Greene for being one of the first to write a highly-readable legal account of the 2000 election, unlike others written in bland legalese. This book can be understood by all non-lawyers, but it doesn't mean that it has been dumbed down.

The author winds through the legal wranglings with ease but often cheerleads for the left and Al Gore, always calling Bush's legal arguments "weak" and going to great lengths to come to Gore's defense.

His Monday morning quarterbacking is typical. His blasting of the U.S. Supreme Court is transparent. His defense of the butterfly ballot lawsuits is comical.

I don't have a problem with his partisanship. Greene's is the least rhetorical in the volumes out about the 2000 election. But clearly, the embers haven't cooled enough to provide a truly non-partisan view of the outcomes -- if there is such a thing.

Abner Greene has done a terrific job in breaking down the choas that was the 2000 election. Greene is always clear, always even handed. He is a master at explaining difficult legal issues in layman's terms. All in all, an extremely informative and fun book!

This is an "author responds" note: The commentator says my book is slanted toward Gore and that I have blasted the Supreme Court. This is of course not the venue to debate this, but it's important to note that I am one of the few commentators to *agree* with the Supreme Court's holding on the merits, i.e., that the "intent of the voter" standard is unconstitutional. My reasons are different from the Court's, but I hardly blast the Court on this crucial issue.

This is a beautifully illustrated picture book for young children about the original Thanksgiving feast for the pilgrims and indians (the author's preferred term based on historical precedence, as she explains in the Foreword). The text is placed into a gentle rhyme that takes us back to the landing at Plymouth rock, where a series of lovely paintings then depict the people's lives in their village by the harbor that first year.

It is obvious that the illustrator put a lot of careful attention into researching for historical accuracy. This is a teaching technique that is particularly effective for an age group in which a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Although hardships and struggles are hinted at in both rhyme and painting, the real focus is on the positive relationship between the two peoples as the Indians helped the Pilgrims adapt to their new home.

The only caveat -- for christians and anyone who is a monotheist -- is that this book nowhere mentions God, who is after all the reason for this holiday. It is a significant historical fact that the Pilgrims fled England due to religious persecution, and that this first Thanksgiving Feast was in Giving Thanks to God for His blessings and bounty. Later, Abraham Lincoln officially pronounced Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November and reaffirmed that it was a holiday specifically set aside to revere God. So, the author's careful avoidance of this fact is a disappointment to me.

But if you are more on the politically correct side, you will find this book to be a perfect introduction to Thanksgiving for your children.

The poetic text and rich art of this book complement each other perfectly. It presents a good amount of information in a simple format so that even young preschoolers can start to understand the origins of this tradition. This book reads like a classic...it's lovely!

This story begins and ends with the very first Thanksgiving Day but the scope of the book is much wider than that day. The carefully rhymed text and realistic illustrations invite the reader to take a step back, then another, and another, all the way back to the Pilgrims leaving their homeland and boarding the Mayflower. The result is that the day is put into historical context in a way that's understandable even to the very young. This is a wonderful, age-appropriate look at what the Pilgrims had to go through just to get to the first Thanksgiving Day, and how the Indians helped them.

As an early childhood educator, I was dying to get this book and have a good recording of the Sesame Street segment that this book is based on (and literally one of my favorite songs of all time). The book was fabulous. Unfortunately, the CD does not contain the original recording, on which one gender-unknown child sings all the lyrics as the faces change, thereby reinforcing the message of similarity. The recording from the book lacks any of the charm of the original. Oh well! I guess I'll have to tape it off my TV.

I checked this book out from our library initially because I loved the graphics and it seemed like an age-appropriate book for my two year old. I didn't realize until I got home that it included a CD. She loved it and wanted me to play the song more. After checking it out from the library a couple of times, I knew that this book would be one that we had to own. My six year old niece loves it as well, my daughter sings it all the time, and it is a song that I gladly know all the words to. The theme is timeless and the illustrations are fantastic.

I am a preservice teacher and 1st read this book in a teacher education class, and was pleasntly surprised! It is a great asset to any library, school or home. The pictures and words reinforce the idea that we are all the same, an idea that we need to remember in these hard times. I love the repeating line, "I am you". A catchy song sure to become a favorite is included with the book!

This book is good if i would have read it before 9/11 i wouldnt have donated $1000.00 to a fake charity. They said they were collecting for all the 9/11 victims families. So of course my heart went out to them. You never would have thought, that someone would take advantage of people in that perilous situation.
So for the future, i will reference this book for any an everything that crosses my path!

WOW!!! Growing up in the streets of Boston gave me quite a bit of insight on how to survive a con artist. After reading this book written by a man from New York, who was a swindler himself, it truly gave me a whole new set of ideas of how to be careful and survive in a world full of dishonest people. What an insightful and educational book! I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever been cheated or taken for a ride! Also, for those smart enough to educate themselves BEFORE being swindled.

Great info, very basic,easy to understand....bought a copy for grandma!

This book is just very interesting and helpful. It was also fun to read and just flip through. I even got my friends to flip through it!

its funny to see all the ads of the past. they're so very different from ads now. it just kind of makes you think how society has changed just by looking at the ads. definitely, if u need something interesting to do, read this book.

An album where the heart strings are pulled in several directions leaving one quivering at the thoughts generated from the soundscapes provided by messrs.Duffy and co. Heartfelt and warm the musical output will leave the listener perplexed and meandering back to previous relationships in a time where there were no stresses and strains of everyday life. The definitive summer album to be played while lying by a riverbank with the world drifting by.

This CD will have you saying, who is Stephen Duffy and why have I not heard of him before? Stephan Duffy is the singer and songwriter behind the Lilac Time. This disk is the Lilac Time's 4th with number 5 due in April 1999. If you have not heard of him you will definitely want more after hearing this disk. Stephan's voice is silky smooth, moody and very crisp. The vocal arrangements and harmonies on this disk are second to none, kicking off with In Iverna Gardens which will hook you immediately and never let you go. My favorite cut is The whisper of your mind which is pure Duffy. What makes this disk so special is how stephan's voice is so intertwined with the music, it is seamless and near flawless. However you will wonder why a song like Dreaming is on this disk, it doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the tracks, though not a bad track. After this track the disk just keeps getting better and better and ends with the haunting Madresfield. You will have this disk in your machine for a long time and will know that you've been introduced to one of the most understated English singer/ songwriters of his time. This one's a gem and will have you searching for all of the Lilac Time's disks and Stephans Solo work.

Well i love this story because it is much like the cinderella story but it is with a boy this time. It shows his adventures and the friendship between Billy and the bull. It shows that good always prevails over evil. That is why i would really recommend this book to broaden your imagination and creativity.

Best children's book available: "I got a piece of pie for telling a lie and then I came slithering home." I encountered this story in a Collier's collection in my youth, 45 years ago, and have never forgotten it. A wonderful story.

"Burnt Umber" is a very unconventional novel for several reasons. First, its protagonists are two unrelated real life twentieth century artists whose work was far overshadowed by that of their contemporaries. Second, in place of normal chapters, this book is composed of microchapters, few longer than three pages. Third, although the story unfolds primarily through narration, some microchapters are epistolary and others are in the form of a screenplay. Finally, neither artist is shown to be larger than life or even to be especially likable.

In spite of (or, more likely, because of) these unusual aspects, "Burnt Umber" succeeds splendidly in evoking the lives and art of Franz Marc and Harold Baer(the real name of the latter artist was Harold Paris). For example, the use of microchapters and of alternative narrative voices creates an impression not unlike that of glass shards: the fragments do not fit neatly together but nonetheless they can be pieced together into a recognizable whole.

At the center of this work are Marc, an early twentieth century co-founder (with Kandinsky) of Der Blaue Reiter school and Baer, a mid-century Berkeley sculptor. We are given a unique entree to the imaginations and to the creative processes of these two artists, who see the world quite differently than the rest of us. To be sure, both artists are self-centered, monomaniacal cads. However, Greene's unsentimental approach lends this work a flinty verisimillitude.

As topping on the cake, this novel introduces the reader to several dusty corners of the twentieth century: Munich on the eve of World War I; the trenches as seen from the German side; and Paris in the late 1940s.

Two criticisms: This book would have benefitted greatly from the inclusion of pictures of the art that these men created. In addition, I sometimes found Greene's imagery and descriptions to be overly redolent and, on the whole, to be less effective than his unadorned narration. Nonetheless, "Burnt Umber" is a remarkable achievement.

I love a work of fiction that teaches me something, and this book is a wonderful mini-course in art history. Although I certainly recognized the work of Franz Marc, Shel Greene's novel really piqued my interest and we spent an evening on the internet looking at pictures of his work. As for Greene's creative creation, Harry Baer, I found him to be three-dimensional and thought the latter part of his life was particularly compelling. Everyone is tracked by his own demons, and the harder the Baer character tries to make amends for his past, the more trapped he is.

The structure of the novel works very well, although the connection between the two artists is entirely serendipitous and a bit fragile -- it would have been interesting if the plot had interconnected them in a more fateful way.

I dropped everything to complete the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will recommend it to others.

As an aside, this is a very pretty book and the typeface and cover are particularly attractice. This is one of those rare times when it is wise to judge a book by its cover.

Finding Help When Your Child Is Struggling In School is a valuable reference book for making sense of the many procedures and services parents come across when trying to help their child at school. Technical jargon and procedure can be daunting and options are sometimes many. Lawrence Greene encourages parents to stick at it. He offers strategies to use when dealing with teachers and many kinds of checklist for monitoring your own progress and your child's. He addresses the IEP(Individual Education Plan) with authority and provides a normal-language account of how the law provides for children with disabilities. He gives good contacts for learning more along legal lines. Lawrence Greene goes into some depth about private service providers and seems to have left no stone unturned on this issue. Finding Help When Your Child Is Struggling In School is a useful first reference book for parents and others with an interest in children who have learning difficulties.

I first checked this book out in the library with a handful of others and found it so resourceful that I purchased it to keep as a reference. This book is a terrific resource for parents with children having difficulty in school, it tells you in layman terms how to talk to the teachers, ask for formal reviews, apply for special education support and when all else fails how to use the laws that protect children to receive special services that may be help your child get ahead. I felt like the author really understood it from a parents perspective and was offering a guide to overcome the obstacles that develop when trying to get extra help to maximize your childs academic potential.