In that most memorable of scenes from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843), the villain-hero Ebeneezer Scrooge has just been shown a vision of his desolate future. Like his partner Marley, he will soon be dead, buried unceremoniously, then completely forgotten -- save for the moments when his life is ridiculed, mocked as an example the greatest miser in the history of London town. Terrified of this abysmal future, Scrooge cries out:

"Spirit! Is this the shadow of things that MUST be, or only MIGHT be. Tell me, Spirit!"

Fortunately for Ebeneezer, it was not too late to change his stingy ways, give up the futile accumulation of money, and find true happiness by devoting himself to helping the less fortunate human beings around him.

Perhaps it is not unreasonable to say that our planet today resembles the troubled Scrooge. Our environmental predicament is perilous, yet it is not too late to save ourselves. We can improve our world if and only if we act, soon, with compassion and intelligence. In facing this crisis there is no place for these classic Dickensian spirits: Apathy, Panic, or Ignorance.

Obviously, Earth 2000 is a culture far more complex than the Victorian society of 150 years ago. Today we have easy access to mountains and megabytes of paper and electronic data. But how can we discern which peaks of these information mountains are reliable, trustworthy, and wise?

Accurate information and keen insights is why this yearly book from the Worldwatch Institute -- Vital Signs -- is a publishing event of the utmost importance. The facts throughout this book are categorized into trends in these areas: food production, agriculture, energy, atmosphere, economy, transportation, communication, health and social problems, and military issues.

The facts and the numbers are astonishing. For example: Last year the world endured 35 wars: except for the Kosovo conflict, all the others occurred in third-world countries. Cigarette smoking last year was responsible for the deaths of 4 million people, a number which is expected to increase 2.5 times, to 10 million, by the year 2030. In 1999, the total number of persons infected with HIV was almost 50 million. About 2.6 million persons died from AIDS last year (most of these in Africa), pushing the total cumulative death toll from AIDS to 16 million. World population last year increased by 77 million persons, as the total population of Earth swelled past the 6 billion mark.

One of this year's most disturbing trends is the growing economic gap -- and the quality of life gap -- between the privileged persons and the poor. The World Health Organization has estimated that more than 1.1 billion persons are malnourished, at the same time that more than 1 billion persons suffer from health-related problems caused by obesity. Last year's edition of this book, in the section "Malnutrition Still Prevalent" shows that nothing has improved:

"Nearly 1 billion people worldwide do not get enough to eat each day, and several billion get enough calories but their poor diet falls short in providing basic nutrients. ... Regardless of the form it takes, malnutrition levies a heavy toll on human health, leading to increased susceptibility to disease, reduced levels of energy and productivity, and increased morbidity and mortality." As to be expected, the poorest nations, especially in South Asia and Africa -- Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Nigeria, Indonesia -- contain the highest numbers of malnourished persons."

If it all sounds like a nightmare of gloom and doom, take heart. In a number of areas, significant environmental progress is being accomplished. In the all-important realm of energy, the world is beginning to make the necessary shift from burning fossil-fuels (the major contributor to global warming) to non-polluting and renewable sources such as wind and solar cells. Organic farming -- without pesticides -- is thriving. More world treaties have been formed to control environmental degradation. Western Europe is now heavily taxing corporations who exceed pollution limits. Nuclear weaponry is shrinking; life expectancy is on the rise; and Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) are growing in numbers of groups and volunteers, and already making an impact for positive social and environmental change.

The premise underlying Vital Signs 2000 is that the trends depicted here will shape the nature and quality of our lives in the coming years. Vital Signs 2000, the companion volume to State Of The World 2000, are the two most authoritative and insightful publications in their field. Everyone who wants to help to make this world a better place -- socially, economically, politically, sustainably -- should raise his own social and ecological awareness by beginning with these two books.

Michael Pastore, Reviewer

I give good marks to each of the scientists providing their viewpoints. Each was thoughtfull and concise in his or her viewpoints.

Since 1984, the State of the World reports have been published, and since 1984 the overall tone has been one of impending doom avoided only by the most drastic of human changes.

If you picked up this book expecting to get an authoritative understanding of environmental and population trends, then you have made a big mistake. This book tells one side of the story- clearly the most attractive as it pulls on that side of us that feels lost in a world we don't understand. If you *really* want to find out both sides of the story, you should search out the counterpoints in scientific litterature. Kudos to you for trying to find out everything about the subject before going on. I recomend Earth Report 2000- a counter publication written specifically in response to this book.

After reading both books I am quite convinced that, as a percentage of all there is to know about the planet, we basically understand as much as we did 40 years ago. The information provided in this book is based on theories that, as a young human race, we can not validate for many years to come.

Read this book for ideas, but not answers. That is unless you are a doomsayer looking for an amen experience- in which case this baby is right up your alley.

Lester Brown et al have written an alarmist book. I grew up during the years when the word "environment" came to have meaning. Over the decades, I have read a number of books on the state of our environment.

Lester Brown et al write what amounts to saying that we are "going to Hell in a handbasket." The truth of the matter is that each age thinks it is on the "eve of destruction." (Don't remember that song? Okay, you are not as old as I am and
you do not remember how seriously we took this matter when this song came out.)

BTW, the picture painted by Lester Brown et al is one-sided. For example, I noted an AP article about the thickening of the Antarctic ice which means that the polar ice caps are not shrinking. The reader may not expect this type of information from this book. If one looked at _World Balance Sheet_ among other books, one would not see this type of driven agenda.

The world has always known people who were concerned about the shape of the environment. Some BCE writers are known.So are we on the "eve of destruction"?
or are we having to make decisions as we have so often before?

Reading State of the World 22 took me out of my cushy frivolous life and made me really think. I used to be of the frame of mind that sources of energy and the aids problem were nothing to do with me and someone else could deal with it and anyway to tell the truth it sort of bored me.Each time I read this book I would find myself crying as I turned the pages, it really is sad how down the world has gone and how much further it still has to fall if we dont change our ways of thinking. This book puts all the information on sustainable issues and world problems in straightforward english with interesting graphics and statistics in easy to read graphs so that even I (not quite a brain surgeon) can grasp the information.State of the world is not just a book moaning about what we have done wrong it also explains the solutions and what each person can to do help after all we are the cause and we can help be the cure.

This book was a favorite of mine in my childhood, and, when I returned as an adult to re-read it to my own daughter, I discovered it all over again.

This is a story about a different kind of princess than one might imagine; a princess that is an orphan - lonely, cold, hungry and abused. Sara Crewe begins life as the beloved, pampered daughter of a rich man. When he dies a pauper, she is thrown on the non-existent mercy of her small-minded, mercenary boarding school mistress. Stripped of all her belongings but for one set of clothes and a doll, Sara becomes a servant of the household. Hated by the schoolmistress for her independent spirit, Sara becomes a pariah in the household, with only a few secretly loyal friends. But through her inner integrity and strength of will, Sara Crewe maintains the deportment, inner nobility and generous spirit of a "real" princess.

It is a fabulous story of the triumph of human will, and good over evil.

This story is a real classic, and needs no re-writing to be as enjoyable and readable today as it ever was. Ask my 8-year-old daughter, who has already re-read it twice. Accept no substitutes, re-writes, abridgements or copies! This is a work of art, and should not be tampered with.

I first read this book when I was ten years old. I still remember being transported from my Boise, Idaho sunroom, circa summer vacation 1976, back to the foggy gaslit streets of Victorian London. I don't believe that I moved off that sunroom couch until I had devoured this entire book. I loved the whole idea of A Little Princess -- the beautiful clothes (watered silk and petticoats!), the food (gruel!), and Sara's suffering in the garrett. Sara's life was so different from mine. Reading this book was like travelling to a different continent.

In some ways, this is a formula book for girls -- although it might be fair to say that this book invented the formula: plucky, mistreated orphan (mysteriously stripped of her fortune), who never loses hope and remains truly good transformed through a mysterious benefactor into a girl rich beyond her wildest dreams (see also: the Boxcar Children; Little Orphan Annie, etc).

Sara is an extremely engaging character. She is almost too good to be true -- kind to the servants, smarter than the headmistress, and able to tell stories that ensnare her listeners. Sara's stories enable her, first to make friends, and then later, to cope with the rather significant blows that life (and the author) deal her.

And, in the best of tradition of this type of story, Sara is rescued, her wealth is restored, she remains a perfectly lovely little girl, and the horrible headmistress who mistreated her gets her comeuppance. All is right with the world once again.

Title: A Little Princess
By: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Reviewed By: ...
Period: 4

There is a young girl named Sara. She is a very smart, kind and clever girl. Sara likes to read books and imagine things. Her father had to go off in India for a job so he left Sara at a school. They were a very rich family. Sara always wore the fancy clothes and she got everything she desired. At the school, everyone always looked at her. She made some friends but very few. A few Years later, her father dies. She becomes a poor, dirty maid who cleans at the school. She still has contact with her friends but very few. She met a neighbor that just moved in. It turns out that he is looking for her because he was a close friend of her dad. The neighbor doesn't know that Sara is the girl at the school next door.
Later on they meet, and Sara's life becomes a lot better.
I liked this book because it kept making me want to read on. I didn't want to stop. It was such a interesting book. I've never read a book like this one. It's so fun how she is very happy at first and then sad later on. " Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room after she had ran upstairs and locked the door. In fact, she herself scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying over and over again to herself in a voice which did not seem her own: 'My Papa is dead! My papa is dead!'" That was the sad part.
This book always made me think about how nice of a girl Sara was and what a kind heart she had. I was crying when she had become a poor, maid after her father died and left no money. She always cared for others and was an excellent student at school. "'Ah, Madam, ' he said, ' there is not much I can teach her. She has not learned french; she IS french. He accent is exquisite." That is what her french teacher told The head mistress.(She is very smart)
My favorite part of the book is when she meets friends. Although she had kind ways to talk to people, she always met people in a strange way. For instance, when she met one of her friends, Lottie,it was when Lottie was crying. Lottie was screaming out that she had no mother. Sara never really met her mother. Then, Sara offered to be her adopted mother.I thought that was strange but nice of her. It stopped Lottie from crying so hard and she became very close friends with her. That is what I liked about the book.

Anyone with a young-enough heart and an open-enough mind will enjoy "The Wind in the Willows", no matter what his or her age is; but older readers so unencumbered by sophistication are hard to find. The safest bet is the youngest age group of children there is: those who still have the innocence and wonder required to identify with animals and believe in imaginary worlds.

For instance, how many readers can really sympathize with a mole's "paroxysm of grief" because he is homesick? How many will not roll their eyes at a toad being jailed in the "remotest dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of Merry England"? How many will _not_ find corny a tableau of two school-aged hedgehogs frying ham for a mole and a water rat, in a badger's kitchen?

Moreover, Kenneth Grahame's narration reminded me of the kind of things an elderly English gentleman would say while showing his well-behaved grandchildren in Eton collars and boaters around the family's countryside estate. To some readers, this will be hopelessly boring; to others, it will be wonderful and charming. The former group will find it hard to understand the glory of being up at dawn and floating quietly down a river, past loosestrife, willowherb, bulrushes and meadowsweet, having never experienced it. The latter group ought to have more experience in letting dreams fill in what memory cannot. To be fair, though, picnics, boat rides and such really are exciting to only a tiny segment of readers.

Substantial conflict appears in this episodic novel only when the exasperating Mr. Toad does; and Mr. Toad's "frivolous antics" take up only half of the book. I found myself wishing that it had taken Badger, Mole, Rat and Toad much longer to reclaim Toad Hall from the weasels and stoats who had "invaded" it. In my almost-grown-up opinion, "The Wind in the Willows" ends too soon and too suddenly after it starts to get interesting.

This book says 4-8 for age range, but really the writing far more complex than Dick-and-Jane. This is a book to READ to kids until they are old enough to read it again for themselves.

Wind in the Willows is a longtime favorite of many people (and I just re-read it as an adult.) The story centers around the animal citizens of an English riverbank. Each animal has a different personality, from easy-going Mole to the wise and wiley Badger, the spoiling-for-a-fight Weasels and of course boastful Toad, the owner of splendid Toad Hall who has too much money and too little sense to know what to do with it. The education of Toad by his well-meaning friends is a good lesson. The battle for Toad Hall near the end of the book is also exciting.

The content is entirely suitable for kids. The prose is a pleasure to read out loud and creates such pictures in one's imagination. And it's funny, too (the scene where Toad is nearly struck down by a car, which he has never seen before, and decides he MUST have one is absolutely hysterical.)

If you are starting a reading-out-loud program at home, this should be at the top of your list. I'd also add Swiss Family Robinson to that list. I have wonderful memories of my teachers and parents reading these books to me. Why not give your kids the same lasting delight in good literature, reading and family fun.

Kenneth Grahame wrote this for his son and published this in book form in 1908. He has simply created a masterpiece, not just in children's literature, believe me many adults read this one with pleasure. The chapters follow the doings and adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger, and of course Toad. The prose is lyrical at times, the stories hilarious, and charm and wisdom flow from Grahame's pen. There has been many illustrators for different editions of this over the years. I like Rackham and Shepard and recommend the editions that have one or the others illustrations, or get two copies of "The Wind in the Willows" and you can have both of these fine illustrators work to enjoy. I read this book when a child and I come back to it again and again.

. . . you can apply some of the information in this book to your own state. I'd say that 68% of this book is useless to people that live outside of California. But the other 32% of the book is worth reading! The author provides questions to ask the officer in court for red-light tickets, speeding tickets, U-turn tickets, etc. For those people out there that are trying to find out everything they can about fighting their traffic ticket in court and winning, then I would recommend buying this book. If you live in California, THEN DEFINITELY BUY THIS BOOK!!! The 70% of the book that is California specific is sure to help you defeat your ticket. The book lists the specific California law section for each violation. You can look at your traffic ticket and if the law section does not match with what you are being charged with, then BOOM, your ticket is dismissed. Whether or not you live in California, I recommend this book to all motorists.

Got an unwarranted and incorrect ticket in Northern California as an out-of-state driver. This book walked me through all the facets of fighting the ticket. I pled not guilty by mail, subpoenaed the officers' notes, gathered evidence, prepared my defense, and arrived in court ready to fight. The officers did not appear and I believe they knew they were going to have a well-prepared defendant make them look incompetent. Case closed. Get this book.

If you have a ticket pending, you need to buy this book right now! Don't want to because you're dead guilty?? It's irrelevant. Tired of being harrassed by cops?? Make them feel stupid in court. Don't give $$ back into the system that pays them!

Don't have a ticket now?? Read this and you'll know what exactly to do the second you get pulled over. This classic is one of the best investments i've ever made!

Caty was the young wife of Gen. Nathanael Greene. Not content to stay home with the children, she joined her husband in winter quarters at Monmouth NJ (where she gave birth to one of their sons) and Valley Forge PA. The author wrote this biography based on their letters.

This is a book of graphic black and white photos showing two natural home births. It is vintage late 60's ;when being natural [in all ways ] was the ideal. Ideal for the person who wants to know what birth was like before hospitals and doctors were invented; i.e. the last few million years. or someone who wants to remember that short period called the sixties.

This book was assigned for a class on environmental public policy, and I think it's the worst textbook I've ever had. The sections are badly ordered and repetitive, and the usage of constant acronymns prevents the book from being readable. There are certain parts that are far more clear than others, such as the section on global forests. But on the whole, the book reads like it was rushed into printing.

I came across this book in a Washingon, D.C. bookstore and consumed the entire thing in a matter of days. It's both lucid and insightful. Interest in so-called international environmental issues is high these days, but very few books are available that even attempt to define what such issues are, much less describe them as a group and relate them to one another. This book is in a class by itself. Not only does it discuss and provide fascinating insight into specific areas of international environmental policy, from global warming to international forestry conservation, but also it relates these areas to one another within a single, coherent and robust theoretical framework. The authors display not only a detailed practical knowledge of the policy issues they discuss, but also higher level insight into characteristics that connect disparate policy areas to one another. This is not just interesting; it's of immense practical usefulness. Even without a detailed knowledge of all the specific topics (and acronyms) it addresses, this book is well worth the money of anyone interested in international environmental policy.

This book would be good if it had answers to the questions, but with 1001 questions and no answers, it is pointless. Don't waste your money, with a little searching one can find better study guides. The implication with this book is that if a student knows the material as good as they should, they should know wether or not their answer is correct. I still would like to double check my answers, though.

Ok, I got this book to study for an grad school entrance exam. It was not worth the money. There are NO answers provided for the question. Although, each part of organic chemistry is divided into sections of questions, there are still NO answers for the questions. The book gives 'hints' which are absolutly unhelpful to the reader. Look for another study guide, and don't get this one, you will be disappointed.

If you want to pass organic chemistry and the exams are multiple choice - this is the book for you. It can also serve as an excellent review if you are considering the MCAT. Be warned, however, that there is no answer key for this text. If you want answers, try EXAMKRACKERS 1001 Questions in MCAT Organic Chemistry.