Goggle-eyes is a great book if your having problems with your life.It is not only a book but it tells you a story that is so true sometimes.I think it's great and i love the writer Anne Fine!

This book is a good read and extremely well written.Its about a relationship between a middle aged man with hideous facial scars and one of his young students.It makes you question what is beauty,what is the value of it.Style reminds me of Alisdair Gray.

This is a story about 4 sisters who have always done everything together, even after marrying and having their own families, it seems that nothing can come between them. That is until a rumor about youngest sister Liddy's fiance surfaces. Stella, Heather and Bridie decide she needs to know about the rumor that Liddy's future husband may be a child abuser, and that's where things begin to come undone. As a social worker, Bridie can't take the chance that he may harm her neice and nephew, and is hurt when Liddy refuses to believe the gossip and won't speak to Bridie anymore, but seems to not blame the other two sisters. This is the first time that Bridie has not had her sisters around her and it ends up bringing her and her husband Dennis closer than they have ever been. Bridie is furious with the 3 sisters and vows that she will never speak to them again when she isn't invited to Liddy's wedding. I got mad right along with her and didn't blame her a bit for trying to dig up a little bit of revenge. Bridie finds out by accident that Dennis and Liddy had slept together years before and everyone knew it but didn't tell her. She comes up with some facts that are sure to put some fireworks into the upcoming nuptials! I was rooting for Bridie all the way, but in the end she gets so vindictive that she drives everyone away from her. A good story that captures the essence of siblings very well. I will be looking for more by Anne Fine in the future.

I thought Flour Babies by Anne Fine was o.kay. It wasn't the best book I have ever read.
The book is about a particular form 4c. It is set in a comprehensive school. The Flour Babies project lasted 21 days and it showed how Simon the main character deals with a real life situation of parenthood and how difficult it is to cope with a baby. By having to carry the sack of flour around with him all the time and not letting it out of his sight.

By Fiona (Vale of Ancholme technology Collage)

Too often we label and categorise people and in doing so limit people. This is what Anne Fine's book is about. Set in a school, it's about 3C, just naming it, sums up the mood. Mr Cartright, the class teacher, has become immune over time and whilst he has a fondness for 3C, he is like many teachers, slightly beat by the system. 3C don't have it over him, somehow he manages to keep one verbal step ahead, but it is a well-trodden game that is played year after year. The head teacher, boffin, or incurable optimist, has other ideas and for the annual science fair, 3C are assigned the Flour Babies. The plot focusses on Simon, who in persisting with the experiment, defies expectations. The Flour Babies is about labelling, expectations, development, love and resolution. It is written in the language of 3C and is extremely funny and bittersweet. I loved it.

FLOUR BABIES was a great book. I enjoyed reading it because it kept you wondering would happen next. The part I liked the best was how Simon kept finding out piece by piece of the song his father was singing when he left Simon and his mother. I also liked how you never knew what the kids doing the flour baby project would do with their flour babies next. In this book the author used great characterization. In my opinion, books with lots of characters in them are more exciting to read. Plus, when each character has a different point of view of things that is very interesting. For example the students doing the flour baby project all have different opinions about the flour babies. Most think that it is a horrible idea, and Simon thinks it is a great idea. Then there are the people who just don't know what to think. The last thing that I really liked was the whole point of the book. I learned so much on how hard it would be to be a parent when you are still in school. For example, when he has to go to soccer practice and his mom won't watch his flour baby for him. As you can see, this book has many good points. I really recommend that anyone who gets a chance to read this book does do this. I really enjoyed this book, and I hope everyone else will too!

I'm reading this book as the class book of the course Art & Culture. There are nice ideas and visions here, but the way they are putted together is very confusing. When she tries to explain what art is, all of a sudden she starts to explain what institutions are. The number of examples is poor. The categorisation of the lecture chapters don't make sense. If you want to read a real good book about this topic, read John Bergen's magnificent "Ways of Seeing". If you already have read that, there is no novelty in this book for you...

Mary Anne Staniszewski's "Believing is Seeing" is a clearly written, carefully illustrated, thought provoking overview of the meaning of "Art". Distilled from introductory lectures on contemporary art, culture and critical theory delivered at the Rhode Island School of Design more than a decade ago, "Believing is Seeing" provides a useful counterpoint to mainstream art history texts by challenging traditional, transhistorical views of aesthetic value.

Appropriately subtitled "Creating the Culture of Art", Staniszewski's book demonstrates that Art is something "that has a specific history and belongs to a particular era." What our culture generally calls "Art" is an invention of the past two hundred years. Thus, modern culture has appropriated the paintings, frescoes, sculptures, and artifacts of earlier times and cultures (where they had historically specific meanings) and labelled them "Art". Modern culture applies this label even though the original creators of these representations and objects would not have regarded their creations as Art in the way we commonly use the term.

The task of defining and identifying Art in contemporary Western society is largely a function of the institutional structures--the museums, galleries, auction houses, and publications--that create the culture of Art. In this way, Marcel Duchamp can mount a urinal on a pedestal and this plumbing fixture becomes "Art", acquires meaning and value, through validation by these institutional arbiters of the Art world. Rejecting essentialism, Staniszewski argues that aesthetic value and meaning are socially constructed, the products of a particular historical moment and culture. As individuals, we may not consider Duchamp's urinal anything more than that--a urinal--but that does not obviate the fact that cultural institutions have conferred (rightly or wrongly) some greater meaning (and value) on the object.

"Believing is Seeing" is not an important book; it is a book which, like its thesis, is the product of a particular historical moment and culture. It is, however, full of provocative and challenging ideas about how culture creates meaning and value. And for this reason alone, it is worth careful reading.

Mary Ann Staniszewski's "Believing is Seeing" is a GREAT book. It is articulately written with many reproductions and is used in many university and college level art courses across the country!! Navigating the unnecessarily murky waters of modern and contemporary art, this book is refreshing in its insightful directness about art, culture and value.

ok i didn't expect anything from this book and i didn't get anything from this book. The main character starts out with no friends and ends up with no friends. She's a little overboard with the I love books thing. I mean she prizes books over friends and well.....it's just not a good read. I suggest you don't pick it up and say it looks interesting cause its a waste of your time.

This book contains a series of essays on Paracas art on the following subjects:

-Paracas an ancient cultural tradition on the south coast Peru.
-Paracas: Discovery & Controversy
-A technical & Iconographic analysis of Carhua Painted textiles
-Stucture, Image & Abstraction: Paracas Necropolis headbands as system templates
-Paracas necropolis bundle 89: A description
-Physical & Chemical Analysis of Paracas Fibers
-Ecology & Society in embroidered images from the Paracas Necroplis

-Social & Political leadership in the Lower Ica Valley: Ocucaje Phases 8 & 9
-The Paracas problem: Archaelogical perspectives.

As you can see from the above contents list this book is aimed at specialists - and the language is dense in academic and thick with reference terms. The illustrations are meagre and all in Black and white.

While there is a lot of information in this book, as a person doing research in areas relating to some of these subjects I have found this book hard going. I'm sure to find some useful things but only after much digging and decoding of jargon.

So, if you are after a book with beautiful pictures of Paracas textiles - avoid this like the plague. If you are after archaeological research by people who have worked in the field and have finally been able to publish what they have found then this book is probably for you. I'd classify this as a reference work, not a general use book, especially for people new to the area this book would be difficult to use.

For 5-9 year old's, we can understand that this book would be quite exiting. We thought that this book was quite boring. the book is funny in some parts of the book near the end, but the rest of the book is slow and boring. Some parts are quite interesting and some parts are quite sad like near the end when disaster strikes!

This book was VERY VERY slow moving. It was hard to understand at some points.

At first i didnt want to read this book but for school I had to choose an author but I only knew Anne Fine. So I came on to this website and looked at her list of books and decided that the Granny Project sounded good. So I went to the library and got it out, I started to read it and really liked it and couldn't put it down. It's now the best book i've ever read! It is really good and deserves more than a 2 star rating!!

Fine, Anne.(1988).Alias Madame Doubtfire.Boston:Little Brown & Co.

It is sometimes said that all children of divorce secretly wish to have their families once again united under one roof. Christopher, Lydia and Natalie Hilliard were no exception. Their father, Daniel, is a nere do well sometime actor sometime nude model. Mother Miranda is a wealthy, successful but high strung and tense executive. The parents do a terrible job of keeping their caustic and hateful battles to themselves. Mom needs a babysitter. Dad needs a job. Enter Madame Doubtfire, alias daddy. In this work of realistic fiction the children are confused but wise, the parents are petty and hateful toward each other and inconsiderate of the children. This could be a funny, lighthearted book but it really isn't.

I have not read the book. I am actually looking for a book of Albert Namantjura's (this might be spelled wrong) paintings. He was a very popular Aboriginal artist back in the 1950's in Australia. I believe he used watercolor, but I am not certain. Can anyone advise me on where I can get a book of his paintings?

Eleanor