The Red Heels is a magical love story that captures the attention of the reader as wells as the imagination of the listeners. My daughters and I checked this book out from the library and were so captivated by the story and the beautiful illustrations that we decided we wanted to add it to our library. It's beginning details the life and work of a colonial cobbler and continues as you journey with Jonathon into a mysterious forest and are wisked away into a magical night with Rebecca and her magic shoes. Ideas of loneliness and lost love play upon the readers sympathies until it is revealed that the power of love is living among common people and satisfies you with the revelation of the magic that can last even there; if love abides. To us this was a great colonial fairytale! All girls want to dance with the one they love - once upon a starry night sky . . . in red heels.

Story of a new young girl who is taken under the wing of the Batman and Barbara Gordon to be the next Batgirl, and trying to atone from a shameful past. Interesting but lacks the more complex charecterization of the other women crime fighters in Gothom City like the Huntress and Oracle.

Meet the new Batgirl: she's silent, she's running, she's oh-so-cute and oh-so-deadly.

She's Cassandra Cain, raised from early childhood to be the perfect assassin, an unstoppable killing machine. Haunted by guilt, she fled, did who knows what, then turned up in Gotham City. Now 17 and under the tutelage of Batman and the original Batgirl, Barbara Gordon (now confined to a wheelchair but as fiesty as ever), Cassandra fights for justice, fights to ease her conscience, fights to understand a world of language and emotions she can barely understand. That's a lot for a teen to handle, even one without such a screwed-up childhood.

An impressive concept, and a fresh take on Batman's little corner of the DC universe, and it may work better at a monthly's pace. Collected in a single volume, these first 6 issues in Batgirl's ongoing series move way too fast and tend to gloss over all the things that make her unique. It's like trying to read the label on a spinning cd to see what song's playing.

Beyond Batgirl herself, the best element here is the unusual yet compelling art by Damion Scott and Robert Campanella. Scott and Campanella work in a very animated style, influence by manga, anime and "Batman: The Animated Series." The characters are cartoony, yet vivid and expressive, and at times, move with fluid grace, which is saying a lot for static images on paper. The adventures play out on detailed sets, with much attention to background and foreground elements.

Sometimes, the panel-to-panel flow doesn't quite work (as in one early scene where it's tough to judge the sequence of word balloons), but what they do best is give Batgirl comical facial expressions, even when she's in her faceless mask. The supporting characters, even Batman and Barbara, get the same treatment. While not as "realistic" as a lot of artwork out there, it seems more "real" at times. Kind of funky and fun.

While the artists handle some of the characterization chores (as they should), everything else seems rushed. As soon as silent Batgirl piques our interest, a psychic's rearranged her mind so she can understand language. This affects her fighting skills, but that's tossed aside in favor of Batman's getting angry at her for stopping someone's heart. Evidently, she has little problem adjusting. Then why even mention it? How does it further the story, and, more importantly, how does it make us care about Batgirl?

Look at it this way: she had her childhood stolen, she killed a man at the age of 7 and it horrified her, she wears a costume and jumps off rooftops. Barbara Gordon constantly psychoanalyzes her and Batman tries to mold her into a version of himself. Which one is right, and what's best for Cassandra? Why not use this rich material?

We, as readers, are not allowed to dwell on anything for more than a panel or two; therefore, the stories seem slight and hurried, and without real consequences or mood. Chances for real emotion and poignancy (Batgirl impulsively kisses someone she's saved) pass by almost unnoticed and overwhelmed by endless action sequences. A kid wired on Super Sugar Crisp comes to mind.

This wild, untamed Batgirl is quite a character, but at this pace, she's going to be just another black-suited Bat-ninja, no different from any other comic book character. And that's a real shame. She could be a contender, if only she had a chance. That said, by all means check it out and groove on the new Batgirl while you can.

I bought this book without high expectations. I had heard very bad things about the series but was pleasantly surprised by this decent first collection. It reveals a little about the new Batgirl's past and a bit about her current relationship with Batman through conflicts with various antagonists.

She is an interesting character, but I fear that developments towards the end of this series is going to change that. Batgirl was a mute because her father never taught her to speak, instead concentrating all her training on combat and related skills. In his collection she meets someone who helps her to understand words. This may ruin things in the future. Instead of letter her learn to speak over a period of time, the writers are going for a shortcut. Its much more difficult to write characters who don't speak but this is part of what makes her interesting.

Basic Histology is definitely not the text of choice if you're new to the subject. The authors managed to introduce no less than 30 new terms in the first page of each chapter rendering the reader in complete confusion. They seemed not to have taken great care in explaining the various structures, which would be completely foreign to the beginning Histology student, and the figures included have much room for improvement as well. Further, there was no distinction of emphasis between the more important points in a chapter versus the less crucial details. I have read lots of intro texts to various subjects for academic purposes; and this is definitely the most lacking one I have encountered.

This is a Histology Book with very low grade pictures compared to other nice shiny picture books that have their own problems. Book provides more information about the components but graphics are very weak. It could be used as a reference book but not as a sole source book. I found "Functional Histology" book better.
When certain structural components are explained book relies on some previous knowledge, so it is not a self sufficient book. So half quality information and half quality pictures, good for exam preparation to refresh your knowledge.

This book was quite helpful for my histology course in med school. The book is quite intense filled with tons of information on each line. However, I also used the following which is also on amazon:
Histology Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers
ISBN: 0971999686
The second book helped prepare me for the type of questions that appeared on my exams. It's also needed because it helps you to focus on what is important in each topic of histology. It also proved to be a great reference for the histology portion of the USLME step 1.

To paraphrase Kelley, "Without Napoleon, the armies were merely a mob." Kelley's thesis that "followers" are critical to the success of "leaders" is obvious enough to not need much discussion. However, for reasons only known to him (since he doesn't reveal any in this book), he seems able to support his positon only by demeaning "leadership."

Yet, it is obvious that he lacks a fundamental understanding of both followership and leadership. His effort to separate the two and then argue that followers are superior to leaders fails to account for the true relationship: followers are leaders are followers.

Kelley shows his total lack of understanding of leadership by defining leaders as really nothing more than someone with followers, and by constantly referring to ineffective managers, bosses, supervisors, and CEOs as "leaders." Leaders are not leaders because of their organizational position, nor because of their authority (another fatal flaw is his failure to distinguish between authority and power). His examples of ineffective leaders are usually not examples of leadership or leaders at all.

On the other hand, he treats followership as somehow unique. While he places leaders into a single group consisting largely of ineffective, dishonest manipulators, he divides followers into four groups, three of which, to varying degrees, are as ineffective as the leaders that he rails against. His fourth group, the effective followers, even if you accept his flawed thesis that followers and leaders are two distinct groups, have the same attributes that Bennis, Gardner, Heifitz, Burns, and many others, have attributed to effective leaders. Indeed, take his descriptions of effective leaders and give them to any qualified student of leadership, and they would say that he is describing leaders, not followers.

I had the opportunity to take a class taught by Mr. Kelley at CMU and to have read all of his books. This book has a rather simple concept, that once read, becomes painfully obvious--no matter what our position in life we all follow someone. Even the President of the USA follows opinion polls.

Kelley examines and analyzes the types of followers, their characteristics and identifies methods to motivate them based on their objectives and priorities.

It also includes a test to identify your own followership traits. Very insightful. Should be part of every management training and employee development program.

I found this book to be next to worthless. As near as I can tell, this book tells me what price a used car dealer is going to *OPEN* with - not what the selling price (hopefully) will be.

The cars are listed at "Consumer Retail", which is not what a) the dealer paid or b) What they'll sell for. Though I'm sure they'd be happy to sell to you at the price listed.

I admit I *THOUGHT* I was buying the Kelley Blue Book my credit union makes available (my fault - should have read description better - and it turns out the *real* Kelley bluebook is only available via subscription).

IMHO all this book does is add to the obfuscation that the used car dealer can throw at you. I think Kelley has done the consumer a disservice by publishing this.

If you're looking for a used car to buy or sell, hit your local credit union and look the car up in the *REAL* Kelley Blue Book.