It is a must for kindergarden and first grade teachers. Kids love it

this is a wonderful children's book for all ages written by a wonderful professor

I thought this book was extremely well written.It confused me towards the middle, but I enjoyed it very much. This is one of my favorites, worth reading.

I hope Effie's House is discovered someday. I hope some listless screenwriter or ambivalent publisher runs across this novel, this secret masterpiece, and places it upon the pedestal which it so dearly deserves. He will have to look past the novel's misclassification as a juevenile novel, for it is as much a juevenile novel as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The comparison is poignant, for what we in Effie's House is the response to the reflexive values of the 20th century and their embodiment in Huck Finn. Effie's story begins with a flight, but not from a father who keeps her under lock and key, but with a father everyone thought had died in Vietnam. They run not for freedom from Miss Watson's stern household, but to Michigan, Effie's childhood home. Her story is an epistle, told under layers of self-conscious post-modernism and in-your-face truth telling, but at heart Effie is a victim of a selfish age, and of a society of muted Huck Finns, of a libertine step-father whose sexual mores leave scars he shockingly cannot perceive and a narcisistic mother whose career and habitual re-marriage leaves her and daughter packing every few yearrs. Effie's flight is the ultimate counter-flight, a grasp to find the home she so needs, but a home a self-absorped society has decided is irrelevant. Rather like Don Giovanni's Commendatore, she returns from the grave to remind us, we Dons, of the victims we forget in our never-ending search for desire and total moral individuation. She is our new Huck Finn, painfully yet lovingly waiting to inaggurate, as Twain once did, a new age.

A small, concise work detailing the history of these two companies but concentrating on the locomotives they produced. Generally excellent in technical accuracy. Technical details on each locomotive with lots of photos, mostly black & white. Complete listing of every locomotive produced with date, purchaser and road number.

I bought this book as a gift for my flower girl, who had never been to Idaho and was making her first trip. I read it and liked it, and there aren't many books set in Idaho for kids her age. She was absolutely absorbed--read it at the rehearsal, then at the rehearsal dinner, and there are even pictures of her with it in the pew at the wedding! Clearly it captures the attention.
I think the book has three terrific strengths. First, unlike many kids books that attempt to beat kids over the head with the message of tolerance (and become boring doing it), this book deals with class tensions, gender differences, difficulties with blended families, etc. without any preaching or beating you over the head. This is the best of showing, instead of telling, and it gives a great message to kids: why you shouldn't tease those who are different, etc.
Second, the narrrator's voice is convincing. We can believe that this is a boy telling the story, and his observations are consistent with his age and his understanding of the events around him.
Finally, the book has an unusual setting and therefore gets the attention of kids. Very few children have ever been to a place like Eden, Idaho, which is convincingly portrayed here. Those who have been will recognize it, and many of those who haven't will be interested just by so different a world.

The Garden of Eden Motel...

This is a well-written, well-plotted book about an almost-adolescent boy and his new step-father in the 1950s...

The author--Morse Hamilton--nails it dead-on just how it was to be a kid during the S-L-O-W, innocent, and unenlightened Eisenhower era.

He also put the words down exactly right about what it's like to have a new step-father, what it's like to be a new step-father, and what it's like to suddenly meet the very first girl who makes your stomach feel all funny...

I suppose that some folk with 1990s style short attention spans might the piece slow going, but he's talking about a different time, and a different place.

The dialogue rings true, really true.

So do the characters.

I don't have time or patience with most of the books written for children, or worse, for "Youth Ages 12 & Up". They're usually pretty silly stuff, and nowadays, they always seem to have some sort of MESSAGE that's kinda like the Moment Of Crap on TV, where the sit com writers let you know that AIDS is a "serious problem", or that one shouldn't be hateful, or sexist, or prejudiced.

Thanks so much for tellin' me!

There's none of that heavy-handed moralizing in The Garden of Eden Motel. It's old-fashioned good story telling, the kind that seems to have gone out of style, unfortunately...

Confession: Morse Hamilton--and I went to junior high school together. As I write this, an image from the sandlots has just flashed before me.

We were playing in a championship game, and the real Jimmy Beard (not the one mentioned once or twice in the book) fielded a hard-hit ground ball at shortstop and flipped it to me at second.

I caught the ball, stepped on the bag, pivoted, and then made THE PERFECT THROW to Morse at first, which should have gotten us out of the ball game. I could almost feel my fingers wrapping themselves around the trophy.

I can still see the ball going into his glove.

And now I see it popping out and dribbling behind him.

"Yah booted it, More-Ass," I grumbled to myself later. "And we lost the game, YA JERK!"

I didn't forgive him for three weeks, by which time he was out with his father in Idaho, which provides the back drop for this book.

Now, I wouldn't say the Garden of Eden Motel was a good book if it wasn't, especially since Morse committed the error that cost us the championship forty-something years ago.

But, believe me, he didn't muff this story. The piece is right on, and I'm glad he was able to finish it before he died.

So, sail on, old friend. Sail on.

This book started out very good, but I didn't like the end. I never did understand what "yellow blue bus" meant. Tim was too sweet to me. Phoebe should have gotten in trouble, but he covered for her. I wouldn't recommend it that much.

This was such an amazing book with life & character...It was so dramatic & delt with the feelings that most teenagers go through. I hope many decided to read this book & if you do you will not regret it!

this is an excellent book about life as a teenager in adifficult situation, about falling in love and finding out that thereare people out there that have a heart of stone and can't love you back. It's also about moving on and not crying because it's over but being glad that it happened... and about your first love. my heart goes out to Tim and at times hits all too close to home. This book may not be the same genre as "A Catcher in the Rye"... but that is only because it's in a league of it's own.

I loved this book when i came across it last summer. Mosly because it related to my own experince as a little girl -I put my little sister for sale! The story is interesting, funny and offers a valuable understanding at the end. It is easy to follow and suitable for young readers.

I loved this books when i came across it somewhere last summer. Mosly because it related to my own experince as a little girl -I put my little sister for sale! It is interesting, funny and offers a valuable understanding at the end -you learn to appreciate your little sister.