Jay Kaiser has done a wonderful job writting a comprehensive, interesting and helpful travel guide to Acadia. The book has information for any sort of trip: Whether you're interested in adventure (camping and rugged hikes) or relaxation (staying at an inn and finding great restaurants), this book will take you where you want to go. Lots of lovely pictures, helpful maps and lively comentary. I'm so glad to have had this book with me throughout my recent trip to Acadia to make it clear what sights I couldn't miss. I can't wait to return because there is so much left to discover!

For the type of person who needs to know the intimate details surrounding your destination, this book is a must. It touches on history, geography, geology of the region in a concise, logical manner, while offering an encompassing view of the activities, layout, and surrounding area. Pictures and detailed maps are scattered throughout the book providing a sense of place and are a trip planner's dream. PLUS, Mr. Kaiser includes an overview of the Maine lobster including eating instructions. Talk about covering all your bases! All in all, a very informative, detailed covering of Acadia and its surrounding area with an insider's take to avoiding crowds and hitting little known spots.

This book is a must have for those who have experienced the beauty or have the desire to experience the beauty and offerings of Acadia National Park. Mr. Kaiser has finally produced the guide to do Acadia justice. You'll learn all the side trips, cool lunch spots, etc. to enjoy on a Saturday afternoon hike with a buddy, and you'll also have the memory of your journey when you get home through Jay's pictures!

If Hawaii or the aloha shirt has ever gladdened your heart, you'll want to own THE ALOHA SHIRT. Dale Hope conveys the TRUE SPIRIT (colorful, soft, peaceful, flowing) of the Hawaiian Islands by presenting both the fascinating history of the aloha shirt and 500 or so beautiful illustrations. These illustrations are so varied and exquisite that you'll get high just by perusing them. They also help you see how the aloha shirt can be an art form in and of itself. Hopefully, this book will inspire people to wear their aloha shirts more often -- not just when they visit Hawaii -- and to buy the new ones that are being created by the best artist designers.

Dale Hope grew up in the Hawaiian garment industry, taking over his father's clothing business at the age of 26. As the art director of Kahala Sportswear, Hope oversees the creation and manufacturing of 150 new Aloha shirt designs annual. In The Aloha Shirt: Spirit Of The Islands, Hope collaborates with writer Gregory Tozian to offer a magnificent, coffee-table artbook dedicated to the history of the unique and famous Hawaiian shirt style. This impressive treatise covers the history of Hawaiian clothing, the evolution of the tailor shop into the modern clothing factories, the designers, textiles, printmakers, and retailers that made the Hawaiian "aloha shirt" famous around the world. There are chapters focusing on Duke Kahanamoku, celebrities, shirt makers of the 60s, labels and buttons, and aloha shirt collectors. Profusely and beautiful illustrated, the text is informative, at times fascinating, and highly recommended for students of American clothing history and fads in general, and Hawaii's contributions to the garment industry and American popular culture in particular.

The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands is unique, as a historical and artistic book documenting the Aloha shirt, from its historic beginnings as a cottage industry, to the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. This definitive text has been extensively researched, with textile artists, designers, garment manufacturers and their families and friends all contributing to the consistency of the history as researched by Dale Hope. An educational and artistic book bringing over 500 aloha shirts with their Hawaiian inspired origins paralleled with the history and times of Hawaii. For those who have memories of Hawaii, and for those who share their memories to others, this elegant coffee table book is a "must have" for all!

I found this book from a HISTORY TV channel story featuring the author. As a baby-boomer I saw the movie WAKE ISLAND several times, but didn't realize it was made before any of the actual participants had returned from the POW camps. There is more Hollywood fiction in the movie than historical fact. But that's show business. The author covers in great detail the actions by major commands, individuals and everybody in-between. Considering how badly Wake was prepared to defend itself, the Marines did a great job for two weeks holding off superior forces. If only there had been more construction effort put into beach defense and airplane protection before Dec 7th. The Japanese underestimated the resistance in their first landing attempt. I was also surprised how close US forces came to rescuing the defenders, but were called off at the last moment. This a great book for Marine fans of WWII.

This book is an instant classic! I enjoyed reading this massive book cover to cover. The title "facing fearful odds" is an apt title. The quick change from peace to war trapped these brave men on an island that would become a symbol for the war in the pacific. The book reads well, and tells the tales of the civilians who stayed behind to defend Wake. The fact that they were so close to relief, and held out for so long is a testament to the warrior spirit. A must read!!!!

Since my father was a .50 captain on the island and I was with the 5th Marines in VN, I have read every work out on Wake Island. This author not only interviewed survivors but did massive research work tying in the Japanese situation and strategy with the situation on Wake Island and the strategies and reactions of Washington and Pearl Harbor, where Wake Island received its orders. He covers the air, naval,artillery and infantry actions and the personalities and historical disagreements of the participants. He speculates on alternative possibilities thoughtfully. I doubt, with the participants dying off so quickly now, that this book will ever be topped as the definitive work on the battle for wake island and he does a good job on the captivity time as well.

by CVM Dallas Texas age 8.
The book takes place around a lake cottage and on an island. The main characters are a brother and sister. Megan and Sandy are trying to solve a family mystery. There is alot of adventure as they find clues that fit the puzzle. They try to find the biggest clue of all, what is there mother doing. They try to find the clue with special friends Ben and Wolf. The book was exciting and I just wanted to read more and more of it. It is a book for boys and girls or reading it as a family.

Megan's Island was a great book with lots of suspense.
There was one week of school left until summer vacation and Megan was really excited. Then one night Mom told them they had to pack up because they were moving. Megan was used to moving but this was strange. To make it even more stranger, her mom was acting kind of wierd lately and now she almost seemed scared of something.
At there grandfather's house where they were living everything was going okay until she wrote a letter to her best friend, Annie which her mom told her NOT to do. Then strange people started to come to their house.
This story had a GREAT, shocking ending.
I LOVED THIS BOOK!

This book is one of my all time favorites. I gave it five stars because it was well written and kept you turning. It is about these two kids who always move, and one night her mom was acting very weird. She said they had to leave now in the middle of the night to go to granpa's cottage up at the island. On from then all kinds of weird stuff happens. There are so many unexpected turns. GO READ THIS!

ALSO RECOMEND: Searching For David's Heart By Cherie Bennett

Wow. I finished the book last week and I'm still thinking about it, so I thought I would write a review.

The Sugar Island is a memorable book. It's one of those stories that leaves you staring and stroking the book cover. What's so great about it? Well, the writing style for one thing. Very alive, and real. The imagery the author invoked really put you in revolutionary Cuba. You can almost smell the place. The story is narrarated by a teenager named Tanya. Their is alot of dialouge and it's written in a very interesting way. The book is in English but you almost feel like you are reading Spanish.

The relationship between Tanya and her mother, set in revolutionary Cuba presents a back drop for a multitude of questions about the human condition.

I'm going to read it again, which will be easy because it's short. But I could have read 500 words of this story.

The Sugar Island by Ivonne Lamazares captivated me from the first page. The narrator, Tanya, is the best adolescent female since Member of the Wedding and every bit as memorable.Her relationship with her slippery-hearted mother made me laugh and cry and wince with the truth of it. Tanya is independent of her mother and yet fearful of being without her, idealistic enough to be angry at her mother's shabby choices and guilty about her own feeling that she has betrayed her mother. As a story about a mother whose expressed motive is to take her children from Cuba to a better life in the U.S., this novel is both timely and eternal. Tanya's mother has motives that are slippery and suspect enough to make her real and lovable (to the reader as well as Tanya) if not always admirable and believable. As I read The Sugar Island, I kept thinking it was wonderfully visual and, with its vivid and varied characters, would make a great movie. I would only hope that a movie could capture Lamazares' language which is exquisite. She is a poet, and her care with language brings forth delicious images and metaphors which will stay with me forever. This book is relatively short, but it has enough meat (not just enough sugar) for long pondering and discussion of issues of parent/child relationships, effects of Communism on family life and economic structure, friendship, sexual awakening, escape, freedom, and more.

I found myself emotionally enwrapped in this book, a first novel that mostly lives in Cuba. It is told by a girl named Tanya, who exists in a struggle with her mother, a woman who is a painfully ambitious, helpless dreamer, who hates to work, who hates this world of drudgery, and who seeks always to defiantly escape. Within the novel, the mother grows into a giant figure, huge like the island of Cuba itself. Tanya attempts to evade her, but her mother's too giant.

I found this mother a doomed, sexy puzzle; I began to share Tanya's dirty frustration and fury.

The book has very alert politics; as I read it, I thought "this may be the most objective book ever written about Cuba." The petty, almost benign bureaucracy that runs this "revolution" is lovable, sort of -- not as gruesome as the menacing Russians. An island will always have a more attractive nationalism than an empire.

But Cuba is also squalid and obtuse.

Has anyone else written so well about the disappointment of an immigrant who leaves a difficult, miserable life for the featureless prosperity of Miami?

And Tanya's sexual discoveries, at age 15, are mysterious and almost botanical.

[Also I always wondered what the adherents of Santeria intuit, and sense.]

The book is written in very clear, spare prose, and some of the end-lines of the chapters are formidable and sharp, like the sound of a glass cracking.

This book is unmissable. Idiscovered it shortly after it was first published and it was unbelievable. I've since read all of his, some brilliant, all good, but this remains the best.

Yet another fantastic story from Robert Goddard, and that's what it is A STORY - so all the historians out there who don't like history being tampered with, should remember that it's fiction!
You really feel for Martin, the central character, who is a historian down on his luck when he is offered an opportunity of employment in researching former cabinet minister Edwin Stafford's memoir. As is typical with Robert Goddard there are plenty of twists in the tale, this is a brilliant book and I'd recommend it to anyone who just wants a good read.

Past Caring was brought to me from England by my sister years ago.It is now available here.For years it was not.

This novel is one of my favorite books.I read all of Goddard's books, but Past Caring remains my FAVORITE.

When Samantha stays at Piney Point with her family, she never dreams what will happen. Her mother died many years ago, but she always loved to spend time at Piney Point with her friends just like Samantha. But when she finds her mother's old sketchbook, she becomes interested. Where did her mom draw all the pictures of Samantha and her father, who also died, when she was a baby? Trying to understand her past, Samantha and her two cousins go to Teardrop Island, the place where the mystery pictures were drawn. Their grandma forbids them to go, but they go anyway. But when they get stuck on the island, they get scared and realize they shouldn't have gone. I liked this book, but it was more of a little-kid book than I expected it to be!

This book is about Samantha going to Piney Point with her aunt,uncle,cousins,and Grandmary,and the admiral. On a rainy day Samantha and her cousins go up in the attic and discover her mother's sketch book. In it there's a map to Teardrop Island. One day Samantha and her cousins go to Teardrop Island. On their way there's a narrow passageway and there are rocks under the water they couldn't see. Once they got to the island, they went to go find the pretty waterfall and her mother's sketch book. They also had a picnic there. Then it starts to rain and they try to go find their canoe but they couldn't. They become stranded and the admiral sets out to find them but he hits his head and Samantha has to save the day.

it's about samantha going to a vacation with her two other friends, they go to where her parents died because it looked wonderful, when they tried to get home, they find out that the storm swept their canoe and now they here moans for help! the rest is up to you to read.

This book is about a summer at the beach, but it has a dry writing style "In the evening, when the tide is high again, and all yor guests have gone, you row around to the point, feeling lonely..." It is pretty wordy and my children (5 and 8) did not want a it read a second time - that is very unusual for a new book at our house. Something about the story seems boring. I would pass on this one.

Robert McCloskey's "Time of Wonder" is just that--an examination of a wondrous summer spent in Maine. He follows two sisters (and nominally, their parents and friends) as they spend their days sailing, swimming, battening down for a big storm, and so on. Nothing of great import happens, but McCloskey has a lovely, calming way of relating their story so that we feel the sisters' closeness, their connection to their environment, and their childlike ability to find beauty and interest in nearly everything.

McCloskey's book was first published in 1957, and the illustrations show this--no life vests in a lot of the boating pictures, children swimming without being watched over by a lifeguard or adult, and so on. Still, that's not a bad thing--it shows the protective, exclusionary nature of childhood and the risks children take without even being fully aware that they ARE taking risks.

The illustrations are lovely. These paintings depict Maine as being beautiful without neglecting to show the dangerous side of coastal life as well (witness the storm scenes towards the end of the book). There is a caressing, rhythmic feel to the text which subtly imitates the tidal pull of the ocean. What a perfect gift for anyone who vacations in Maine--or wants to.

I have been a fan of Robert McCloskey books since I was old enough to remember (which was quite so time ago) and I only recently discovered this book. I think I have all of his other books and have read them over and over again through life, finally passing them on to my own daughter.

This is no less of a joy to read than any of the other books written by Robert McCloskey. If anything, it seems almost more lyrical and more developed than his early books.

One item of particluar note is that the illustrations are in color, as opposed to the single color or black and white of his other works. It is wonderful to watch the progress of his art through the various books, ending with the beautiful art in this title.

This is a book every child should have, and will keep, hopefully, until it is time to hand it on!

This book was one that I enjoyed very much and read quickly. I couldn't put it down! I originally purchased this book because my family and I visited St. Helena Island, a Sea Island with much Gullah tradition, last year and loved it. I thought this book would be a way to learn more about the culture of the Sea Islands and get a good story out of it at the same time. It turned out to be so much more than that. Julie Dash does a masterful job of weaving Amelia's story into those of her mother and grandmother who have left the Island and moved to New York City to escape the "backwards" island culture. Amelia comes to love and appreciate her family and the rich heritage of her ancestors. This book was enriching both from a literary and cultural standpoint. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good "coming of age" novel.

Daughters of the Dust is a very moving, mystical journey full of haunting imagery and simple pleasures. It is the story of Amelia, an anthropology student, who has to decided to study the people of Dawtah Island as her thesis. Dawtah Island has been a mystery to her for as long as she can remember. Her mother and grandmother were born on the island. Her grandmother seems to despise everything about the island especially the people and their ignorant and backwards customs. In direct contrast her mother's fondest memories are of her life on the island, she remembers being truly happy there. Amelia has only visited the island once and was in awe of the simplicity of life there.

It is decided that Amelia will live with Eula and Eli, her aunt and uncle, while she studies the culture and customs of the island. Initially she finds the residents of the island reluctant to talk to her. They consider her an outsider and fear she will not understand them. As the islanders become more familiar with Ameila they begin to open up and share their stories with her. Through their stories she realizes their culture is rich in customs; they live in harmony with the animals and elements. They live a simple life but they control their own destiny and revel in life's simple pleasures. Their stories also tell of the joys of love and heartaches of lost or unrequited loves.

Reserve a couple weeks to read this one, it's a "ponderers" delight.

This was such a well written book. The way Julia Dash developed the characters and described the scenery of the Gullah Islands caused me to want to visit South Carolina myself. I recommend this book to anyone.

Andrea didn't want to accompany her aunt and a group of privileged people on a boat trip to the Bahamas to look at a valuable artifact. But she's stuck there now, and angry when she realizes that this is a stolen artifact. All the adults want to own it, but Andrea knows it should be returned to the Peruvian government. Then the object disappears... and someone is found murdered. Who will be next?

Andrea Ryan is the 17-year-old protagonist in "The Island of Dangerous Dreams". She's being sent away to her Aunt Madelyn's in Palm Beach so her parents can save their dwindling marriage. Andrea isn't too thrilled about the arrangement, to say the least, but she's cooperative. She doesn't like her aunt very much, who reminds her of "the wicked queen in Disney's Snow White" with her designer clothes, black hair, and thin frame. Her aunt is also a maniac about collecting valuable art, and one in particular: a Peruvian artifact which belongs to a close friend of hers, Judge Justin Arlington-Hughes.

Not long after Andrea arrives in Palm Beach, she's brought to an island in the Little Bahama Banks with her aunt to see this artifact. Andrea is upset because she knows the gem belongs to the Peruvian government, not smuggled overseas and sold to the highest bidder. However, nobody wants to listen to a self-righteous 17-year-old, and she's quickly snubbed by her aunt and the other three artifact-enthusiasts on the trip.

At the island, everyone gets the chance to see the incredible jewel in an after-dinner exhibition by candlelight. However, within seconds, the show turns fatal when the judge is electrocuted while plugging in a worn lamp that appears to have been tampered with. And to top everything off, the jewel is missing. Yet they have no way of contacting authorities because there is no phone or way off the island. So, they are trapped together with a killer and thief until the return boat arrives to save them. But that's several days away, and in the meantime, another guest is killed.

Because nobody suspects Andrea, she's able to explore the island on her own and try to find an escape. What she finds, though, is a stranger (Pete Michaels) wandering the island. His boat was damaged, so he decided to anchor it in a nearby cove and look for help ashore. Although she is wary of him, Pete's her only hope of escaping the island. But can she trust him?

As a mystery, I would have given this book three stars. There weren't a lot of scares for me, but at least I didn't figure out the culprit until the end. So, even though I wouldn't say it's the best mystery I've ever read, it's certainly a good young adult book, and anyone who likes mysteries, islands, and young female sleuths will probably like it.

This book was written very well, and I am really glad I chose to write my book report on it!! It kept me guessing until the very end! A must read for anyone even remotely interested in mysteries!!