This is a finely crafted interweaving of interesting stories about unnatural animals - some super, and a few infra natural - into a narrative about student, teacher and librarian interactions over the course of a school year. The narrative is structured as a ring composition, beginning with an outrageous teenager meeting an adult, the librarian, who is her equal in outrageousness, and ending with a cautionary tale told by the librarian, that may hit home with the teen-ager, but plainly shows that the librarian herself is beyond the help of cautionary tales.

In between are a number of cracking good yarns, beautifully illustrated with 13 full page wood engravings, well worth the price of the book by themselves alone. I liked them so much I looked the artist up on the web, and found the prints can be purchased at reasonable prices. What a great Christmas gift for a 12 or 13 year old! A good book and an original print!

The stories range from simple ghost stories (Ghost Story, Haunted House) to moralizing tales about the ill effects of meanness, accidental, immature, or habitual (Father's Foxy Neighbor, Snakefeathers, A Conveyance of Lions).

One finds an Australian aboriginal myth about the origin of crows and mockingbirds transposed into modern suburbia, an African tale about bestial births transposed into a modern city. In addition to the animal theme running through these - often old, and some well known - stories, the narrative's bringing them into direct relation to the people telling them is the book's main characteristic. It can be a charming one, as when a boy in love with a teacher finds out the she herself is the descendant of a woman who was once a fish, or a horrifying one, as we learn that the vice principal himself is the anti-hero of a tale he tells about a childhood bully.

Only one moment in the book disappointed me, to the point of real anger. The pompous Language Arts teacher says, "I wrote my doctoral thesis on Chaucer. Why should I care about some ancient tales of talking animals." Had someone somewhere else in the book pointed out that Chaucer was a wonderful tale teller, not least of all in his wonderful tale of Chaunticleer, the talking rooster and his brides, this passage would have been a wonderful sendup of teacher, a stroke of ironic genius. As it is, the book's readers may be left thinking that Chaucer is as pompous an ass as Dr. Proctor (pun no doubt intended), and end up missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures. No doubt the learned Barbara Ann Porte intended the irony, but I wish she had made it available to her 12 and up readers.

Prior to the 1973 Supreme Court decision granting women unrestricted abortion access during the first three months of pregnancy, some states had decided to take initiative in revisiting 19th century abortion restrictions/prohibitions and discarding the now-worthless laws.

Because the first anti-abortion laws were passed prior to the development of antiseptic surgery/antibiotics, and had actually led to an increase in organized crime's involvement (eager to profit off of women's desperation) the statues could not accomplish any policy objective by the mid 20th century. Coincidentally, fetal life had never been among the concerns of the original legislators.

Doctors could attempt to treat illegal abortion complications, but paradoxically could not offer women services which would prevent the horrific medical crises to begin with.

Consequently, a patchwork of reform laws began developing under the recommendation of the American Law Institute, the Clergy Consultation Services, and fair minded legislators who were navigating realization the laws had to be reformed, with uncertainty of how far those reforms should go. Unlike the women's liberationists of the later 1960's who framed abortion as a woman's right and conversely positioned denial as a tool of women's subordination, the professionals involved in these cases also reasoned their control of the process would remove the social stigma then attached to abortion. If women could be screened prior to undergoing an abortion, only virtuous women would receive the procedure and society would be preserved.

However easy to disparage their intentions from the vantage point of a self-identified 'third wave' feminist who has never known a world without legalized abortion, I recognize their involvement in the policy process as a critical step in obtaining an eventual nationwide repeal ruling.

As the futility of conservative reform statues and widely varying laws became apparent, newly minted reproductive rights activists became less willing to accept anything less than a standardized national repeal.

With the Bush administration openly vowing to turn back the clock on women's rights (and the obvious willingness of some state legislatures in helping to achieve that goal) case studies such as these will prove to be an indispensable resource for scholars and activists alike. Understanding our past helps prevent future returns.

This book is beautiful! Every recipe has full page color pictures along with color inserts of each and every step of the process. No guessing on how to prepare, the picture is right in front of you! From Apple Brown Betty to Raspberry and Passion Fruit Swirls this book covers it! I consider this my sepcial event book, when ever a dessert is needed that is a bit over the top, I know I will find the perfect receipe here! This makes an excellent gift book as it is big and impressive!

My children and I have read this book together several times. The language is easy to read aloud, evocative and lyrical. The pictures are as compelling as the text.

From the author of John Brown's Body, Stephen Vincent Bene't, with the help of Rosemary Bene't have compiled a beautiful book of poetry. All of the poems are about Famous americans. Before each poem in the book is the year the American was born and the year the american died. Truly great poems about Americans like Christopher Columbus, Nancy Hanks, and poor James Buchanan. He didn't know what to do! I understan that this book is no longer made in hardcover, just papercover, I hope the publisher will always have it available, as I would like to purchase a copy for my librarian.

Brand new, year 2002 volume dedicated to these series collectibles. It contains 176 pages, filled with more than 325 excellent full color photos. Prices are 2002. There's sufficient text to answer many collector questions. Major chapters include: pricing, intro, publishers, identifying first editions, glossary, abbreviations, resources, and more. Descriptions are complete. This is an exciting collectible, that brings back many childhood memories for collectors. A very nice collector's reference.

I found this book a fascinating look at the history of the corset and bra. As well as being a costume journal though, the book also covers the history of breasts in fashion, in detailing the undergarments which were designed and built to create the appropriate cleavage effect, dictated by what was fashionable at any given time.

From Marisa D'Vari, author of "Script Magic" and several other books. This is the best book on intuition I've read and underscores my personal view that everyone has the capacity to tap into their intuition to achieve success in life. Space won't allow me to point out all the book's benefits, but if nothing else, read the chapter on synchronicity on page 37 and use your intuition to tap into key chapters after that. Rosemary Guiley's Breakthrough Intuition is by far the best...END

In a time when interdisciplinary theory has too often been content merely to splice together the tag ends of opposed psychoanalytic ideas, Rosemary Gordon emerges as a true builder of psychological bridges. The garce of her thinking offers the traveller not only safe passage between Freud and Jung and Winnicott and Klein, but also stunningly beautiful views of the still untrammeled depths of human experience that stretch between and below what these great pioneers and their followers have so far managed to develop. John E. Beebe

It is a pleasure and an honour to have been asked to write some introductory remarks to this highly important work by Rosemary Gordon, fittingly entitled "Bridges". I would venture to say that, like myself, the reader of this volume soon will come to appreciate the author's deep concern and special skill in building bridges - bridges in a great many directions. From the Foreword by Mario Jacoby

I have read the chapters of this book, which have been sent me and I am very impressed by Rosemary Gordon's approach to the topic. She has developed and expanded the idea of bridging as a way of perceiving and understanding Clinical, Social and Mythological material.

The book contains many useful ways of understanding various clinical and conceptual issues and problems, so that psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychologists, trained in other orientations, could find that they obtain not only illumination for their own approach, but also a deeper appreciation of the contributions of the Analytical Psychologists to the understanding of mental pain and mental phenomena.

In fact, Rosemary Gordon's book "Bridges - Metaphors for Psychic Processes" is itself a "Bridge", not only between ideas, conceps and clinical problems encountered by those working with mentally ill patients, but also between herself and other colleagues in the related disciplines of Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy and the Natural sceinces, any of whom could have their ways of thinking enriched by reading this book. Pearl King

Brother Dusty Feet is a for slightly younger readers than most of Rosemary Sutcliff's, but I would count it among the best. It has a glowing quality; every scene standing out sharply. It has also the joyous touch which characterises many of many of Sutcliff's books; that extra piece of magic and mystery which makes it linger in the mind. A jewel of a book.