In this true tale of a tremendous cheddar, Candace Fleming asks: "What weighs 1,234 pounds, stands four feet high, and is made from the milk of nine hundred and thirty-four cows?"

"Why, a giant cheese of course!"

When President Thomas Jefferson was serving Norton cheese at the White House, Elder John Leland suggested that everyone could help make a whopping big cheddar, a cheese so large that President Jefferson would be serving Cheshire cheese at the White House for years and years!

After gathering all the milk and making the cheese curds, they had to press the curds in an apple press. Finally they haul the cheese in a wagon to ripen in Elder John's barn. To get the cheese to President Jefferson's New Year's Day party, they have to put it on a sleigh and take it to Hudson, New York. Finally it sails down the Hudson River and is then carted on a sleigh to Washington.

Apparently, the cheese was served for years and someone said it lasted until 1805.

Just by the way, cheddar curds can't be beat. Give me the curds
instead of the pressed cheese any day!

Cute story for young cheese lovers.

If you love cheese, look for Paula Lambert's Cheese Lover's Cookbook & Guide. She explains how cheese is made and even includes recipes.

I have read this book to my two grandsons (Brooks nearly 4 and Pierce nearly 3 yrs old) and their interest and response to this book has been fun and surprising. The story interests them and the art illustrates the story very well. They enjoy finding the characters from the story in the associated pictures. Phineas Dobbs' grumbling has become an inside family joke. The boys go around the house often repeating his comment, "I told you, it can't be done!" while placing their arms across their chest.

The book has provoked them to ask many questions which has proved to be a good teaching opportunity as well.

They read everytime before naptime and bedtime and they have insisted that this book be included each time for about three weeks now. I highly recommend this book for reading to children 3 years old and up.

After reading this book aloud to my second grade class, I served up different kinds of cheese! The kids loved it (since their mouths were watering for cheese after listening and seeing Schindler's tasty looking illustrations!).An outstanding slice of obscure history! Editor Melanie Kroupa is an expert at delivering great, obscure stories from history (see STEAMBOAT by Judith Heide Gilliland).Outstanding storytelling!

Candace Fleming's prose sings, and you cannot help but be transported to another place by Gisele Potter's charming illustrations.

The opening lines of this book hooked me: "Ah, Venice. The Piazza San Marco. The Grand Canal. St. Mark's Cathedral." This is the way to inspire a child to look outside his neighborhood! Gabriella's Song is a wonderful, richly textured book about how music is inspired and passed from person to person. My 3-year old, a music lover, enjoyed this book on the first read!

Fleming has found a great little piece of history about Jefferson and Franklin. A great story about writing. Highly recommended! Look for Fleming's story BIG CHEESE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE by DK Ink!

Until I found this book listed by Amazon.com, I never realized women *were* lighthouse keepers. Clifford and Clifford's book will banish forever the image of the lighthouse keeper as crusty old batchelor, and will bring a renewed sense of awareness of the many accomplishments of which women are capable. The careful research done by the authors brings out a rarely publicized image of the women who tended the big lights, carefully pollishing the reflectors and the glass, keeping the lighthouses clean and functional, welcoming and educating visitors and doing their part - often heroically, to keep the vital paths of sea and lake open and safer by running these lights (often operating more than one beacon), running foghorns(either through mechanical devices or by hand), even saving lives. Through each vignette, a larger and more complete image emerges of the lives of the women who tended lighthouses, often while caring for invalid fathers and husbands, as well as bearing and raising children in these often-isolated locations. I must admit, I wish there had been more material on the west coast of America, and hope there might be a sequal. The photographs and sidebars added substance to this excellent publication. This will be a worthwhile addition to any library, especially if the reader enjoys American history and the role of women in American culture.

Brian Karas's Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! is an exciting and cute story about three bunnies and a first time gardener. The menacing trio are a curious bunch of cottontails just looking for food. Mr. McGreely (a first time gardener) has different plans! Mr. McGreely is determined to get those veggies into the pan and on to the plate. But, too bad for Mr. McGreely. Those fluff balls get past his fence, wooden wall, moat, and his huge cement castle equipped with barbed wire, a satellite dish, and a drawbridge. This hilarious book is filled with twists and turns, bunnies and vegetables, and one very upset gardener.

Both my 1 1/2 year old and 4 year old love this book. The love to yell "muncha, muncha, muncha" as the bunnies raid Mr. McGreeley's garden. We laugh as each method he tries becomes more elaborate. The easy words and repetition makes this fun for toddlers too.

This book is wonderful--even my 2 1/2 year old loves it. He follows the location of the bunnies, names all of the vegetables, and tracks how determined Mr. McGreely gets with each page. Chanting "muncha, muncha, muncha!" is truly contagious, and having the suprise sharing of the vegetable crop is a nice end to the book. The illustrations are amusing. This is definitely a good one to purchase for your child's library.

Database design has taken so many leaps since this book was written, but the concepts you'll find in this book are still very sound. As a beginning data modeler you would gain a lot from these pages.

The core information in this book is as valid as it has ever been, even if it's 10 years old. The rules are really very simple, but are almost never followed in practice. This book served as the reference for my first really large database design project, and at its conclusion, we had the most stable, thoroughly documented, and good performing database my company had ever produced. It wasn't magic, it was just following the steps methodically, especially the emphasis on capturing business rules. It's just the best.

I adopted this as the text for graduate MIS courses in database design/logical data modeling almost 10 years ago. Still the best working reference on relational databases from logical design through physical issues on indexes, tuning, etc. The only reference book I recommend to anyone needing to understand relational database design. M.C. Kettelhut, Ph.D.

In When Agnes Caws, you can learn about different birds you never heard of (like the Pink headed Duck) before and how they sound. I would call this book a great one.

My daughter chose this book for the beautiful pictures, but we found a fun and enriching story. The mother/daughter teamwork is a rewarding part of the story.

My daughter and I read this book nearly every night. It's a wonderful story about a mom and her daughter, bird lovers both, a story about exploration, courage, and doing what's right because it's the right thing to do. The illustrations are captivating. And dust off your vocal cords, because you'll be singing like a bird before you turn the last page.

This is a rhyming book, a counting book, and rhythmic story that will have you practically singing and clapping as you read it! I will love reading this aloud with classes. The illustrations are delightful cartoons that amplify the story. What fun!