To me Joan Carris knows the minds of children, especially boys. Characterization was clean and sharp giving the mystery life, and an English flavor which is attractive to this age group. I have tried to give a French flavor to my new book, Animal Academy, and appreciated seeing how Joan did this. The learning impaired boy, Todd, gave the story a thread running through it to hold it together.

This is an excellent book on disabilities and living with the eldering. I use it as a read aloud in my fifth grade classroom.

it was a great book if you like this book you'll like Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson! Was a great book i fell in love with Lila punch's sister it was a great book enjoy

Hedgehogs in the Closet was written as the third book in the Howard boys' series of 4 books. (The first book is When The Boys Ran The House.) This book is Nick's book--his story of the year the Howard family lived in England and he had to wear purple (ugh!) sweaters to school, do Poetry Class twice a week, and Drama Class ditto. But Nick also discovered Rugby--and he was good at that rough, tough sport. He found hilarious differences between the English that the English people speak and the language we Americans use. He even learned to eat "Toad in the Hole." And of course, he and his brothers kept real, live hedgehogs hidden in their closets. Well, they did until a problem arose.... For me as the author, and for me as a presenter of this book in schools, it has been a happy experience. I hope you'll try it! Cheers! Joan Carris

The Sat II Math Flash is a great way to get prepared for the Sat II Math 1 and 2. Two of the tests are included, which really helps to study. I really liked the format of the book. I scored a 780 on the math practice test thanks to this great study aid.

Pets, Vets, and Marty Howard

This book is about a boy named Marty Howard. In the beginning of the book, he gets a job at a veterinary clinic. He thought that was pretty good to have a paying job that he liked at only 12 years old. He sees some interesting things while he is there. Spaying, neutering, castrating, and delivering animal babies are just some of the things he gets to help with as well as watch.

One day someone dropped off an expensive guinea pig at the front desk and said his family didn't want him anymore. Marty came to the rescue and took it home. He didn't know what his mother would say, but after some coaxing, she gave in. He gave it to his brother, Nick. Nick named it Gooney.

They also found some puppies, which Marty took home also. He never told his parents about this, though. He ended up putting them in a department store window, and feeding and watering them every day until people took them.

This was a very interesting book, and I recommend it to anyone who likes pets and animals.

I have purchased this book hoping to find something innovative, something very cool - and under the cover of so much advertisment I found a simple, but not bad, SAT preparation book. It has all the elements to prepare for the real thing except for the practice tests and the so-called "SAT words" - both of them are low in quantity. Perchaps it's a suggestion for the authors. Overall, I think I wouldn't have bought it if I had seen the Barron's title earlier.

PS: The "word teams" is just great - explore it more and this might be your key to success!

This is the best SAT book I've used - it really helped me improve my score. I thought it was well-written, and the practice tests were really useful. I would recommend it over any of the others out there.

This is the best SAT prep book out there. This has great pointers for avoiding common mistakes, a comprehensive vocabulary building section, an easy-to-understand math review, and even gives you prep talks along the way to keep you calm but psyched and ready to ace the test. This was great, I recommend it to anyone hoping for high scores on the SATs.

There are quite a number of great examples in this book. Many of these come from famous poets and writers. However, the author failed to give some of the diffiult ones an explanation. Thus, it seems very difficult to comprehend sometimes. The definition of words is pretty concise. However, if the author had put more effort into introducing this word to the readers, it would make learning a lot more easier. I also suggest that the next edition include a CD Rom because it is very fun to study via multimedia presentation. The exercises in the book are adaquant, but there seems to be a lack of explanation. Sometimes I do find it difficult to understand the answer. I have been n search of good vocabulary books for almost two years. I have not found one yet, but this is certainly one of the good ones that I have.

This book is excellent for anyone who wants to master the rich English language. The "workbook" approach, at first glance, may make you feel a bit awkward, but it's extremely useful and highly effective. What I particularly liked about the book is the wonderful succint information(little stories) on the various origins of common English words. By knowing the origin, a word is better learned and is registered quickly in our memory. This book is really worth its price.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to improve their vocabulary, especially if they are studying for a standardized test (i.e. SAT, PSAT, ACT, etc.). It is filled with words that will possibly show up on these tests, and it is a lot easier (and more interesting) to do the activities in this book than to read a dictionary to learn the words. I used this book in my English class at school and I learned so many new words. Then when I took the SAT, I was thrilled to discover that almost every word on the test had been in this book, and I had only finished half of the book! I'm about to buy this book for myself so that my whole family can use it to help study for any other tests we might take in the future. This book really helped me improve my verbal score, and I definitely think you should try using it, too.

I first read it a long time ago and I loved it then. It was very well made and held from the beginning to the end. It was the first novel about home automation I have ever read

I am a student in 6th grade that is using this book in Spelling. This book is hard, but I am up for the challenge. It is a great book.

This is a book about a cat assigned to teach Gwyneth, a young skeptic of a girl, that she is in fact a "witch". The story is amusing, as the cat does magical things which the girl then tries to explain scientifically. The most important part of the book was the girl's steady realization that she could see the good part that is in all people, and that if she had magical powers, that she must use them to bring that good part into clearer focus.