A wonderfully succinct overview of the blue whale and it's habits.

The clear, sweet prose makes delivery of the content easy, and the very fine, soft illustrations demand repeated veiwing. My Preschool and Kindergarten ESL students found it highly engaging.

If there's a better science and read-aloud book around I'd really like to know about it. TEN stars.

Follow this book up with the superb "Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?" by Robert E. Wells. Wells' book uses the whales' size as a starting point for exploring the size of the universe and other very big things (the second step involves putting a hundred blue whales in a really big jar). Read my review of Wells' book if you like.

I'm a whale researcher who has spent much of the last 12 years studying blue whales in the North Pacific. I'm also a mom who loves children's literature. Rarely do I see a book that is so accurate factually while it is captivating and magical! The illustrations are beautiful. I highly recommend it to anyone who has children who are facinated by whales.

A book strictly for North Korea specialists. Certainly, as its reviews and the book-cover blurbs indicate a "unique" study. However what none of them say is; (1) this is strictly a basic socio-economic or sociology-type study; and (2) most tellingly, it may well be "a recently declassified CIA study", but what they are not saying is that this study was written in 1980-81 and not updated for a 1999-2000 book publication release. It is a study written in 1980 and is thereby utilising 1970s material. In consequence we have a book about Kim Il-Sung's North Korea of the 1970s. We are reading about conditions in the North Korea of 25+ years ago.

Material content and style presentation is straightforward and "just the facts". Nothing laid out in this book will surprise anyone who is familiar with Communist bloc social control systems. There is no analysis or extrapolation worth mentioning from the socio-economic presentation. Key aspects even within that range e.g. Party-Army-Population relationships are not examined in any analytical way.

This is a quite specific piece set in a quite specific time frame. It is a read only for those with real interest in North Korea. It is, at best, a "background" information source. As one reviewer has alluded to, the only real purpose of any description of conditions and life in the North Korea of the 1970s, is to give us an indication of the seeds of the mismanagement and decline that has subsequently unfolded. The same mixture of issues that have brought down, principally from within, other Communist regimes, in this case merely with a particular North Korean spin to it.

Thus as a book - a very particular snapshot. In its own right, as well as in terms of content.

This book is a fascinating account of North Korea under Kim Il-sung. I learned many things, such as his emphasis on the family. The trouble with this book is that we do not know if it describes North Korea today, or just North Korea in the past. But the description is fascinating.

These authors really did excellent research and they take the attentive reader behind the closed borders of North Korea. It is one of the last countries on earth that doesn't have diplomatic relations with the U.S. In this book the reader will experience the harsh reality of a poverty-striken country that happens to be the largest weapons exporter in the region. Another book that I highly recommend which is also based on a recent declassified CIA report and which discusses North Korea's secret but aggressive nuclear weapons program is the thriller THE CONSULTANT by Alec Donzi.

I borrowed this book form the library last month. The one thing I don't like about the book is the part where Pyungsoo tells Junehee that she looks like "an Africa" when she came back from vacationing with her family. If Koreans/Asians think Africans look strange then I wouldn't want my children reading this book(when I do have children). It seems that Asians dislike Blacks and it shows up everywhere,from business/economics to publications and also socially. Otherwise the book is okay,and it gives adolescents good knowledge of Korean culture and lifestyle.

Even though I'm not finish with this book, I think that it is really boring. It doesn't have anyhting interesting about it. Well, maybe in the begining because that was what caught my attention but when it got to the middle it was just plain boring. I think that it shouldn't babble about how the parents fight and talk about how Pyungsoo is doing.

Since this book is told through the voice of an 11-year old it has been deemed "Young Adult Fiction". In reality it is a fascinating portrait of Korean life and traditions.

In Korean tradition, a son is supposed to take care of his parents, and a daughter's job is to take care of her husband and her in-laws. A family without a son, is a family without a caretaker. Women who do not produce sons are shunned and are mistreated.

The oldest child is also given special treatment. The protagonist's mother is referred to not by name, but as the oldest daughter's mother. As the second daughter, of four, Junehee must navigate between her oldest sister's demands, her withdrawn father, her domineering grandmother and her mother's sadness. The family also includes a servant-girl, a young woman of 19 whose parents can no longer afford to feed her.

This book deals with the stark realities of life outside the United States. For young first generation Asians, I think this is a fascinating portrait of their parent's childhood. For those interested in Asian culture and society, at any age, this is a very valuable book.

I let someone borrow my ninth edition and my friend lost it. So I got the tenth edition. I love it. It gives breif history on the popular artists. It gives enough background so you are able to use it for references. I'm not an art major, but I really love the fact that it compiles many artists together. I was at the bookstore and I was looking at individual artist's books. That was when I realized how much I love this book. All the great stuff are in here.

I was introduced by my art history class. But now it's a hobbie to just read up on it.