Over the past two years I have purchased about ten Lincoln Penny folders. To fill them we save pennys and sometimes at the bank I will buy rolls of pennys for fifty cents each. My grandchildren and I spend hours searching these coins for the correct dates. They learn to identify numbers, mint marks, and I read to them about President Abraham Lincoln, who is featured on the Lincoln penny. These coin books are gifts that are never thrown away. Sometimes I wonder just how much a Wheat Penny book would be worth if my Grandparents had filled one in for me....

What an inciteful volume. Thank you.

AN amazing book that attempts to demystify contemporary society of Whitman's sexual orientation. Fone utilizes Derridadean Theory to present his notion that Whitman may have been using homoeroticism within his writing to convey the messgage that people cannot be put into catagories. Much like Derrida's notion that signs are separate from words, Whitman's text is separate from himself.

I definatly reccommend this book to those interested in Whitman's literature as well as all literary works.

Throughout the last 100 or so years, artists, collectors and curators have debated what a museum should be. Unfortunately, most museums are buildings that immediately focus on art as icon. Many contemporary artists want just the opposite. MASS MoCA represents a breakthrough in establishing a new sort of museum. Its purpose is to "mount in-depth quality work that would otherwise remain unseen for lack of properly scaled, appropriately tools facilities." That purpose has also been expanded to include being a location for the performing arts, both outdoors and in a theater.

Located 5 miles from the Williams College museum of art and 35 miles from Tanglewood in North Adams, Massachusetts, MASS MoCA adds an important new element to a major cultural center (especially in the summers).

The story of the museum is also very interesting, having been based in a rundown series of converted mill buildings that had housed manufacturing since 1768. Most recently abandoned by the Sprague Electric Company (who originally took it over from the Arnold Print Works -- makers of printed fabric), the facility covers 13 acres and over 780,000 square feet of building space. Originally, Massachusetts had planned to provide most of the funding. A recession and change in political leadership greatly slowed the progress, and much of the funding eventually came form private donors.

The book has many wonderful elements. The director, Joseph Thompson, has a fine essay explaining the museum's roots and concept. The architect, Simeon Bruner, also weighs in with his thoughts about the design along with drawings of his plans. The pieces de resistance, however, are the wonderful photographs of the site (both before and after) in black and white and color that capture the transformation. These were done by Nicholas Whitman, and started before the museum was planned. He and his father had both worked in the Sprague plant, and he wanted to preserve the memory of the space before it was torn down. There are some stunning side-by-side photographs of before in black and white, with after in color with beautiful art on the walls.

Most of the current photographs were taken during the 1999 grand opening of the museum, which I had the pleasure to attend. The classic piece that defines MASS MoCA during that opening was the display of Robert Rauschenberg's "The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece" from 1981, which can only easily be displayed in full in MASS MoCA. There are also nice photographs of Natalie Jeremjenko's "Tree Logic" and James Rosenquist's "The Summer in the Econo-Mist." There are some fine John Chamberlain sculptures as well.

This book is a great resource to have for any contemporary art lover, or someone who is interested in new museum forms. I also recommend it as a working document for a museum still in progress, for most of the development of the MASS MoCA site is still ahead. If you are a museum trustee or are planning a new museum, you should read this book, as well.

I should admit that I collect contemporary art, and love to visit collections of contemporary art. If you share that love, you'll adore MASS MoCA!

Abolish your stalled thinking about what a museum is and should be! Also, be sure to give yourself a treat, and visit MASS MoCA soon. It's well worth a special trip from Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.

Donald Mitchell

Coauthor of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise (available in August 2000) and The 2,000 Percent Solution

(donmitch@fastforward400.com)

What threat or fear could emanate from a Night whose "happy sigh...starts the evening breezes and blows the moon up high"? In this gentle, rhyming story, Night comes on large, furry paws and moves slowly through a landscape both earthly and heavenly. Night is the guardian of rest and dreams, as soft as a comforter. The tale of Night's sweet embrace of the world is painted in moist, springtime colors, opening young imaginations to vistas of trees, mountains and sky. The words and images of the poem have immediacy and clarity, and are a rhythmic counterpart to the evocative pictures with their touch of nighttime mystery. This is a book that could easily become part of a child's happy bedtime routine, like cuddling a Teddy or stroking a cheek with a blanket.

This book is a complete thesis on the life cycle of structural pest. It contains information on identification and control of pest that are typically encountered in factories, warehouses and homes. I found the color plates especially useful in helping to identify pest that may be encountered at various stages of development.

This is a great way for beginning coin collectors to learn the proper techniques, and also has great details about the Statehood quarter program and the design process. I love collecting these quarters, it really is interesting to learn about the early moments in state histories.

This folder is just right for my nieces and nephews. I have been saving the Statehood coins from 1999 to now, and I have been looking for the right folder to put them in for the kids. "I found it". The folders have only the "D" slots so the little ones want get mixed up with the "P" slots like my son and I did in his book. I like fact that they can read all about the coins and put the coins in that same folder. I've been puting up coins for 12 kids. We like the fact that the American Flag is on the front of the cover and the cover is colorful, which makes the kids love it. The coins are hard to put in all of the folders, but we like it because we know the coins will not fall out when the kids handle the folders. I have been looking for coin folders for about 2 years now. It seems like they have fallen off the edge of the earth, along with their supplies. If you can't get to the internet, you are out of luck. Put the word out there for the poor people that want do better by their kids and give them something better to do.

THANK YOU.

This is one of the books that I bought for college that has become a well read favorite and that I think of often.

I know that critics object to Whitman's sprawling epic poetry, but it truly captures the spirit of America. This great volume includes the first and last editions of Leaves of Grass. Whitman viewed his poetry collection as something that should grow and change with time. Also included is his memoirs that show the Civil War through the eyes of a northern nurse. This is truly a unique and insightful perspective. His Civil War sensitivity comes across most clearly in the senstitive "O Captain"

Whitman's poems capture the momentum of life. No other poem can touch "There was a child went forth" for capturing the spirit of childhood. All stages of life are brilliantly illustrated here.

Whitman's life spanned such a unique era of American history and one cannot study the nineteenth century without reading Whitman.

Editor Jonathan Levin and illustrator Jim Burke have put together a wonderful introduction to the poetry of Walt Whitman. Although marketed as a children's book, this volume will also appeal to older admirers of the "Good Gray Poet."

Levin has judiciously selected some of Whitman's most memorable poems, and thoughtfully gives definitions of potentially unfamiliar words ("Pleiades," "hieroglyphic," etc.) at the bottom of each page. A five page biography of Whitman at the start of the book is another useful touch. Many of Burke's full-color visuals are stunning, and stand on their own as admirable pieces of art. Particularly memorable are the illustrations which accompany Whitman's address to a locomotive and his compassionate description of a slave's body at auction. "Walt Whitman: Poetry for Young People" is a fine book to share with its target audience.