These are thoughtful, searching poems. They don't strain for effects and so are all the more moving when, again and again, they touch on the emotion being contemplated by their subjects. The emotion is often love, and Judith Parker has much to tell us about how painful and how necessary this is to us through the words of her characters.

Equally impressive is her command of her medium. Subtle rhythms preserve the sense of a human voice speaking each poem, yet ensure that each word packs its full weight of meaning on the page. Judith Parker's masterly management of her verse, and her discriminating deployment of language, ensure that these poems are ones which anyone can savour.

"Stone Pillars" by Judith K. Parker is a book of poetry about the first seasons of the television show, "Xena: Warrior Princess." The poems here focus, as the show did in its early years, on the multi-layered, complex relationship between the lead characters. But you don't need to have ever seen those shows to understand this book. Parker's verse is always accessible - inhabited by three-dimensional people whose emotional lives we not only understand but care about. Her imagery is strong and her wit is subtle.

Writing poetry about cultural work in another medium places Parker's book in the tradition of "Pictures from Brueghel," William Carlos Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning book from the early sixties.

Judith has given me a book of some of my favourite poetry. She weaves her magic with her words and I would love to read more from Judith.

This book has helped our fifth grade be more creative in all of the curriculum areas. Math, Social Studies, and Science are perfect for her creative graphic organizers which give the students a new perspective on their own work. We have also used her ideas with our writing program, and with our literature programs.

This is an easy to understand and even easier to implement guide for study skills instruction at the elementary level. The strategies presented can be used in all curriculum areas and are easily adapted to the specific instructional goals of individual teachers. Students at all grade levels enjoy working with these study skills. Ideas like "The Sum-It-Up" and "Filming the Idea" are easily introduced to children at even the kindergarten level. The ideas in this book provide excellent support for students as they organize their thinking. The formats are particularly useful in preparation for the 4th grade ELA and Math tests. I look forward to additional suggestions from this author.

Judy Dodge's Study Skills Strategies are very flexible and can be adapted to any grade level. That's what makes them so GREAT! I was lucky enough to attend several of Ms. Dodge's Study Skills Workshops several years ago, and I've been teaching with her strategies ever since. In fact, the administrators in my district were so impressed with her ideas and strategies that every K through 5 teacher in my school has been using them. There is no better preparation for the English Language Arts Assessment than this! Once you've used this book and the ideas in it, you'll never teach the same way again!More importantly, the students will be more organized and focused that ever before. Thank you, Judy Dodge, for giving all teachers a workable and enjoyable way to teach study skills through the grades. We need more!

'Tales For The Midnight Hour' is a book of 17 scary stories, aimed at children but can be read by any age. I originally read the book after borrowing it from a library here in England, but a few years later, I had trouble finding it. (It was an American import). None of our shops had it and the library had got rid of it. I ordered an import of it from a book store, and received it a few weeks later (at this time I wasn't aware of Amazon).
The book is still as good, I'm 16 now. The stories are very eerie and well worth a read, especially 'The Furry Collar', 'The Black Velvet Ribbon' and 'The Attic Door'.
Buy the book - you won't be disappointed.
For your information, there were some follow-ups to the book:
More Tales For the Midnight Hour, Even More Tales for the Midnight Hour and Still More tales for the Midnight Hour.

I first bought this book at a book fair when I was in elementary school. I read it constantly, and loved it!! Now that I have my own child, I bought another copy for him, and he absolutely adores it! He loves to read it, and especially have it read to him! GREAT, GREAT BOOK!!! Especially on those dark, stormy nights!!

I read this book first when I was in like 4th grade. I'm now 27. I have 2 copies of it. I read the stories all the time. My finance has a brother who is 11 and he had a sleepover. I went there and read it to them. They were scared, but at the same time were laughing at the funny stories as well. It is such a great book. The Furry Collar and The Black Velvet Ribbon are my two favorites. All of the stories are great however. A Free Place to Sleep was a little silly, but that is what is so fun about this book. Anyone who finds it is a lucky person... I want to get the other two parts to this book, Still More Tales for the Midnight Hour and Even More Tales for the Midnight Hour. Good Luck reading!

My art teacher at the University of North Texas, read this book to our class as closure before our final. That was the first time that I have heard about this book and the book made me realize that many students do get lost through the cracks. This book is good for anyone going into education.

Through The Cracks is the most powerful book I have encountered in my 25 years in education. It is in storybook format but its greatest impact will be when this book is shared with educators, parents, and communities who desire to see education become what it is meant to be - active, involved, exciting, and fun. I have read this book aloud to hundreds of educators in college classrooms and workshop presentations. The response is overwhelming every time.

I found this book to be very enlightening to both educators and parents. It helps remind us about the importance of integrating curriculum in schools and certainly to include the arts in that integration. I was pleased to see that it did address special needs children as well as children who simply don't fit the mold of a traditional lecture approach to teaching. It is especially unique in that the information is presented in a children's book format.

It took me nearly twelve years to locate a hardbound copy of this book, and was well worth it. I remember this book vividly from my childhood. My mother read it to my sister and I on rainy days. It is the story of a girl named Sophie who is visited by a hungry tiger with a voracious appetite for tea and biscuits. He ends up eating everything in the cupboards to satisfy his appetite.

It is a sweet story that is easy to follow and read along with your mom, or if you are like me, read all by yourself now that you are an adult. It made me not only want to have a pet tiger, but it made me want to travel to Europe, where the book is set. Sadly, I still do not have a pet tiger, but I have traveled to Europe!

If you are lucky enough to find it in stock - snatch it up quick - they go really fast!

I remember this book from when I was a kid. I recently purchased it for my own three children and they all love it. Highly recommended for ages 2-7.

My nephew in the U.K. had this book and my son loved it. We had to buy him his own copy.
It is a story about a tiger who drops by for tea and end up eating everything in the house. He even drinks daddy's beer.
The book is out of print here but is still in print in the U.K. It is available at amazon.co.uk.

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS BOOK! i am a high school art teacher looking for a starting point on how to revamp my graphic design class. Although this book is college level and the illustrations by the students are amazing, i use the exercises to get my students to really challenge themselves and get their creative juices flowing. I especially like the layout of how the author gives the problem on one page, and then shows how each student chose to solve the problem on the following pages. Every exercise in this book is challenging, creative, and most important, fun to do. i tried them myself. it was interesting to see the results from each student and how different they were. i wish i had problems like this when i was a graphic design major in college. i highly recommend this book if you are an educator looking for great visual problem solving projects.

I was looking for a basic tutorial on graphic design, and this isn't it. However, it has many lessons on how to think "out of the box" regarding graphic design and layout. I'm a software engineer looking to improve my web layout and icons/logos used in my software. This book forces me to think in new ways, so I'm glad that I got it.

I am launching a high school commercial art program in the fall of 2000 and, while doing research, stumbled upon "Visual Literacy." It stopped me dead in my tracks; the quest for a concise source of design principals, assignments, and assessments was over. I kept telling myself that it was too good to be true, you simply cannot find a resource that is so complete, comprehensible, and engaging. I chalked it up as a fluke and proceeded to continue my research. To resume the search was a waste of time, Visual Literacy was the total package. Two thumbs way up.

In a way this wonderful book reminds me of The Mists of Avalon. It is more fantasy novel than historical novel and seen through the eyes of a heroine rather than a hero. What are the forbidden secrets of the priestesshood? How are young girls prepared and trained sexually and romantically to take their place in this paradise of a society. How does a woman thus trained rise to become an actual goddess to her people and deal with the cataclysmic natural disaster that threatens to doom them all? Will she have to give up her true love to save her people? You will be surprised how this dynamic and clever heroine Leeshandra contrives to keep her honor but "have it all."

Set in ancient Minoa, Voice Of The Goddess is an epic novel of two lovers who must struggle to protect their island home from invasion from Mainland Greece, and survive the catastrophic 1628 BC explosion of the nearby island of Santorini. Judith Hand has combined painstaking historical research with a flair for dramatic story telling that truly emerses the reader into a time of Bronze Age high culture and a sophisticated society of Mediterranean goddess-worship of Crete as it existed 1600 years before the birth of Christ. Voice Of The Goddess is Hand's debut as a novelist and we can only look urgently for her next venture into historic fiction.

Even if I were not somewhat obsessed with the 18th Dynasty and the Minoan world, Judith Hand's thoroughly researched and re-created sea battles - and the details of private life - would easily have made this one of my favorite reads of the past two years. This is an absolutely delightful first novel, by an archaeologist-author who really does have the potential to become literary heir to James Michener. y

With strength, honesty and her own brand of rough beauty, Judith Minty pours an intimate understanding of the earth, as well of what lies above and beneath it, into this artfully assembled volume linked with images of "the bear," both visual and linguistic.The poet confirms her role as a unique voice of the Midwest, speaking powerfully for all regions to hear.

In this collection, Minty adds 20 new poems to selections from three previous collections--Lake Songs and Other Fears, In the Presence of Mothers and Dancing the Fault--and from three chapbooks--12 Letters to My Daughters, Yellow Dog Journal and Counting the Lossses. The new and selected collection that emerges is a book to treasure, to read and re-read.

Minty is no mere "nature poet," nor is she a regionalist, although the lake country of Michigan inhabits, or haunts, many of the poems. She also writes of California with its mysterious gray whales, earthquakes, rainstorms and giant trees. No matter where she is, Minty is a poet of the ancient elements of earth, fire, water and air. As skillfully as she describes the attraction-replusion of nature, she also reveals the magnetism between mothers and daughters, friends and lovers, tugging the reader's own buried memories and bringing them to the surface.

Minty deserves the many awards she has won, and now she merits even more attention beyond the midwest from coast to coast.

Walking with the Bear is an extraordinary collection. I was especially drawn to the new poems which seem to lift Judith into the very front rank of American Poetry. Jim Harrison author of The Shape of the Journey and Legends of the Fall

I've known and believed in Judith Minty's poetry for almost thirty years now, and have taken her books to heart, one by one. Walking with the Bear includes a bountiful selection of her best past work, and extends the range of her storytelling power with new poems so effortlessly and succinctly written that I find myself inside their experiences as I read them, as I hear them. Walking with the Bear confirms Minty as one of the most important poets of her generation. William Heyen author of Diana, Charles and the Queen and Pterodactyl Rose Poems of Ecology

Judith Minty is a shaman in her work. She has a unique and quirky sensibility to which I find myself drawn again and again when I need to be reminded of the truths of my own strange kind, and reaffirmed in the veracity of the natural world. Whether in the dark woods, pursuing her bear, or in the less forboding and often tender labyrinth of the family, Minty's vision and language are precise and incisive. Her poems require us to abandon the world of our cherished comforts and opinions. They make our experience new again, the way we might rediscover the feel of our favorite touchstone when we remember to take off our gloves. Dan Gerber author of Trying to Catch the Horses and A Last Bridge Home

Judith Minty is a poet who sees. The passionate and precise regard everywhere manifest in this book casts a quiet radiance that in no way disguises the rock-hard wisdom beneath. Minty's poems-capacious, wide-ranging, truth-telling-are works of consummate balance, with one foot in the world of creatures and weathers, the other in the realm of the human heart. As this collection amply demonstrates, she does poetry's work. Jane Hirshfield author of Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and The Lives of the Heart

One of my mentors, teachers, shamans is Judith Minty, who finds her sanity stalking wild bears along the Yellow Dog River in Hemingway country in Northern Michigan has released a compilation of strongest works from her major books titled Walking With the Bear. What a fine poet she is and what an important work this is--every library should have it, every feminist should read it, every man should devour it if he would be audacious enough to think he could understand women. This is a major work, folks, in the tradition of Harrison's Shape of the Journey. It's for late-night reading with Grand Marnier or slowly brewing loose jasmine tea. Minty's the real thing--a boss poet. Walking with the Bear is a fine mid-career retrospective that should be on the shelf of any aspiring poet, teacher, or serious reader.

A delightful Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn type novel. Easy reading, suitable for age 13 and up, but very enjoyable for all ages. The characters are very lovable, and it is easy to identify with Terry, the mischevious 6-year-old, if you've ever been a kid and had his spirit.

Its been 13 years since I read this book (when I was 10), but I can still remember the empathic experience afforded by Richards' skillful writing. I remember the thrills of sneaking into a tomato warehouse to sample the sweetiest juciest tomatoes ever pilfered, and the exhilaration of running away once I'd been discovered. I remember the bond with an old man who needed the benefit of youth like I needed the benefit of wisdom. We were a great pair, and he taught me how to catch catfish in a most interesting way. I remember terrifying my teacher and being the best little hellion I could be, and I remember the responsibility I shouldered when I had to, when I crossed a point, on a raft, with a friend in peril, and the everglades my only obstacle to saving him...when I took a step closer to becoming a man. I am writing about this book because it was one of the most memorable of my youth, and because it still sometimes paints on the canvas of my dreams.

An amazing look at childhood from the perspective of an adult woman. Wish I'd known McCree and Terry when I was six!

What do salty sailors, communists, ad execs, and Tibetan Buddhists have in common? The Power of Slogans! From 'Have a Coke and a Smile' to "Be all that you can Be", the brain loves a good saying. This book is Trungpa's translation of the 59 slogans used to instruct Tibetan Buddhists, with his commentary on each. Trungpa is unassailable as an instructor: the 11th generation of a line of chosen Tibetan Trungpas, he went to oxford on a scholarship and then moved to the US in the 1970's where he founded what remain as among the foremost Buddhist/meditative institutions in the country. I tend to believe Buddhism gained a little more than it lost en route to japan, so I prefer the zen stuff, but this book has a lot to offer anyone. Some nitpicking: For a guy who dedicated his life to bringing jargonless Buddhism to the west, the book is a little full of 'mystical-sounding foreign words' though thankfully the glossary is very fine. And plenty of important Buddha concepts don't shine through (cause and effect, and the big mirror concepts don't get too much play here) so just make sure this isn't the only book you read on the topic. And some of the slogans are simply not too memorable and consequently lose their force; 'always be grateful' is dandy, though 'the mahayana instruction for ejection of consciousness at death is the five strengths' seems like an important one that alas probably won't be dancing off too many tongues at the critical moment. Still this is a fine book, a great book for beginners or advanced alike, coming from any tradition whatsoever. & the small format fits well, making it a great book for commutes or travels. Enjoy! (& remember: just because I didn't like the book as much as you doesn't mean you should vindictively vote against my review!)

It is always amazing to me that more people don't know the wonderful work that Trungpa did in bringing Buddhism to the West. He was a proponent of loving kindness who skillfully assisted thousands in understanding both the basic precepts of Buddhism, and specific traditions of Tibetan Buddhism as they are now practiced in both East and West.

This small format book is a wealth of information -- more than the mere "slogans" which lead each section. It is a careful revelation of principals and practices one usese to train the mind, emphasizing how one can use compassion and intelligence in dealing with everyday situations. A real gem of a book to read and read again.

Bringing Buddhist teachings to a western mind is no easy task. I find that the material in this book clearly allows one to understand Dharma in a crisp and refreshing light. The ability to apply this to the western life is well stated.