My 3 year old son loves the wonderfully expressive illustrations and fun storyline of this book. The drawings have a sense of depth and detail that make the fatherhood job reading the same story over and over to your child each night a pleasure rather than chore. I can only say this about a very few books in my sons collection including several of the Dr. Seuss and Where the Wild Things Are, good company indeed.

Highly Recommended.

As George Page pointed out in his New York Times review,most scientists fail when they try to write a popular account of the science they practice. Marc Hauser's book "Wild Minds" does not fail. It is not, unlike most books, filled with jargon. Nor is it condescending. It is a non-technical, but intelligent treatment of an important problem: what animals think and how they think. In the first part of the book, Hauser shows that all animals have brains with three distinctive capacities or what he calls "tools". these are the capacity to recognize objects, count how many there are, and navigate through space. In part two he describes several specialized tools that only some animals have. Specifically, the ability to learn from others,recognize themselves(i.e., a sense of self), and deceive others. In part three, he takes these tools explores how they play a role in systems of communication and possibly, developing a moral society. The examples are well chosen, and vivid. This is a book of passion, and a more than welcome addition to the field.

Wild minds is an accessible book for anyone. The main point of the book is to explore animal minds not by anthropomorphizing our furry friends, but rather thinking critically about what goes on inside their heads. Hauser reviews a wealth of different areas of animal cogntion and points out the similarities and differences between species. One excellent point made by Hauser is that each species is endowed with its own mental tool kit. Therefore, creating a hierarchy based on "intelligence" may not be entirely correct. We must recognize each species as the product of its own unique evolutionary history. I recommend this book to anyone curious about what other animals think.

This book, written by a scientist, is readily accessible to the general public. What Hauser has done for the field of animal cognition, Steven Pinker has done for the field of human cognition. Hauser brings to this problem the great advantage of having studied animals in the wild and in the lab. However, rather than dismiss anecdotes, he embraces them, and then argues that we should take such observations as starting points for further investigation. His theory about animal minds, and in particular, the idea that all animals are equipped with a toolkit for survival, is fascinating, and should have profound implications for how we think about both human animal thought. I particularly liked how he leads the reader down a path of discovery without being condescending or pedantic.

DeWan, Ted. (2002). Baby Gets the Zapper. New York: Doubleday Book for Young Readers. 32 pages. Fiction, Easy. Ages-3-5

In Baby Gets the Zapper, magical fun appears all over the house. The baby zaps his toys into a musical party. Then zaps a toy airplane into one he can ride in with is bedtime buddy, bunny as his copilot. They take a ride to the moon, which is " zapped" into a cookie. Then baby and bunny take a tumble down in to the loving arms of mom who proceeds to zap the baby asleep. (Don't we wish?). The pictures consist of bright colors and simple shapes. The baby is wearing his pj's and has bright red hair, who could resist? The zapper a friendly fact that even winks at the end.

My 2 1/2 yr old loves this book. We had checked it out at the library and when I returned it she was still asking me for it so I had to buy it. She now takes the remote for the television and pretends she is zapping me. She will tell me what she has zapped me into which will be things like a dog or cat. She never gets tired of reading this book and every time I read it it's as if it is the first time I am reading it to her. I highly reccomend this book for anyone with a toddler that loves to read.

I decide to buy this book because my 3-year-old son keeps borrowing this book from library. It illustrates dinosaurs' body structure in details.

Ted Dewan brings to life a new version of the classic tale of a sorcerer's apprentice that is bedeviled by his own magic. Dewan's "sorcerer" and "apprentice" are not the typical magic conjuring wizard and his eager student. Instead the are represented as an inventor and a robot. The illustrations are vibrant, captivating, and full of detail. This book instantly became a favorite as my 4 year old eagerly requested to have the story read again as soon as we reached the end of this imaginative representation of "The Socerer's Apprentice".

Ted Dewan's Top Secret retools an old childhood fantasy with an engaging tale of inventiveness and courage. The book recounts a mission of the Night Brigade, a team of miniature adventurers whose purpose - once revealed - will bring a gasp of delighted recognition. Told from the perspective of the "new kid" who must earn the respect of the Brigade veterans, the story provides pleasant surprises with every turn of the page. By the end of the brief tale, the rookie has saved the day with his boldness and quick thinking. Without a hint of didacticism, Top Secret can help encourage young readers to overcome fear of new situations.

A low word count per page makes this book most approriate for preschoolers and beginning readers. Dewan's lushly painted art brings to life the story's scenes with rich detail and vivid nocturnal colors. The illustrations transform the interior of a typical home into a sweeping backdrop for high adventure. Particularly compelling for my son and me was the technology employed by the Night Brigade, Tinkertoy-type building blocks which they continually reassemble into the various tools and vehicles needed to complete the mission. Kids who are impressed by gadgetry and invention will love how the Brigade operates.

Imaginative and exicting, Top Secret entertains while providing kids a model for creativity and bravery.

Burke and Ornstein provide a fascinating historical narrative, but never seem to really justify their implicit claim that roads not taken due to technological advance and correlated reliance on linear rationality might have been preferable. Their focus on unforseen consequences of technologies coupled with a critique of political technocracy in varied forms seems a good framework for understanding our present global woes(though not at all a new approach--refer to any of John Dewey's writings on culture from the 20s and 30s). Their contrasting of natural and unnatural modes of human behavior and cognition, though, seem philosophically untenable(the natural being our Paleolithic hard-wiring, the unnatural any cultural addition), as do their prescriptions for solving our ecological/political problems. They advocate direct democracy in small communities with access to excellent education, health, and new arational information systems, a formula almost identical to the old Greek axemaker notion of the Polis(except arational as opposed to hyper-rational). Why the direct democracy of these hypothetical communities would be more accepting of other communities, more willing to recognize the need to share/conserve resources and think in global/holistic ways, more intelligent in their recognition of the deleterious potential effects of new technologies is not clear. "Expert" knowledges have clearly brought horrible consequences in the past few centuries, but the Cultural Revolution brought more tragedy than the AMA ever has. Hegel, axemaker icon though he was, wrote that the Owl of Minerva only spreads her wings at dusk, by which he meant that as mere humans we are always condemned to only understand history retroactively, if at all. We can, of course, do a better job of evaluating technologies in more democratic ways with more of an eye to a sustainable future. Insofar as Burke and Ornstein point to this path, I applaud them.

Technology began as soon as humans determined to use tools. Burke and Ornstein call these people the axemakers. The axemakers' talents offered us a bargain, and we took it, despite its multifarious effects. "In our ancient past, the all-powerful axemaker talent for performing the precise, sequential process that shaped axes would later give rise to the precise, sequential thought that would eventually generate language and logic and rules, which would formalize and discipline thinking itself" (p. xii). Accordingly, with every invention and modification of technology, humans learned to adapt to the effects of that change. The authors of this book argue that for the first time in human progress, "we can consciously take our development in our own hands and use it to generate talents that will suit the world of tomorrow"

Easy reading--interesting -- consistent message. The authors may bend the historical discussions to maintain the metaphor, and how well its double edge works. Language, a primary gift, diminished the elders' responsibility to teach, but offered the opportunity to learn from many sources, past and present. For today's leaders, a warning remains clear: Evaluate what is new and its consequences before rushing to embrace it. The Axemaker continues to hone a double edge of hope and hurt. Burke and Ornstein call upon us to take care -- to avoid the "cut and control" concepts that separate people, ideas, scientific thought, emotional well-being, and society. Technology can work for us if we seek the wholeness of life.

If you are ready to pay attention, and I mean really pay attention, The Axemaker's Gift will alter your perception of the world --- specifically humankind's relationship to the natural world --- forever. In the relatively few pages of this book, James Burke and Robert Ornstein take us on a journey from humankind's beginning to present day, maintaining all along the way their metaphor of the double-edged axe (Every advance has a price).

Books like The Axemaker's Gift (New World, New Mind by Ornstein and Paul Erlich is another) go beyond interesting reading. This material is important. We need to read it; we need to think carefully about it; and we need to act on the sharp (pun intended) insights provided.

The subject matter is essential, the point of view realistic, even if a little dark, and the authors make The Axemaker's Gift an interesting and enjoyable read. As a non-fiction author, I am always impressed with the ability to make serious matters fun, without losing the message.

My recommendation: read it, enjoy it, learn from it.