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An unlikely circle of women meet at Elm Creek Manor for a week-long quilt camp. As these women begin working on various projects, they realize that they are all experiencing different stresses in their lives. The women experience illness, trouble with their children and grandchildren, and work difficulties. None are extraordinary hardships - they are what women everywhere face on a daily basis. In order to help each other with their problems, the women decide to work on a challenge quilt - however, they are not permitted to start on their square until they have addressed the problems afflicting their lives.
As the book progresses, each woman is followed on her individual journey. The stories are perhaps predictable, but are told with such loving care that the reader cannot help but find themselves cheering each of these lovely people on.
The only disappointment about Cross-Country Quilters is that little time was devoted to Elm Creek Manor itself. Through Chiaverini's last two books I have grown to love the Elm Creek Quilters, and was looking forward to reading about their latest triumphs.
Overall, Cross-Country Quilters is a wonderful read and is well-recommended.
The group consists of people from a wide variety of lifestyles. Long time attendee octogenarian Vinnie has been at Elm Creek every year since it opened. Julia the actress needs to learn the art for a part. Award winning Grace suffers from a nasty medical diagnosis that has left her with a quilter's mental block. Megan earned a week at the camp as a prize from a quilting magazine and is accompanied by her cyber-friend Donna, escaping from a daughter that is worrying her to death. Even after the camp ends, the participants stay in contact encouraging, boosting, and cheering each one's triumphs.
Jennifer Chiaverini has written a special book that demonstrates the resiliency and courage of an extraordinary group of determined women. Although Elm Creek manor is not the star of the story line, it serves as they catalyst that generates the development of subplots into a cohesive tale. THE CROSS COUNTRY Quilters is a powerful women's mainstream fiction at its literary best.
Harriet Klausner
Used price: $3.16
I found the book again as a adult, and it upset me mildly. Jennifer Jean wears a patch and glasses for a few months, and then Ta-Da! Her eyes are fixed forever. Excuse me? Maybe this has happened to some people, but it certainly isn't my experience or an experience I've heard of before. I had to wear a patch for over five *years* and had multiple surgeries, and my eyes are still not normal and never will be.
I do remember liking this book when I was little, but as an adult I wonder if this could be very upsetting to a child who goes through a hell of a lot more then Jennifer Jean did and still does not have straight eyes.
I also do not like the public getting the idea that being cross-eyed is something you can just "fix" by wearing something for a few months. It is not.
My daughter was born with a lazy eye which was fixed with an operation. She also has Tourette's Syndrome which tends to draw negative attention to her.
I thought the author did a wonderful job balancing the acceptance of ones disabilities with the need of fixing or improving probelems when possible. Our different children need to feel loved just the way they are. This book conveys that message but gives encouragement to the child to do the hard things needed to be done to get better.
An excellent book with gorgeous illustrations.
I can forgive Ms. Fansler for the more obscure literary references, which tend to bore the non- literature scholars, but 212 pages of whining about the plight of women! Only the choir would listen to that sermon.
This was a pretty good Fansler mystery. Kate never seems to have to teach at her own university anymore. The characters are interesting and so is the mystery. One point, the prison on Staten Island, Arthur Kill by name, does not have any women in it. Bedford Hills or Taconic in Westchester are not all that far away and would have been better choices.
List price: $40.00 (that's 30% off!)
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Collectible price: $0.49
I WAS SORELY DISAPPOINTED. I gave this trash only one star because Amazon.com still has not made zero stars an option. I can't believe that ANYONE would have the gall to present this tripe as an entry in the critically important area of statistical measurement of outcomes in what is arguably the softest of the soft sciences, Social Work. Being able to quantify variables and defend one's position by using measurement and statistics is the one factor saving the field of Social Work from being equated to superstition, astrology or even alchemy. This work is poorly edited and organized, and for a work that claims to be one that promotes the correct usage of measurement and statistics in the Social Sciences, it is uncategorically a dismal failure. What it takes to be "cross-cutting issues and methods" actually reads as though it were pieced together by an inner-city high school student writing a lame book report.
A prior reviewer noted (quite accurately and very sharp) that Columbia University, which is where both editors got their advanced degrees, is (a) certainly not known for its quantitative expertise (pardon the understatement!) and (b) that not even Columbia University's own publishing house would dare to publish this. (This is all the more instructive, as it is "customary" for a leading university to promote the works of its graduate students - remember, "Publish or Perish" is the battle cry in academia! And, the more graduate students that a university can claim to have had who have published original work, the greater its prestige....)
Stay away from this stinker, and get anybody else's work. This work is a dismal failure, and if it were a car, it would be recalled and sold for scrap.
Collectible price: $34.98
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Used price: $15.95
Buy one from zShops for: $19.50
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I have used JMP for a while, and with a basic knowledge of statistics it is a useful tool. It got to the stage where I knew that JMP was capable of doing alot more analysis than my limited knowledge of statistics would let me understand. I could get the software to carry out all manner of analyses, I just didn't always understand what the output was telling me. The book "JMP Start Statistics" starts right at the beginning and takes you all the way through to things such as multiple regression, design of experiments and statistical quality control, all the while explaining the statistics in a clear and concise manner. This book will definitely help you get more out of JMP than just the manuals, which tend to assume you already have a statistics background, would.