"Eva Padlyat lived in a village on Ungava Bay in northern Canada. She was Inuit, and ever since she could remember she had walked with her mother on the bottom of the sea. It was something the people of her village did in winter when they wanted mussels to eat. Today, something very special was going to happen. Today, for the very first time in her life, Eva would walk on the bottom of the sea alone..." So begins Jan Andrews' tale of a young girl's first trip alone through the thick winter ice. In painstaking and intriguing detail she describes Eva's adventure; cutting a hole in the ice at low tide, descending to the dark ocean floor below, lighting candles to illuminate the sea bed, collecting mussels, and exploring this beautiful hidden world..... Ms Andrews' engaging tale, filled with history, mystery, drama, and suspense captures the imagination, and is rich in imagery and magic. Illustrator, Ian Wallace's quiet, dreamy artwork, in soft, textured tones, pulls the reader beneath the ice and right into the story. Perfect for youngsters 5-9, Very Last First Time is a fascinating and evocative experience that shouldn't be missed, and works well as part of a unit introducing the Inuit culture and way of life, or as a stand-alone for story time.

The possibility of gathering mussels under the ice at low tide was absolutely amazing to me. I had never heard of such a thing or imagined it. What a wonderful world we live in! Andrews writes of young Eva's solo walk on the bottom of the sea and she does an intriguing job of it.

The illustrator,Wallace,enriches and expands the written story through his detailed pictures of the village and native life on Ungava Bay.

I hope Andrews & Wallace collaborate again and soon!

This is one of the best books for young girls that I have come across. A young Inuit girl is sent under the ice at low tide to collect muscles for the family.. this time by herself. She gets distracted, the candles burn out leaving her in darkness just as she starts to hear the water returning. What an adventure. I buy this book as a gift whenever I need a present for a beginner reader girl.

This book presents many new essays from several ancient scholars. The papers are well-written and on diverse topics. Although the hardcover is expensive, it is well worth the price, since quality commentaries and new scholarship seems scarce. The article on the Demiurge by Jan Opsomer is top notch and well worth the price of the book. M. R. Wright's paper is excellent as well. Look out Cornford, there's some new kids on the block. Included in the back of the book is a comprehensive list of commentaries and translations of the Timaeus, which is extremely useful.

An excellent book that explodes some of the myths about Scotland. it features the things that Scots should rightly be famous for and aren't, and similarly the things that we are famous for and shouldn't be (including inventing the kilt!).

The book takes us through a number of things, Macbeth, the kilt, tartan, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Scottish enlightenment and a load of other stuff in short easy to read chapters that are pretty self-contained. You can easily read a whole chapter in a single sitting, even if you are a slow reader. The style is very engaging and I finished this book faster than I would normally have done because I alwasy wanted to read one more chapter before I put it down.

Don't miss it.

A nice combination of theory and practice. Great for a beginning course in dynamics.

I don't have a lot to say about this book, but since no other ordinary purchaser has reviewed it here, I thought it better to throw in a few comments than to leave you, the potential buyer, with no guidance whatsoever. First of all, this is a collection of over 40 essays by that many different authors. Some are clearly for more gun control, some are firmly against, and some writers focus instead on what the gun issue says about our culture, generally. Some of the works are very scholarly, like a shortened version of a master's thesis--chock full of historical detail and deep analysis. Some of these deep writings do not lend themselves to casual pleasure reading. Some essays go in the other direction, giving you plenty of passionate rhetoric but few factual details to support the writer's position. All in all, this collection of 43 essays by some of the biggest names in the gun control debate today is very useful for almost anyone. I would not say that it's a "must-have" for someone who has read several other books about gun control, because you've probably seen most of these ideas before. But for someone familiar with the gun control issue who does not already have a library full of books on the subject, this is one you should get. You will find yourself refering to it over and over again.

...those readers who don't come from Edinburgh found the book entertaining, but those who do found it disappointing, and I must add my name to the latter category.

As a lifelong Edinburgh resident I've heard stories of the underground city all my life, and the emergence of this book offered the promise of a full and final explanation of what's really there and what isn't. However, aside from a reasonably interesting general history of old Edinburgh, the book is astonishingly lacking in facts of any kind. It's all conjecture, rumour and myth. At least fifty percent of the book is merely a series of fables and ghost stories with absolutely no descernable facts or evidence to either back them up or dismiss them.

If someone's going to bother writing a book on the underground city, wouldn't you expect them to have something to TELL? Not so Jan-Andrew Henderson. For him the gathering together of a few myths and legends was enough. No solid research, maps, plans or diagrams, descriptions of exactly what remains of the underground city; No reports of excavations, eyewitness accounts; no rummaging through old property plans or title deeds to discover reports of mysterious doorways in lost cellars that seem to lead nowhere. None of this.

If you're really interested in learning about the underground city you'd be better off saving your money, and instead paying a visit to one of Edinburgh's many pubs in the old town, where you'll encounter characters who can tell you much more about it than anything in this book

I only gave this book 4 stars because I felt that it was too short and abbreviated. Then again, I'm the type of person who likes rich historical details. The author doesn't bore you with dates or technical details, the story of the origins of Edinburgh's underground city are told with a marvelous gift of oratory, making you feel like you're hearing a story told in front of a fire, a story that grows more and more chilling.

The story is simple, due to overpopulation, numerous underground chambers and vaults were built to accommodate the fast growth of Edinburgh's Old Town. The poorest of the poor lived in these dark cramped vaults and more often than not died there too, having never known anything but poverty and misery. You are told of the kinds of people who lived there: villians and widows, families and loners. You hear of how they lived, from the people too sickly to work to the poor children forced to climb inside chimneys to clean them. Full of misery, disease and hoplessness, it's no wonder the underground city has gained a reputation for being haunted.

Tales of the supernatural happenings are also found in this book, tales of a mischeivious yet harmless ghost who haunts a pub to the frightening stories of tourists and tour guides alike being assaulted by unseen hands and claws.

Whether a history buff or a fan of ghosts stories, you're sure to enjoy this book. It's easy reading, educational AND entertaining.

I must start by saying that I haven't actually read this book. I did, however, visit Edinburgh a week ago and embark upon a tour of the old city that focused sites of murder and mayhem. On that tour, my guide was Jan-Andrew Henderson. He brought an overlarge group of American teenagers to silent, rapt attention with his description of the old city of Edinburgh inside the Floyden wall. We ended at Greyfriar's churchyard, home to 400 monuments and approximately 800,000 bodies. He was a charismatic and knowledgable story-teller, and if he writes at all in the manner in which he speaks, anything he could put on paper would be worth reading. ~ Interested in History

P.S. On this tour Henderson made no mention of his name or plug for his book. I found out his identity later from my overall holiday tour guide (completely independent from Henderson's tour) who had accompanied my school group for the experience.

I was hoping for something better. Some of the stories were really good, others are just passable. If I had read the book first, I might not have bought it. I may change my mind if I see my students react differently to the book.

I read this book because I had to: I was reviewing it for The Edmonton Journal. My conclusion is simple and straightforward: while beautiful, this book is so filled with glaring mistakes, howlers and omissions, its authors and editors should be ashamed of themselves. In fact, if it were possible, I would give this volume no stars at all: the first thing a book on history must have is its facts right.

You know i really liked this book just because of that its nice to see great european players past and present in this book. unlike other books where it's just nhl players, this book has both nhl players and european players included. As a international hockey historian i really enjoyed it. gretzky-kharlamov-nedomansky-salming and many other great players are in this book. the price is my only problem with the book, it cost some bucks.