My sister is not a reader, meaning she does not like to read, yet the book held her attention. She finished it in a weekend. This book is cute, interesting, and appropriate for prepubescent females.

This is the first Thomas Dewey novel I've read. I learned of him from the Internet, where someone called him a bridge between Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. I guess that's a fair statement: he is a world-weary PI telling his tale in the first-person, plenty tough, but "not himself mean," as Chandler's famed essay outlines (and from which this book's title is taken). But this novel from 1954 seems much more similar to a couple of other contemporaries who I will name later. It is not without deficiencies and dated elements (novels dealing with juvenile delinquency always seem to date worse than Chandler-esque PI novels), but is definitely good enough that I want to try more of Dewey's novels.

A PI known simply as Mac is hired by the city administration in a burg reminiscent of Chicago to impersonate a teacher and baseball coach, ingratiate himself with some of the local toughs, and find out who is funding and organizing all the gang activity. Things don't go according to plan when Joey, his ace-in-the-hole, gets injured during practice and rejoins his drug-dealing, rumbling inner city pals. Joey idolizes his older brother Louis, a small-time hood with bigger connections, and Mac has to try to break through to him. Things get further complicated when the boy who hit Joey with the pitch turns up dead. There are other characters in the plot I will not reveal.

The mystery is not baffling, and there were no real surprises, including the ultimate identity of the gang leader known only as Mr. Smith, but the book held my interest and built in tension throughout. It also got much better once it got tougher about halfway through, when Mac was exposed as being a private cop, was framed with dirty pictures and had his partnership with the city dissolved.

The lone man versus vast yet evanescent gang is a situation like Mike Hammer might have found himself in, only Mac is much gentler; I had to wait many pages before he allowed himself to pound Louis, who kept hassling him and acting like big shot. Then Mac did it competently, satisfyingly and repeatedly, enough so that I may call this novel "hard-boiled." Other plot elements involving sad, long buried family secrets invoke Lew Archer's recurring themes. These comparisons are not made to say the book is hackneyed or unoriginal; I thought the PI-meets-JD angle made it unusual among books I have read. And while the early stages seemed to lack a sufficient threat, a return to a more murder-and-missing person-related plot actually increased the sense of danger by decreasing the scope.

Only near the end does the book falter again slightly, when Joey has his moment of truth, and must choose between hooliganism and another way of life, as represented here by a poster of Joe Dimaggio. It did not detract too severely from the momentum built up, but was a little corny when read today. And the mechanics of the gang, although enjoyable, seemed less than authentic; secret underground meetings where young teens are fed propaganda through a loudspeaker by the unseen Mr. Smith recall old WW2 spy movies or Red Scare thrillers. Downtrodden teens so cynical in every other way and mistrustful of authority would in reality be unlikely candidates for such brainwashing.

Never mind that. This is a good book for vintage mystery fans, tough in places, sensitive in others. Hmmm... maybe this *is* a bridge between Chandler and MacDonald.

As a child, I had more fun playing with rocks in a stream than I did with plastic toys on a warm carpet. This book is just such a romp of the imagination, and will be enjoyed by any child who enjoys the enticements of nature.

Ms Dewey's book is about having fun with mud. She speaks about the role that mud plays in Native American ceremonies. She recounts her entrepreneurial excursions with medicinal mud, and tells us how people use mud and clay for buildings and art work. The books is full of imagination. For example, she finds fossils of the ever illusive camalope (part camel part antelope) in the mud banks near her home.

In Mud Matters, the author invites the reader to get down and dirty, and to explore the very heart and essence of the land: mud.

As you can see, this book is out of print BUT GET IT ANYWAY! Dewey's solution to the to the intrinsic/extrinsic dillemea in the philosophy of knowledge is fascinating and worth thinking about.

He sees this problem as built around a misdefinition of knowledge- that is, knowledge as grasping the 'nature' of an external internally. Dewey replies, it can't be done. Knowledge, instead of drawing a hard line between the knower and the known, is experimental. When we know things, we do not know them in themselves. Rather we know our interaction with them. I can not grasp a tables nature; only traits revealed when I knock on it, set things on it, and perform other 'experiments.' Knowledge both in itself (Plato) and as gained only through passive empiricism (Locke, Hume) is a myth. While 'objectivists' might condemn this as denying the possibility of knowledge all-together, Dewey urges us against that interpretation. The objective world still exists under Dewey's remonstration. Instead of intrinsic knowledge (under Dewey, a paradox) we can only grasp it extrinsically.

This leads Dewey to theories of action. Action and knowledge (if I may paraphrase) are a loop with no clear division. We act (rather interact) with reality to gain new knowledge and control of it. Similarly, knowledge has no purpose but as a tool to further interaction with reality. Even the most abstract knowledge must serve as a symbol for some action in the 'external' world. Conversely, every action is an attempt to gain some knowledge of or control over the external world.

The reason for the subtracted star is that Dewey..let me see if I can put this nicely...is a horrible writer. When I say horrible, this is really dry. Couple that with ultra-abstract discussion and you'll be rereading sentences on an average of 2 per page. Trust me though, it is really worth it. Dewey, even if he doesn't change the way you look at epistemology, will give you ideas to challenge yourself with!

Any library with John Dewey on the stacks should consider this contemporary introspection into this Philosopher, Educator and aesthetition of incredible prolifity. A post-modern generation is precisely the audience addressed here, and would be frustrated by earlier works seeking to offer guiding light to the unique creative mind of John Dewey, who is no easy read. Though this collection is highly academic, I doubt anyone would go there without such an inclination to begin with.

This book was a great synopsis of recent history. It covered everything from the A-bomb to women's lib. It's only drawback is that the focus is political... I think the book might have benefited from some more information regarding social history. I read it as part of a US History class, but would recommend it to anyone for personal reading as well.

My mother read this story to me when I was little. I adored the story becuase of the repetitive rhyme, and the cunning of the bird. While some might say that the story seems a bit violent, I think that the way the bird travels across the land to rescue his beloved from the selfish king demonstrates a fantastic lesson in love and devotion. The illustrations were wonderful too. For example, when the various things travelling with the bird crawled into his ear in order to make the journey, (the stick, the ants, the river, the cats) the pictures showed them up in the corner of the page, and it delighted my imagination to think that so many things could fit into the ear of such a small bird.

I am using this text for a graduate level class I am teaching about reading in the content area. It seems to be a very large overview of all of the issues facing secondary content area teachers.

Star of the Circus By Michael Sampson Reading Level 1.3

If you are from ages 4 to 6, this is the right book for you! I think you should get this book because the illustrations are very creative and colorful. If you like circuses and animals you should get this book. A short description of the story is that it's about the different animals wanting to be the star of the circus.

Talent Law is a supplement for the Rolemaster Standard System game that is designed to replace the "background options" section of the original rulebooks.

Through a point-based system, players can now choose the Talents, Special Skills, Abilities and Flaws they want, rather than being completely random as is standard in the regular rules.

The book provides a greater breadth of options, and that's a good thing, because when your players can create a character much closer to what they envision, that improves the game for all.

Note: some of the talents vs. flaws may feel a bit unbalanced to some, so GM's should carefully consider the impact it will have on their games. But you can always disallow anything you feel is out of hand.

Overall, this is a great choice if you favor design of your heroes over pure, random design (although the Talents and Flaws all have random charts available should you choose to go that route.)