My son just loves this book. He reads it over and over and over. Good for 1st time readers.Excellent drawings and enjoyable story. Children who live in snowy regions will have experienced some of the happenings in the story or wish they could if no snow is around.

I went to the Language! wrokshop and received this book as part of the package. It is a must have to teach phonemic awareness. It has drills that include auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning. The students enjoy them and take the strategy with them in reading. I teach learning disabled students and, through the use of the Language! program, have grown a great deal in reading. The whole program of Language! is wonderful, but is hard to understand without the training. This book is probably the most self-explanatory book out of the series, but watching others do the drills helps.

Complete guide to square and folk dancing for teachers, dancers and callers. Spans the interests from novice to experienced dancers. More than 90 dances. All terms defined with calls, steps and some music. Unique section on senior citizen square dances.

This is a beautiful story of Christ's birth told in a repeating rhyme. The story tells of the animals who were present in the stable, Mary and Joseph, and all the people who came to rejoice as the light shone on the big round world. I was looking for a simplified version of the story with beautiful pictures - one that is not too advanced for the preschool set but still appealing for the parent that gets to read it over and over and over - I highly recommend this one.

This book chronicles "Abscam" and its repercussions. Abscam was a FBI sting operation in which Abdul, a fictitious, wealthy Arab sheik sought to achieve several things: asylum in the U.S., investment opportunities in the U.S. and help in getting his own money out of his own country.

FBI agents posing as associates of Abdul approached politicians for "help" in achieving Abdul's goals. What follows is a tale of deceit, corruption and lies as politicians responded positively to Abdul's offers of big money. The FBI's sting operation brought out many crooks and resulted in bribery and conspiracy charges. However, Abscam also raised many questions as to the FBI's entrapment tactics, even resulting in one conviction being overturned.

While shocking and disturbing, the story is nevertheless at times amusing. The end result is a comprehensive review of one of the biggest scandal's in U.S. history.

The decade of 1930-1940 was aptly named The Great Depression. Part of it was cause, part effect, but all combined it was the most devastating financial decade of our history. Perhaps the abrupt change from the prosperity and hilarity of the Roaring Twenties caused the difference to seem even greater.

Although not everyone was affected, middle class America was stunned. Folks who had just purchased nice homes and had good jobs suddenly found themselves without either, living with friends or relatives and relying on handouts. This was a truly stressful time. Unemployment approached 25% and even those who were working took less pay and literally had to stand in line for jobs. Soup lines and kitchens were a common sight in large cities.

The stock market had just collapsed and businesses went under, people lost their life savings and some committed suicide, so great were their losses. People later remembered having only mustard in the house to eat. Others ate at the dumps. Others in relief food lines. Even though a loaf of bread was only a nickel, one could expect another hungry person to steal the bread right out of their arms. One dollar a month was too much for some people to pay for electricity and their homes went dark.

On top of the dismal economic picture, the weather and nature dealt an equally nasty hand. Drought, pests and dust destroyed what little crops farmers had been able to plant. This phenomena stretched from Texas up to North Dakota. The Dust Bowl claimed even more families. Thousands of farmers were forced to leave property, family and all they knew and head to California in hopes of finding farm work. Perhaps because I WAS ONE OF THOSE SMALL CHILDREN this particular era and book was especially poignant to me. John Steinbeck captured it in book form in "Grapes of Wrath".

Hoover was president, and he believed that the government should stay out of the private sector. However, with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the federal government DID step in to provide some sense of dignity to its' population. The New Deal and the Civilian Conservation Corps started men planting trees, laying roads, cleaning up woods and beaches and America had some jobs. Finally, the WPA (Works Progress Administration) provided 2 million more jobs in construction and even the arts were revived. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVV) provided dams and power plants to areas impoverished by the droughts.

Roosevelt believed folks needed companionship, so he started his famous "Fireside Chats" in which he became the first president to use radio to bring information and comfort to the American public. His wife Eleanor became the first publicly active president's wife, visiting schools and paying particular attention to the needs of Black children.

Just when it looked like the Great Depression was ending, and the song "Happy Days are Here Again", another downswing occurred. Workers started demanding better pay, owners balked and sit down strikes threatened to paralyze America. Memorial Day, 1937 was labeled as the Memorial Day Massacre when strikes turned to bloodshed at a steel plant and ten strikers died and ninety others were seriously injured.

In the midst of the chaos, a few "saviors" began to appear. Huey Long became a famous politician, promising to "put a chicken in every pot" by a plan to tax the rich and provide a $5,000 home and guaranteed annual income for all Americans. However, at his height of popularity, he was killed by an assassin. Dr. Francis Townsend devised a scheme to help the elderly with a monthly pension. Perhaps the most popular politician was a Catholic priest, Charles E. Coughlin, who used radio to reach America, and eventually started blaming international bankers and week by week became more and more anti-Jewish.

Folks turned to simple pleasures and past times to entertain themselves and their families...using inexpensive table games like checkers -- and Monopoly was born. Listening to the radio continued to gain in popularity. A special treat was listening to favorite singers, comedy acts and programs which allowed phoning in votes...this gave a shaky audience a sense of value and worth. Movies which provided temporary escape could be visited for only ten to twenty-five cents. "Gone With the Wind" and "Wizard of Oz" became famous and remain so to this day.

Since the Great Depression turned out to be world-wide, the political climate was ripe for dictators and totalitarian governments. Hence, the dark clouds of war arose. Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, and America began preparing for war.

Ironically, the very thing that provided jobs for millions....war.....also handed America the bloodiest combat in their young history. World War II was just over the horizon and America was set to learn a new set of restrictions and say good-bye to their sons and fathers as they faced a second world war.

R. Conrad Stein does a tremendous job of bringing 10 years of history to America's school children or adult literacy students. He also provides a good, quick and accurate brush up course for those of us who might have forgotten.

I fully enjoyed reading this simple yet thought provoking story; it is a hopeful and loving way to initiate a conversation about a scary yet definite situation about a topic that at times is hard to talk about; a visually beautiful book

CONAN THE SWORDSMAN, the latest reprint of the now legendary 1970s-1980s Conan revival, is a marvelous short story collection. Each story holds its own with the overall Conan mythos and most add depth to the celebrated character and his world. The delightful eight stories are well written with each tale co-authored by L. Sprague de Camp (had to be a Howard clone) with either Lin Carter or Bjorn Nyberg. Especially good is "Legions of the Dead" that Robert E. Howard would have believed he authored because it reads so much like his original works. Equally fascinating to readers is a seven-page essay that provides plenty of insight into Conan and his world as well as Robert E. Howard from the late L. Sprague de Camp's perspective. Fans of Conan will want to read this wonderful anthology that showcases one of fantasy's most endearing and enduring protagonists.

Harriet Klausner

This biography about the life of lesser-known Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer, reveals details about the Harlem Renaissance that helps to link people, places and events together. Mrs. Spencer's gardenhome was an important nexus between the North and the South for many of the Black intelligentsia during that time. Her biography shares her friendships with James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. DuBois and others; giving us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of these great figures of African American history.

We also receive the gift of learning about Mrs. Spencer's literary contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, with a healthy collection of her poems placed in an appendix in the back of the book. "Time's Unfading Garden" would be a wonderful addition to any Harlem Renaissance collection. It is a rare item today, but if you can find it, it is worth the investment.