This is one of the better books that I have read, Rosey talkes about leadership and saying what you want. Buy this and read it! He is a great Christian man.

This is one of the better books that I have read, Rosey talkes about leadership and saying what you want. Buy this and read it! He is a great Christian man.

This book is designed for a teacher as part of the "Green Books" American Sign Language series; however, it is a very useful guide to ASL Grammar and Culture for anyone studying American Sign Language seriously (I, myself, am not a teacher, but have a copy of the book).

I was introduced to the book when I first began learning sign language, and it was very confusing to me. I would have benefited, at the time, much better from an ASL dictionary or simpler sign book. My recommendation to those of you who have just begun learning (or would like to learn) ASL would be NOT to buy this book just YET! Start with something less daunting and sophisticated (after all, it is designed for those already familiar with ASL and preparing a class curriculum).

What the book will give you is an excellent explanation of the sociolinguistic nature of American Sign Language--something you typically will not receive from a ASL Dictionary. For example: how sentences are structured, topicilization, rhetorical questions, relative clauses, expression of time, pronominalization, subject and object usage, the use of classifiers, locatives ... to name a few.

All in all, this is a terrifically detailed, well researched, informative and valuable book; yet, not for a beginning student.

Dennis, pls e-mail (awolfe@cmp.com). I've been trying to get in touch w/ you. We met in 93 in boston.

In exhaustive research over a three-year period, psychiatrist Cantwell, linguist Baker and colleagues, including Howard Grey, Ph.D. Richard Mattison, M.D. and Beth Phillips, M.A. looked at the rarely considered incidence of psychiatric disorders in children with speech and language disorders. That study, conducted at Community Speech and Hearing Center in Tarzana, California contributed a great deal to the authors' understanding of factors affecting the development of speech and language in the young child. Too often, texts dealing with speech and language acquisition reflect a narrow educationally-based developmental focus without consideration of the impact of psychoemotional, biochemical, or neurological forces. This text is highly recommended for developmental teachers, theorists and therapists seeking such a comprehensive orientation.

This is a good reference book, although it falls short of the intentions of its compilers. Roughly the same size as the Concise Baker's, it certainly could have benefited with the inclusion of more thorough work lists. Many entries should have been updated.

I had bought this book mostly on account of what Laura Kuhn says openly in the Preface: "Entries contained in these pages are restricted to contemporary, classical musicians only, with complete work lists and carefully selected bibliographies" "Pop and jazz artists, idiosyncratically covered at best in previous editions of the Baker's, have been excised". In view of such statement of principles, I felt somewhat short-changed. In comparison with the Concise, there are many new articles - e.g. I had never found elsewhere entries for Kriukov or Pizzini, but conversely, there is no mention of composers perhaps better known than them, such as Glenn Branca or Peggy Coolidge. In addition, I was surprised and outraged when I found that some contemporary composers appearing in the Concise had been deleted! Examples: Frederick Cowen, Alberic Magnard, Mikolajus Ciurlionis. I could not found one valid reason for their exclusion.

The coverage of film music composers is quite irregular. While there are plenty of entries for film-only composers such as Elmer Bernstein or Alfred Newman, there is no mention of some of the most well known names such as Goldsmith, Barry, or Delerue.

In relation to the amount of information, too many of the entries are identical to the Concise Baker's, not having been revised, corrected or expanded. And about the pretence of "complete work lists", check for instance Roslavetz or Ivanovs, whose lists of works are far from exhaustive. Ivanovs is said to have written 20 symphonies rather than 21 and only two of his five symphonic poems are mentioned. The "selected bibliography" consists, in this case, of two books, the most recent being over 30 years old.

As to the excision of pop and jazz artists, a cursory check shows the presence of entries for Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, George Brassens, Miles Davis, Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner, Michel Legrand, Bobby McFerrin, none of whom is credited with any "classical music" accomplishment.

The articles are sometimes idiosyncratic. For example, reading about Penderecki, there is no mention whatsoever of his Post-modernist about face in 1977, although perhaps this suggests that the article has not been revised after that fact.

Kuhn explains in the Preface how a biographical dictionary is a means to invent history: "Giving some room to some, more room to others, ignoring the rest - displaying in both what is included and what is not both the ignorance and the prescience of its compilers". She mentions length of the entries as the first in the list of compiler's resources. Using this as a measure of importance in Kuhn's view, we can see what are the most important composers of the 20th century. What is your guess for No.1? Debussy? Schoenberg? Stravinsky? Bartók? Webern? Wrong. By a wide margin, her choice is Cage, to whose description by Slonismky she added "much beloved". Here is the ranking by the number of lines that she devoted to the most outstanding composers (excluding their list of works): 1. - Cage (426 lines) 2. - Stravinsky (293) 3. - Schoenberg (286) 4. - R. Strauss (187) 5. - Shostakovich (186). 6. - Debussy (184) 7. - Bernstein (167) Other composers that deserve more than 100 lines are Scriabin, Varèse, Vaughan Williams, Prokofiev, Ives, Sibelius and Barber. Bartók, at 99, does not quite make it. The length of Stockhausen's article equals David Raksin's.

In short, a good reference but a bit of a disappointment in the details.

Its appears this book is meant for a classroom setting as the book itself indicates there is a "teacher-text" and video involved. Overwhelming and confusing right from the start. Definiately not for someone unfamiliar with signing or someone trying to learn on their own.

This book is a fascinating study of the linguistics of ASL. I have read other reviews that commented about the book's complexity. Yes, it's true, this book is not for someone just starting to study the language. However, in a classroom setting, a student in a more advanced level will find the book quite rewarding to read. Dennis Cokely and Charlotte Baker-Shenk have produced a thoroughly researched set of books. So, to those interested, I say, " Don't shy away from the book's complexity, just be serious about wanting to learn it!" Not for those just wanting to learn 'hi, how are you'!

My two-year-old barely looked at this book. She loves lift-the-flap books and loves Pooh, but we found the flaps to be very boring. The book has over 60 flaps, but they reveal nothing intresting. Honey pot standing up becomes honey pot tipped over. Pooh smiling becomes Pooh with no expression. Snoozeville. If I had looked at it in a store, I would never have bought it. I highly recommend instead "Arthur Goes to School".

My son has literally worn this book into pieces so I'm ordering another one. He absolutely loves the birthday page where Eeyore is celebrating his birthday with all his Hundred Acre Woods friends. The book is more for the youger set showing simpler concepts such as cause and effect but it can also be useful for pre-schoolers because it demonstrates opposites. I've found that although my son loves lift-the-flap books, it is a hit or miss sort of situation as far as whether your child will find it absolutely engaging or pass it up on the shelf for another.

I couldn't give the book 4 stars because like almost all the lift-the-flap books out there, it isn't rugged enough for the abuse that they tend to receive. I can't blame this particular book for that design problem but because the book doesn't handle well with a tough kid like mine I have to score it lower. The flaps are on the delicate side and after they lift them quite a few times they get easily torn.