ALthough the theme of the book is very important and impactful, the story itself was a let down. The whole idea of this "alternative" school is really weird. I also didn't like who the story ended at all. When you finally figure everything out, it just ends. It was a letdown.

In "Friction", we meet Alex, a spirited girl attending Forest Alternative School, where the teachers like to be called by their first names and things are done differently. One day a new girl comes to her class. Stacy shakes things up immediately and starts making Alex feel uncomfortable by spreading rumours that their popular teacher, Simon, "likes" her. At first Alex ignores Stacy, but after a class camping trip she begins to wonder if there's some truth to what Stacy's been saying.

Are the things going on between her and Simon just a special bond they have and a few accidents where she was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or is Stacy right, and something perverted and gross is going on? Alienated from her best friends and unsure of how to talk to her parents or anyone else, Alex doesn't know where to turn and her confused narrative is a very gripping read.

Although I found this book a bit slow to start off, it got very good by the end and I couldn't put it down. Sexual absue is something that needs to be put out in the open, and "Friction" does a great job.

" ' You can trust me,' I finally say. Because when people tell you a secret, it's like a gift. You don't just give it away to someone else, even if you never asked for it in the first place." --from FRICTION

Back in the spring of 1999, working as a Children's Buyer, I read an advance copy of Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK. My reaction to reading the book was to order a shelf-full for each of the stores. I wrote at the time that SPEAK should be required reading for all eighth-graders, both guys and girls.

Now, after reading SPEAK aloud to a couple of years' worth of eighth-grade English students, I can readily articulate some of its lessons:

We learn, of course, that Melinda shouldn't have put herself in danger by getting drunk in the dark with a bunch of older strangers. But then, after having gotten drunk and having been raped, we also know that Melinda could have avoided or mitigated that nightmare of a freshman year if either:
(1) She had spoken to adults she trusted about what had happened to her.
(2) Her friends and schoolmates had reacted to her unusual behavior (calling the cops, inconsistency in her physical appearance, skipping school, not speaking) by talking to Melinda or speaking about her to adults they trusted.

It is a totally different story, yet a very similar lesson that is encountered in FRICTION, an extraordinarily gripping tale designed for sixth, seventh, and eighth-graders.

FRICTION is written by E. R. (Emily) Frank, a young star who is ascending rapidly on the Y.A. horizon. As with reading SPEAK, FRICTION left me misty-eyed as I finished it.

In FRICTION, an innocent young girl's budding sexuality contributes to the terrible confusion--and, ultimately, to the tragic consequences--when Stacy, a new (and older) classmate begins what appears to be an insidious campaign to portray their young and very popular teacher, Simon, as a "pervert."

Alex, the seventh-grade soccer-playing girl, narrates the story of what happens after Stacy arrives at the progressive private school attended by Alex and Tim. Stacy is the girl with secrets who knows how to make an entrance:

"She's got shiny black hair down to her behind and gray eyes that take up her whole face, and she's as skinny as I am. She's wearing a purple-and-black turtleneck and jeans that look brand-new, and she grins at everybody like she's totally psyched to meet us. She's got a gap between her two front teeth.
" ' Hi,' she goes. 'I'm Stacy.' I see a flash of silver in her mouth. A tongue ring. 'Let's get this party started.'
"And that's how it begins."

Stacy's behavior and her unrelenting proclamations to the students about what's going on threatens the life-long friendship that Alex has with Tim. Alex becomes more and more uncertain in her own mind as to what the truth really is:

"I want things to make sense now, but...the things I need to figure out don't have rules. Like why Stacy wants it to be true that Simon and I like each other in that certain way. Like why I've been scared lately that maybe she's right. What if Simon does look at me?"

As with SPEAK, things spiral out of control because of the failure--by every one of the students--to confide in an adult. The events result in Alex's loss of that innocent childhood image of Simon as a teacher; she instead begins to see him as a man.

(And, so here we go again...)

Many educators apparently get weak-kneed about teaching SPEAK to eighth graders--preferring to ignore its value to those eighth-graders who could well wind up in Melinda's position. Fearing the "mature" content (or fearing other adults who haven't even read the book), they pass off all responsibility to high school teachers, thus diminishing the possibility that its vital message will be heard in time by students at risk. (Melinda notes sarcastically in SPEAK how they don't get around to learning about sex at Merryweather until eleventh grade.)

Similarly, with teaching FRICTION, I could hear the tension start building about five paragraphs back: "SIXTH GRADE!!! Discuss WHAT?!!! BUDDING SEXUALITY?!!! IMPROPER PHYSICAL CONTACT AND SEXUAL ABUSE?!!!"

That's right, let's all procrastinate until an age that it's all ridiculously beside the point. Sorry. If it were me, I'd willingly take on a thousand irate parents/administrators/school board members if it meant that I could save one kid from going through the trauma Melinda faces in SPEAK or that Alex, Tim, Stacy, and Simon all face in FRICTION.

This will be a book you'll be hearing plenty about in the coming year.

Richie Partington
....

All the aliens in this book are dangerous monsters,and some these are quite absurd...how can a living thing made of flesh and blood survive in outer space ? Come on ! But the imagining is great,and the pictures are sometimes good,but not as good as Wayne Douglas Barlowe's.Aniway,a good book.

When I bought this book eons ago, I had no idea just how much USE I would get out of it. Playfully written with hit-or-miss illustrations, GA helped me gamemaster dozens of Star Wars Role-Playing Games. Check out fan.starwars.com/mich to see how this one book has generated more fanciful sci-fi tales than you could possibly imagine!

This book has all the information you would ever want to know about aliens. the pictures are great to. I keep on checking it out at my school library.

This book has good information and helpful understanding of the individual gifts. However, I found it not very well written, and also somewhat biased toward a pentecostal or "Full Gospel" understanding of the spiritual gifts, which is good, but I felt that he was not very well rounded in his understanding, presenting one interpretation only.

This book is a good primer on the Holy Spirit and the gifts. I don't believe that the author intended to be deep, but I believe that he wanted to pen a book that was assessible to most readers. There are those who would argue that the author assumes a Pentecostal stance, but he does have the right to write about the gifts based on his experience as long as he doesn't violate Scripture. He does not. He speaks about the gifts of the Spirit operating in his own life and also relates the gifts to what is reflected in the lives of biblical characters. Once again, this book is not meant to be a deep theological tome. They do exist. For those readers seeking greater depth and scholarship, I would suggest looking at The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts: In the New Testatment Chuch and Today by Max Turner. Other authors to consider are Gorodn D. Fee, Richard Hays, and Craig Blomberg.

I haven't even finished the book and I love it! Dr. Sumrall does a great job defining the gifts, their purposes, and examples on how they're used! This book is a must for Holy Ghost Christians who are seeking spiritual gifts. You've got to buy it!

When Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox decided to make their own high rise disaster pic, one picked "The Tower" and the other "The Glass Inferno"; they realized they each will be making similar movies. So in a rare instance of common sense, the two studio combined resources and churned out "The Towering Inferno". Despite having the movie based on the two novels, the end result resemble more on "The Glass Inferno" rather than "The Tower." In fact, the only thing the movie retain from "The Tower" was the breeches bouy and several characters, some of which have their own counterparts in "The Glass Inferno".

If you have seen "The Towering Inferno", then you will know what the novel is about. Of course, the novel doesn't have the stupid insipid dialogue the movie was saddled with. And "The Glass Infnero" ends on a brighter note that the movie.

As a point of interest, the building is known as the "Glass Tower", 66 stories high and equipped with a scenic elevator and a promenade room. And Jennifer Jones' character, Lisolette Mueller, who "enjoyed" a spectacular death scene in the movie, survived in the novel in her own spectacular way (she climbed down the blown stariwell BY HERSELF without help and with a kid on her back).

Overall, the book is good, espcially how chapters are devoted to the fire itself; describing it as "the beast", and chronicling it from its "birth" with a cotton string as its umbilical cord, and to its death....as if the fire was a living entity in itself.

Easily the best of the two books the epic disaster movie "The Towering Inferno" was based upon !

While "The Tower" is a 125 storie building located near the World Trade Center in N.Y.C., the "Glass Tower" is a 66 storie building located in San Francisco (which is where the fictional
137 storie Glass Tower is located in "The Towering Inferno").

"Glass Tower" has much more action, and especially a much more dramatic ending than "The Tower".

"Glass Tower" spends much more time focusing on the Fire Department's fire-fighting and rescue efforts of the people trapped on the top floor than "The Tower", which wastes far too much time with the charecters worrying about who & what caused the fire. Almost no time was devoted to the fire department's efforts.

After having read both books and having watched "The Towering Inferno" many times, there is no doubt the two movie studios derived most of the screenplay from "Glass Tower".

If you want to read only one of the two books the movie was based upon, you need only read "Glass Tower" - the TRUE "Towering Inferno" !

Twentieth-Century Fox and Warner Bros. knew what they were doing when they adapted The Glass Inferno into the disaster epic, The Towering Inferno. Scortia and Robinson put together an convincing scenario in which San Francisco's tallest building goes up in flames.

There's no denying that the authors know their stuff. The characters and the action stay crisp and sharp. Even today, such a cautionary novel should give readers pause the next time they venture into the concrete caverns of our modern cities.

Though not as good, The Tower, by Richard Martin Stern, should be read in tandem with The Glass Inferno. The Towering Inferno also draws from it.

This book is touted as showing how to prevent disease through changing your lifestyle, right? Well, keep in mind that the authors never tried changing their subjects' lifestyles! So we really have no way of knowing whether if the nurses they studied had changed their diets, they would have been healthier or not. In medical science, the only way to really find these things out is to actually do a clinical trial...randomly assign people to different groups to follow a certain program and then see what program is best. These authors didn't do that so their results are just observational. You might see in your neighborhood that three women who like to wear lavender clothes all came down with cancer...does that prove that if you stop wearing lavender clothes you won't get cancer? These authors have never shown that they can prevent disease through their recommendations. The authors never treated these women as patients, in fact they never even saw them! Also keep in mind that all these results are just based on the subject's reports of what they ate, how much they weighed etc. The authors never verified that the answers were truthful. And they never measured the women's blood pressure or cholesterol levels or any other ordinary lab tests that your doctor does on a routine visit. So this book is really just a bunch of advice that sounds plausible but might or might not have any effect on preventing disease. Don't believe the hype!

The Landmark Nurse Health Study was enormously interesting and full of useful information,as well as being clearly and understandably written for the layperson. The authors enlisted the help of 170,000 nurses to track their health status over the past 25 years, by filling out questionnaires every few years, occasionally requesting blood samples and even nail clippings from some. This is a report on their work, which also cites many other studies, some that agree and others that disagree with the authors findings. They emphasize that this is the latest word, but not the last.
The researchers discuss at length those situations in which certain medications that are advantageous for one disorder may be disadvantageous for another. Choosing which way to go will require consideration of hereditary factors and family history, as well as consultation with ones primary care provider.
Asking nurses to do this kind of information gathering was well conceived, as we all know that nurses are meticulous record keepers, as well as being altruistic and concerned with the welfare of their fellow human beings.
I find myself quoting frequently from this book, as well as recommending it to all my women friends and relatives. I enjoyed reading it and benefited from the information it contained.

This book deserves more than five stars. It is by far the best resource on women's health issues that I have seen.

Review Summary: How can women improve their health by changing their lifestyle, diet, and activities? That's the question that this book answers. Based on the longest running and most authoritative sources of information, you should prefer the information here to what you will read in other resources. The book deals with factors like age, race, exercise, diet, use of supplements, weight, birth control pill and hormone replacement usage, smoking, and drinking in order to define how these affect the incidence of disease. In addition, the book also tells women how to improve their chances for avoiding diseases where where behavior counts for a lot.

Review: The detailed focus of this book is remarkable. Unlike most books about health that look at men and women together, this one drills down to many different perpectives on women. For instance, if you took oral contraceptives in the 1970s, what is the effect on your risk of breast cancer today? If you take supplementary calcium now, how does that affect your risk of having a bone fracture when you are past 70? These are the kind of specific, and important questions that this book looks at. And the data are not necessarily what you think. Calcium supplements, for instance, don't seem to help with reducing fractures. If you discontinued oral contraceptives some time ago, the impact on breast cancer incidence seems to drop off to nil.

The data for the book come from several long-term studies. The most significant is Harvard Medical School's Nurses' Health Study, which began in 1976. The base was 120,000 R.N.s aged 30-55. The original focus of this work was on oral contraceptives, but many other data were assembled in two page questionnaires sent every other year. Since then, biological samples have been added liked toenail clippings and blood. In 1989 116,000 more nurses were added in the Nurses' Health Study II, which tracks younger women than those in the earlier group who are now increasingly elderly. Nurses were originally chosen because it was thought they would be more accurate in their data and more likely to be open about sharing information about contraceptive and reproductive practices. Since then the National Institutes of Health have also started a tracking study focusing on the use of postmenopausal hormones, low fat diets, and the impact of calcium and other supplements on postmenopausal health. All three studies are used extensively in this book.

The book's first section looks at the studies and how to interpret the data that come from them. The second section (and the longest) looks at a different diseases. Instead of lumping cancer together, for instance, you get separate looks at breast, lung, colon, endometrial, ovarian, and skin cancer. Other dieases covered include heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma, arthritis, eye ailments, and Alzheimer's. The final section is on advice about how to do better with physical activity, weight control, smoking, nutrients, foods, alcohol, vitamins and minerals, postmenopausal hormones, birth control, and aspirin.

Unlike many books coming from physicians, this book is easy to understand and apply. You get a lot of scientific data, but you also get lots of instances of plain English. For example, there are quotes from nurses and how one doctor provides advice in each section for what she or he tells patients about that subject. Also, each chapter has a simple, useful summary that you can use to put everything in perspective.

If the book has a weakness, it's that you cannot learn as much as you need to know about how to change difficult behaviors like smoking and eating foods that lead to excess weight in brief chapters. So, once you've decided you want to improve your behavior, I suggest that you also seek out other books that are more specialized on those issues.

Obviously, this book will be of interest and value to women. Why should men read it? I told my wife about how good I thought this book was, and she asked me how she should change her behavior based on the book's information. I was able to summarize for her in less than five minutes what I had observed that she could beneficially change. So this book can be valuable for men to read, if they share the information with women they know. Also, men can give this book to women as a token of their love and caring.

After you finish this book, I suggest that you also think about where you can get such authoritative information about other important subjects in your life . . . like getting along well with others, enjoying good mental health, feeling happy and optimistic, and giving and receiving love. Why not make improvements in all these dimensions?

Remember: You deserve the best that you can provide for yourself!

this book has too much redundant info and lacks coherence. try the jxta in a nutshell instead; to the point, simple and clear.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) has progressed from a curiosity to a serious opportunity for businesses to move beyond the costs and limitations of traditional client-server based computing. With a choice of several new, maturing technologies, Java developers need a single source to explain the benefits of each technology and help them see how to fit the P2P "pieces" together - both in building new systems and integrating with existing ones. Java P2P Unleashed: With JXTA, Web Services, XML, Jini, JavaSpaces, and J2EE starts with a discussion of the P2P architecture, referencing similarities with existing, familiar systems while previewing several types of P2P applications. Java P2P Unleashed explains how to plan ahead for security, routing, performance and other issues when developing a P2P application. Each Java P2P technology is approached from a P2P perspective, focusing on implementation concerns Java developers will face while using them. The last section includes several large-scale examples of different P2P applications - managing content, building communities, integrating services, routing messages, and using intelligent agents to gather information. The final chapter looks ahead to future developments in Java P2P technologies, including the use of J2ME. Java P2P Unleashed is confidently recommended for Intermediate to Advanced level users. 752 pages.

This book's title is a bit misleading, as it covers a lot more than P2P. In addition to JXTA, it also has chapters on Jini, and several chapters on Web services. Some of the chapters are better than others; the chapters on JXTA are especially informative. Because the book has many authors, some of the information is repeated, but that does not detract from the book's overall high quality.

This storyline leads to great adventures but some confusing endings. For example, in one ending when you were waked up from your dream by Billy who was supposed to be stay kidnapped. And another ending has put the reader and Billy in a plane after waking up from a dream. If that is so, then the other endings were part of a dream?

But the Frank Bolle's artwork is wonderful and crisp as always. I loved his artwork in other books. I liked Ling very much. I enjoyed having an interactive relationship with Ling. I was hoping for a romance with Ling.

I enjoyed Frank Bolle's art as much. In later books, Frank Bolle's artwork looks greater.

I like reading about basic Kung Fu techniques and meeting with Ling.

However, there are some mistakes Richard Brightfield has made. For example Chinese surnames came first, not last.

This book, is my favourite Choose Your Own Adventure book. You can become a Kung Fu master or even a Ninja. It's great! It has a great story line and great pictures. If you like Choose Your Own Adventure books, martial art novels, or even juse great adventure books, then get it. I totally recommend it.

For the relatively small cost, this source should give the beginning player the basics of scales and two-handed techniques for the anglo concertina. The charts are clear, and help to show the logical arrangement of the instrument. Songs are a bit hokey at times, but again should suffice for the beginner, or those who wish to improve their sight-reading skills.

After reviewing this book I was able to take my new concertina right out of the box when it arrived and begin to play. My wife was amazed and made the comment that the concertina must be the easiest instrument in the world is to play. I had never even held a concertina before. I am not ready for public performances but this book helped me to play some simple tunes that my wife reconized right away.
The book does contain some music for tunes I had never heard before. It did make it easier to play tunes that were familiar. So I wish this book had more music for familiar folk tunes.

After a few fireside mishaps, a friend pointed out that the accordioned object in my hands was not a bellows but a musical instrument called a concertina. Mel Bay's book taught me the basics, and now I can play a few tunes and torture the dog with my rendition of "Waltzing Matilda." A great guide for the beginner!

Not so much a sequel to the original story as a place to hang some pretty fluffy self-help-ish advice. No mystery in it for me. Characters were utterly overshadowed by Hilton's work. Points for enthusiasm.

Messenger is a special novel that expresses the concept of Shangri-La with insight and suspense. DeMarco's story left me thinking a great deal about the perfection that exists, often unexplored, within each of us, and of our inherent power to bring this significance into our lives. This book is a much needed reminder of the highest and best that exists always at our cores. My gratitude to the author for his wonderfully written message of hope and love.

I enjoyed this book very much. It leaves one with a feeling of hope and optimism as well as some interesting techniques for meditation and personal growth.

I'm hoping there will be a sequel!

I found the cost to quality/content ratio of this book to be fairly poor. The pictures are pretty good but small and there isn't as much up to date info on the houses as I had hoped for.

Many of the houses listed were classified as private, view from street. I found little value in these listings.

You'll get more off of FLW Websites and it will cost less!

This slim volume provides color pictures, maps and addresses of more than 100 FLW building in the Chicago area. It's the perfect guide for planning a visit or just enjoying the photos and brief histories of the houses. As a field guide, it's very well done. Hence, my 4 star rating.

The author could have improved the book by providing a cross reference by his "star" ratings. Also, he has a true believers conviction that the current home owners should be grateful to provide the author full access to their family history. I hope that the author will grow more tolerant in his search for every last bit of information and remember that many of these structures were first and are still private family homes.

This book presents information not found elsewhere, new and very important information about Wright and his work in Chicago. It explains, for the very first time, the contents of Wright's contract with his employer, Louis Sullivan. It has long been held that this was an empoyment contract when it is no such thing. It is simply a loan agreement, or mortgage.

While space is indeed limited, there is more vital information about the clients and their relationships with Wright and between each other. There are many revealing things here including the true relationship between Charles E. Roberts, the key figure on the Unity Temple building committee who hired Wright for the Landmark design, and Isabel Roberts, an employee of Wright's who worked in his Oak Park Studio. You'll have to read the book to see what that relationship is.

The maps and directions are what this book is real about. They are clear and detailed, giving addional warnings where they are warrented. The GPS notations will prevent all from ever getting lost. This is the purpose of the book. All the rest is gravy and welcomed gravy at that.

Heinz seems to have always much to give. His books are meaty with new information and yet he continues to ask important questions that others cannot. He has always been an advanced thinker and his books popularity always show this. His photography has the insights of an architect, which he is.

Heinz always gives us what we need. This is a great book to use while traveling as well as a place to go for new material on a favorite subjest.