Our 4 year old son started asking why we have rain, snow, cloudy and sunny weather. As an active sailor, I am constatnly confronted with the forces of nature and I explain a lot of the mysteries of weather to many adults. I tried to unveil the magic of weather to my son but he did not quite comprehend what I was talking about. After recieving this book he took great interest in looking at the pictures and playing with the transparencies on each page to better understand the environment around him. The author has created a small, informative and entertaining book with illistrations that allow children to remember through pictures. This is a great book for young children and adults to read together.

I found this book while looking for books to use in my seasons unit. I automaticaly fell in love with it. The author does a wonderful job using plastic paper images to represent the changes that occur throughout the seasons. This helps children visualize everything from spring showers and thunderstorms, to rainbows, to the freezing of a pond in the winter. I used this book in my kindergarten class, and they were fascinated by the illustrations that went along with the literature.

The book Weather in the 'First Discovery Book Series' provides a fun introduction to weather that is suitable for children of a wide range of ages. It is an clever concept to use transparent flaps to demonstrate how weather can change the feel of a scene. Although my son is only two, he loves to flip the clear plastic leaves and watch the weather turn from cloudy to rainy or from frosty to snowy. He has learned many facts about weather from this book and loves to comment on what the current conditions outside are. Clearly, though, this book will be even more appropriate for an older child as it includes fun scientific facts which help them understand a few basic concepts about weather. Thus it should provide entertainment and education for many years to come.

I first was introduced to Loren Eisley by a roommate in graduate school who read aloud to me the final essay in this book. It is entitled, "The Brown Wasps," and if you've never read anything by Eisley, you might want to start there. Among many things, this particular essay is about memory, home, and the place of death in life - themes that run throughout the book whose essays are intimate narratives that intermingle meditations on science and personal history. Having now written these words I feel they miss the mark in recommending this book becuase the themes of Eisley's work seem more experiential than concrete to me, which is the case for many truths about life - truths that can be captured more by the feelings evoked by a time and a place than by mere words alone. And yet, his words do a remarkable job of evoking past times and places, locating them in your present life and providing a context for understanding their meaning. If you read this book, perhaps you'll want to share it with a friend, as my friend did with me, and I have with many good friends since. Eisley communicates the happy/sad, excited/melancholic, naive/wise tensions of nostalgia like no one else I've read.

Theodosius Dobzhansky described Eiseley as "...a Proust miraculously turned into an evolutionary anthropologist," and his works are greatly admired by Ray Bradbury. This was the second book I read of his after "The Immense Journey" and it was no let down at all! It too is haunting, beautiful, disturbing, hopeful, fearful, and immensely imaginative.

Here's a taste, from the chapter The Places Below: "If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession. If you fear the sound of water hurrying through crevices toward unknown and mysterious destinations, do not consider it. Seek out the sunshine. It is a simpler prescription. Avoid the darkness."

I am interested in purchasing this book but I don't know it's value? I want to offer a fair price. What did it cost new and what are they currently selling for?

This book is hardly ever in at our 4 county library system. SoI bought the last one ... had. I made the mistake of giving it "to read and return" to a train buddy. Bad mistake. The variety, workmanship and excellent graphics made this a treasure. Guess I'll just have to ask my master modeler friend and fellow singer about its whereabouts. Shucks, there goes a perfectly good friendship. In estate planning there is the old, old saying: "Once you give it away, it's gone!"

Jack very clearly outlines a path to find peace within yourself and then pass that peace and happiness on to your children. To many times we think or feel that because life is harder than we would like it to be or feel that life is overly unfair that we can't be happy. Jack dispells that myth in this book. Jack clearly shows in a humorus and deliteful manner, along with some very poignant stories, how we can take all of the dificulty that life deals us, along with the joys of life and put it together to find true happiness. I would recommend this book to anyone. You certainly don't have to have teenagers to read and be stegnthened by this book. A must read.

Dowd and Feldman present a careful analysis of the current state of medicare funding and propose a creative solution that will prevent the collapse of the system that has been predicted by so many. This book is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the current crisis in medical care costs for retirees, both present and future.

Bjorn Sortland's The Dream Factory: Starring Anna & Henry is a children's picture story with a twist - two children, following a riddle, go on a fantastic journey through the "reel" world of some of the most famous scenes in motion picture history, from riding in Ben-Hur's chariot to swinging on jungle vines with Tarzan. The color artwork has a very soft, charcoal-like touch to it. This rapturous story, wonderfully illustrated by Lars Elling, is perfect for the youngster who has already developed a taste for motion pictures and wants to know a little more about the classics that fascinated Mom and Dad.

Mr. Christiansen gathered a group of fine authors for this title. This book covers almost every topic you want to know about electronics. The level is, of course, advanced. It works for graduate students, or for college teachers, like myself, who want to have a sort of vade mecum that can not be carried in one's pocket. I will call this book, a bible. This means, a collection of books, with different specializations by different specialists. Mr Christiansen wrote some chapters himself. But as a final comment, an Electronics Engineer who does not know what his/her intended major will be, should buy this book to clearly study every branch of our beloved career.

My name is Gale E. Christianson. I am the author of eight books, but not this one, which you keep listing under my name as its editor. It is a religious work and not one I want credit for editing. Could you please track its true editor and give him the credit, which he would no doubt appreciate.

I read this book straight through-- more as a history of the legal system in the colonies and the United States than as a reference book. I was engrossed by the stories behind many of the cases. Some of the cases I recognized from law school. It would have been much more interesting to know the "story" behind the cases when studying them in school, although I am certain my law professors would discourage the notion of letting "unnecessary facts" get in the way of legal analysis. (Hey, that is the kind of things lawyers like to say... :o)...)

This book provides a resource like none I have been able to find previously. When read chronologically, the cases give one another a sense of historical context often absent from the study of the law. And the law-- as a reflection of society-- makes an interesting way to study history. Although I knew it cerebrally, it was amazing to read of women being arrested for voting, courts deciding whether persons from Africa were human, mentally ill women being routinely steralized, and convicted killers hanged by their necks within days of their convictions. And this is within the last 125 years! That we have come so far, so quickly gives hope for our future.

So... Why only four stars? Two reasons, as the title demonstrates: This book is desparately in need of an update and an edit by an attorney. As for the datedness, this book stops in 1994. While it includes the trial of the officers who battered Rodney King and the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, it was published prior to some cases that have transformed the ever-changing legal landscape over the past ten years. The criminal and civil trial of O.J. Simpson, the mutilation trial of Loreana Bobbitt and her sucessful insanity defense, and the Louis Woodward/"Nanny Murder" trial with its questions of overcharging and judicial review of jury verdicts belong in this volume. I felt as if I had watched a movie, wanted a sequel, but there was none coming.

Technically, the use of legal terminology was not always correct. For example, post-trial motions are referred to as appeals, and vice-versa. These are small details that irked me a tad as an attorney, though I doubt they would distract anyone who didn't attach specific meaning to these "terms of art."

This is a excellent, enjoyable, almost-addictive read. And it has accomplished more than any of the "true crime" books to which it could be compared but which it greatly overshadows: It has made me want to learn more about several of the cases in the book and several other cases I remember from law school. A book that can entertain, educate, and stimulate is a wonderful thing.

Great American Trials gives a two or three page summary of the most well known trials in American History. The editors begin with trials from more then 350 years ago and end in the mid-1990s. The consistant quality and detail found in this book is remarkable. It is a very good reference book and an interesting collection of stories as well.

For example, do you know what is spectral evidence? Spectral evidence was the belief that the Devil could appear in a person's form, but ONLY to people the devil wanted to tomment. No one else could see this image.

Since only the tormented could "see" this image, only they knew who the Devil was working with. What would happened is a tormented person lied? Or was crazy? The Salem's Witch Trial was one result when this type of evidence was used.

From this starting point, this book again, and again, teaches the reader amazing facts and laws from our past. The best part of this book is how easily each story flows. You read this book because each story is enjoyable. At the same time, you learn about U.S. History and U.S. Law.

Some things in our past, like the Salem Witch Trial, was shocking to most people today. Other things, like the "Amistad" trial, (called "U.S. v. Cinque"), where black slaves were freed by the American Courts in the 1830s, may fill you with pride. Still other cases, where ministers are on trial for slander, 200 years before Jim Baker, remind us of the enduring and consistant qualities of men.

All and all, this book is fun, easy to read, and a fun trip into our past. I would think it would be especially interesting to teacher, lawyers, and anyone with a love of history.

I have used this book in a high school law class for the past three years. Although I use other materials, the structure of the book is a wonderful way to teach history, while learning basic law concepts. For example, the facts of the Sickles trial always "hooks" the students, yet it serves as a wonderful way to teach mens rea and actus reus. My students after studying Dr. Mudd's trial learn more about the Civil War than in a standard history class.