Among the brave and wise rabbis in these stories come demons, ghosts, fools and even the clever Hershel of Ostropol, who tricked the Demon King in another Kimmel Chanukah story.

But our son especially loves the story for the fourth night. The Lord tells King Solomon the dimensions for the Temple he must build and what materials to use. But King Solomon may not use iron, "for iron is a metal of war." As to how, without iron, builders can hew timbers for the ceiling and split stones for the walls, the Lord remains silent.

Then Nathan the prophet tells King Solomon of the wondrous creature called the Shamir, fashioned by God from beams of light. Although no bigger than a barleycorn, it has the power to split massive stones.

Solomon calls for an army captain to confront Ashmodai, king of the demons, who has the Shamir. Benayahu ben Yehoyada volunteer, and took with a spade, a fleece, a jar of Greek wine, an iron chain with a holy charm carved on each link, King Solomon's magic signet ring--and the wise King's plan.

He came to a mountain, at whose foot the winged demon king Ashmodai landed. Benayahu dug a hole beneath the cistern where the great demon king drank, letting all the water run out. The ring gave him strength to move the cistern's stone cover. Then he hid.

Ashmodai returned and drank from the well. It was wine, which soon made him dance, and then sleep. Benayahu bound the sleeping demon king, who insisted on telling the secret location of the Shamir only to Solomon himself. In court, the demon confessed that the Lord had taken the Shamir away.

Solomon called the birds and asked if any of them had seen the Shamir. An albatross had--on a rock in the middle of the ocean. Benayahu straddles the great bird, and flies off to retrieve the Shamir, returning with it to Jerusalem. "And so Solomon built the Temple, without iron tools of any kind." The Shamir was then returned to its rock in the northern sea--until the Messiah comes, and a new Temple rises in Jerusalem.

Each of the seven other tales is as brave and wise as this one. Alyssa A. Lappen

I found this book at my childs school library and found it to be a wonderful complement to our nightly Hanukkah celebration. Every night I've read a new story and we've talked about what each story means. I think its a great book, full of meaningful stories.

A very worthy collection of short stories that will appeal to the entire family. The stories are sometimes clever, sometimes humorous, but always enjoyable. This is a book that can be read silently alone, or out loud to others. The author also includes a very touching story concerning his collection of the stories in this book.

I absolutely loved the story line in this book! A Princess is given 3 Princes to choose from to marry. She has a difficult time deciding and in the end chooses the best one. A very fun find for children, and a valuable lesson is learned as well. Definitely an enjoyable book. Great for Multicultural classrooms or integrating Arab culture into the room!

As an ESL teacher, I'm always looking for books to share as a read aloud to honor my students' native cultures. Not only is this a noteworthy book, but the illustrations are magnificent. My students from the Middle East always enjoy the sharing of this story with their new friends. I applaud the princess in this tale for her choice of a prince. Her wisdom is extraordinary; she provides a worthwhile lesson for all students.

The plot will be familiar to anyone who has seen the old silent movie "Thief of Bagdad." This is a Middle Eastern tale of three princes who search the world for rare treasures in order to win the hand of a princess. Will true love triumph? Wonderful telling of a classic story.

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 have enjoyed many of Mrya Livingston poems, this one A Circle of Seasons takes you on a wondrous journey into the changing of the seasons throug a thirteen stanza poem. It gave me new insight to the seasons. A must read for any peotry lover. I highly recommend all her books, especially this one and Sky Songs.

This book really helped me with a project I was doing forHistory it had a lot of information including dates and accurateinformation. I loved reading it and I learned a lot to futher my reaseach on Ellis Island. None of the parts were boring and is wasn't hard to read ( I'm a seventh grader)it worked perfectly with what I was doing! I think if anyone wanted a good book on Ellis Island this is it!

I wish I had this book before we studied the Mayas in my sixth grade social studies class. This is better than any book I've seen because it has great color pictures of the gods, a map of the Mayan kingdom, and it explains about the gods in simple, easy to understand English. It also has a pronunciation guide and a guide to Mayan numbers. It's a great reference book for elementary and middle school kids studying the Mayans.

Leonard Everett Fisher has created such a beautiful set of portraits of this ancient and mysterious culture. My elementary students laughed in delight of the rhythmical musings of the great emperor and were able to remain focused during the entire story. The story as written by Mr. Fisher lent itself to further discussions about the implications of building the Great Wall, including a cost-benefit analysis of the labor lost in constructing such a feat of wonder! I highly recommend this book to anyone for its illustrous drawings and the language chosen to convey this important part of human history.

Johannes Gutenberg, possibly the most important man inhistory.Invented the printing press, changed my life. If he werealive today, I would say thank you. Thank you for changing mylife. Myself and my fellow worshippers of you would like to thank you for looking out over us. This book was excellent.

i am thankful to the individual who had the insight to produce this music on the cd format. as a boy in the sixties, in the middle of motown, james brown, beatles etc. i heard this enchanting music that took me to another place, away from the turbulence of the mid sixties. i always thought of this album as a sound track waiting for a movie. particularly the songs "pradizer adeu" and "so many stars" are my favorites from a wonderful line up. even though only 9 or 10 when this album was released, i knew after hearing it that me, this album, and women had a future roundevous, as the mood of this recording is a great facilitator of romance. thank you! fred barnes.

Richard Armour's simple, entertaining book (with memorable illusrations by Leonard Everett Fisher) is a great introduction to American political history -- fun for the newcomer and the expert alike. Even many years later, whenever the name of an obscure President is mentioned, one of Mr. Armour's quotes is likely to pop to mind (such as, regarding Franklin Pierce, "the most that most remember, is that he was handsome," or of Eisenhower, "let Ike but grin that boyish grin, and those at outs with him were in," and dozens more). I've always wanted to thank Armour and Fisher for such a delightful book, and it's great this review gives me a chance to do so. Thanks guys!