As an elementary school teacher I'm always looking for books that are eloquently written and visually stunning. I'm happy to report that Dear Juno serves up both. This is an incredible book by an extraordinary author. It's the perfect book to read-aloud as well as to curl up with before going to bed. I can't wait to read more of Ms. Pak's work.

In this lovely book, a story about communication across geographic, cultural and generational distances is distilled into a few sparkling pages. The simple, charming language is inviting for children, but it carries the force of poetry, so adults will enjoy it too. I adored it.

Drawings of my budding 4-year-old artist took on different dimensions after this book. Juno's separation from his Korean Grandmother required communication with his pictures and leaves. It translated into pebbles and bicycles for my daughter. The touching part is that love can travel within the confines of an envelope. ILLUSTRATONS were the ICING on the cake! Job well done. I buy the book as gifts.

Cheryl Dumesnil was one of my professors in college. I have not read this book yet, but based on her abilities as a teacher, I am totally looking forward to reading it.

Addonizio's and Dumesnil's anthology on writings on tattoos is a great collection of work. You can't go wrong with the writings inside.

There is some great (and at times surprising) fiction inside, which includes: an excerpt from Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man, Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," Sylvia Plath's story "The Fifteen Dollar Eagle," and Flannery O'Connor's "Parker's Back." O'Connor is always a joy to read, and this story is an especially good one. There's even a piece from Herman Melville (selected from Typee). Steve Vender has a most interesting piece on meeting one of the gang members he is to defend--this is a fascinating piece. And there are also vignettes scattered throughout where people discuss their tattoos, as well as other pieces of fiction.

And there's poetry by Thom Gunn, Kim Addonizio, Bob Hicok, Mark Doty, Cheryl Dumesnil, J.D. McClatchy, Tony Hoagland, Brenda Hillman, Laura A. Goldstein, Garnett Kilberg Cohen, Michael Waters, Joseph Millar, Katharine Whitcomb, Eliot Wilson, Bruce Bond, Virginia Chase Sutton, Lissette Mendez, Dzvinia Orlowsky, and Denise Duhamel.

Not only does it look impressive, it reads very, very well. I'm not surprised that Addonizio put together such a strong selection of work. I can't think of any other person who would have been more suited to this type of anthology. It's a great collection, one I'm sure everyone would enjoy reading.

Even if you are not a fan of, or have any tattoos, you cannot help immersing yourself in the assembled writings. The editors have done a great job. I found it hard to put this one down. Fascinating subject, fascinating writing. If you appreciate great writing, you'll love this book. You may even decide to go out and get your own tattoo.

Kim and Jason comics are refreshing and clever. This book is a great addition to your tool chest of stress busters. It will take you back to the good old days of kool-aid stains, Saturday morning cartoons and chronic bed head. Pure fun for boys and girls of any age! Pick one up now at an Amazon near you!

"Dreaming Big" is an excellent book. I would highly recommend it to anyone. It is very uplifting. I smiled and laughed throughout reading it. It reminded me of cute little memories from my childhood that often times we do not take the time to reminise about. With the things that are going on in our world today we need a book like this to remind us what is really important in life. This is exactly what this book did for me!

This is the funniest book I have read in a LONG time! It is truly "laugh out loud" funny. It's worth buying because you can read it over and over again.

The second book (Annual #2) is just as good. Get both!

Exercising Influence reveals many uncommon, unrecognized flaws of casual, ineffective influencing. The author approaches this skill, as you would a physical skill- build up your strengths, address your weaknesses, try and make mistakes. Repeat. Plus, every chapter concludes with application tips. Highly recommended for anyone trying to lead change- at work, home or in communities.

Exercising Influence is one of the most useul books I've read in years. I'm tempted to buy a dozen or so copies as gifts for some of the miserably untalanted negotiators I've encountered in my two decades of practicing law. The book taught me two things (at least) of significant personal value:(1)The skills necessary for selling one's point of view to others can be learned; (2) These same skills overlap and improve one's abilities in the related areas of mobilizing public opinion; motivating partners, employees, and family members; communicating authority; making an impact; exercising leadership at home, in business, and in the community; getting results with and through others; implementing ideas; and making a positive difference. This eminently readable book is filled with charts, graphs, examples, tips, and instructions. What the book teaches is practical and immediately applicable to real-world situations. Kim Barnes'20 years of studying, writing about, and teaching the subject are amply in evidence in Exercising Influence. It deserves, and likely will receive, a wide and receptive readership. Five stars.

I consider Kim Barnes' style of influencing people in work, life, and community as valuable and practical guidance for my life. On a professional level, I couldn't have discovered this book at a better time. I work in a fast company that doesn't really have a 'structure' to discover and work within. The people change in my company; the processes change; the goals of the company change. So I'm learning that I must build relationships in order to really build a sense of 'structure.' I must look to myself first and then to the talented people who can be resources to me in order to achieve my goals.

Kim's honest, candid writing made me feel as if I were having a discussion with her in a coffee shop. I always know that a book of any sort is a great book if I laugh out loud while reading. This book has helped me see how I can keep work and responsibility light while also experiencing growing pains in my professional development.

I'm a longtime fan of Ms. Jacobs and hope that
"Flashpoint" is the start of a new series.
This novel is just the right blend of mystery,
suspense, and social commentary.

Be sure to read Ms. Jacobs' other recent novels,
"Star Struck" and "Double or Nothing".

in this fast-paced page turner. Ms. Jacobs manages to make every word count in Flash Point, her latest mystery entry. Thanks to the author's keen eye for detail, the reader sees the characters come to life on the page. And what charming characters they are---it's a pleasure spending time with Susan Kim Delancey as she tracks down the serial arsonist. Well researched, the author sets the scene so realistically I have a new-found respect for the men and women who fight fires daily.

Susan Kim Delancey is the Governor's Special Assistant for Arson Investigations, a political appointment that has her serve as liaison with all the counties in California. Right now she is investigating a series of arson homicides that have taken place in Sausalito, San Francisco, Daily City and San Vincente. She is trying to find out if the same person is responsible for the four incidents.

In each case the victim was a single mother who recently gave birth to a baby girl. No trace of the babies is found leading the press to dub the crimes the "Baby Snatcher Murders". Susan and her understaffed overworked team find a common thread even as the killer targets someone Susan loves more than life itself.

Nancy Baker Jacobs has a winning new series if FLASH POINT is any indication. The heroine is impossible not to like as she races from one horrific crime scene to another to find some answers that will stop a killer before he strikes again. There are enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning the pages until they find out who the perp is and why he is doing such terrible things.

Harriet Klausner

I've had this wonderful book for months and just now realized that the pictures were made by one of my favorite artists (Kathy Murillo). I have to say I really enjoy this book so much, I don't consider myself much of a cooker or a crafter but these projects make me feel like I can do both. My favorite is the bottle of mango vinrgar (easy to make) with the wind chime hanging off of it.

what a fabulous book - the pictures are so colorful and bright. i dont even cook but this book makes me want to try just so i can make the crafts!

Another winning book from the team of Judy Walker and Kim Mac Eachern. "Gifts from the Southwestern Kitchen" is filled with easy to create and to prepare southwestern homemade gifts which will make even Martha Stewart turn guacomole green with envy. From Chili Beer Bread Mix, Chameleon Chocolate Sauce, Sloppy "Joses" Seasoning Mix, Copper Queen Rub & Champagne Mustard, to name a few, these recipes take only minutes of your time to prepare. In addition to 70 recipes to choose from, Judy & Kim provide easy instructions & pictures to show you how to package and present your gifts from the kitchen. Gifts from the Southwestern Kitchen belongs in everyone's kitchen library.

This is the very best book I have seen or used to learn to weave. It is extremely detail oriented and procedes in a step by step manner. I have been involved in spinning and weaving for 9 years and still refer back to it. Get it in a spiral bound ed if you can so you can lay it flat as you work.

As a new weaver, I found this book to be an incredible storehouse of good, reliable information. I read it cover to cover before I ever even laid eyes on my loom. Armed with that book, I felt completely prepared to start my first project the evening my loom arrived.

Forget all the other books on weaving. This is the one. Anyone who has problems warping their loom, designing patterns, learning new patterns will wear the pages of this book thin with reading and rereading and rereading and more rereading. There is barely a day that goes by that I do not in some way refer back to this fantastic book! All we ask is that the writer give us more! Bravo!

I loved the writer's style!! She gives many examples which
allow the reader to experience what is being read!! I enjoyed
the book so much that I gave up my highlighter and decided to
reread it. I was on my way to highlighting the entire book!!
The wisdom here is unmatched and the writer makes you feel as
if you know her personally. I am getting another copy for a
friend!! You won't miss with this terrific book!!

I bought the book after getting turned onto the music of Kim and Jim Thomas and their group Say-So. The book is geared toward a mostly female audience, but even us guys can appreciate the subject matter and Kim's humorous writing style. The book makes a great gift for any stressed out women in your life that need to be more like Mary and less like Martha (both the biblical and Stewart versions!)

Kim Thomas not only shows her talents on stage, but in her work. Her works, that include; Music, Art, Literature, are so full of life, that the reader feels that they know who she is and what she is about. Kim seems to have an answer to every question at life. If anyone, and I mean anyone is looking for a good book, you have found it. Should be on the Best Sellers list! THANK YOU KIM THOMAS!

The critical consensus on Donald Barthelme is that he basically reinvented the short story during his lifetime (he died in 1989). While there is some exaggeration involved in this assessment -- at times, Barthelme seems to be doing nothing much more than channeling Kafka -- his work is unique, inventive, and experimental in the best sense of the word. The present collection contains many of his occasional and "lighter" works. A number of them, for example, originally appeared as unsigned pieces in "The New Yorker". If the collections "Sixty Stories" and "Forty Stories" can be seen as Barthelme's greatest hits, then "The Teachings of Don B." can be seen as the B-sides. The subtitle of the book calls this a collection of "satires, parodies, fables, illustrated stories, and plays," and the description fits. The title story is a send-up of Carlos Castenada's "Don Juan" books, and on the whole the volume is marked by a certain air of lightness and good humor. There is a stretch in the middle, consisting mainly of works that originally appeared between chapters in the book "Overnight to Many Distant Cities", that is somewhat slower and more ponderous than the surrounding text, but it doesn't last for long. Of particular interest are the illustrated stories, where the text is complimented by collages made from old photographs and illustrations, somewhat in the manner of the Surrealists. My only complaint about this book is the inclusion of three short plays at the end. While interesting, they don't quite mesh with the rest of the volume, and could easily have been published on their own. The collection also features an introduction by Thomas Pynchon, which in itself it worth the price of admission.

With the possible exception of Thomas Pynchon, there isn't a writer around, living or dead (that I know of--I haven't read them all), who gives us a funnier, more accurate understanding of the absurdity of late twentieth-century existence than Barthelme, and it's good to have these previously uncollected pieces in one volume. The quality of this book is, I believe, remarkably even, but some pieces hit me harder than others. No one could have written "Here's the Ed Sullivan Show" but DB; what an eye the guy had!

Read this book (or SIXTY STORIES or SNOW WHITE) and you will not be able to look at the world in the same way again. DB knew better than most what petty, unexamined, selfish lives we live (but this is not to say that DB was mean spirited). Does he give solutions? Sort of, but not solutions that I am capable of paraphrasing. There may be readers for whom DB's teachings will seem pointless and not worth the trouble. (To them I say, "Back to your Grisham and Steele!") But for most of the rest of us--as bombarded as we are with insulting campaign pitches, thisandthat.com (!) ads, news of how the market is making us all wealthy, endless blockbuster film versions of mediocre TV shows, more tripe about what a great president Reagan was and on and on--DB can function as a sort of philosophical ophtalmologist with a rare antidote that will both make us laugh at and feel a bit grim about our consumer society.

I have never read anything this hilarious. It's perfectly balanced, too: Barthelme never goes too far or too short. Also get the "40 Stories" which in my opinion are much better than the 60.

This book have a bad title, must be "Theory of Modeling and Simulation with DEVS".

There are not a real Integration about Discrete Event and Continuous Complex Dynamic Systems. Only a Discret Event Systems Specification (DEVS), nothing more that DEVS. The book is anything but no visual simulation, no numerics management, no probabilities, no DAE-equations, no research operations, no object simulation, no ...

The DEVS concept born with the promise of join different formalism in the 70's (join discreet and continuous simulation), but yet the concept actually in the book is very primitive and not consider real numerical methods in only one layer (remember that many real commercial simulation software is not based in DEVS concepts. Why?, -Maybe, the DEVS concept have a rigorous and innecesary strictness in the framework concepts in modeling and simulation.)

For other hand, this book have bad thigs and good things.

Bad things:

- The algorithms presented are only fragments of pseudocode like C++ (or Java?). Where is all framework code?.
- The concepts are not in a today systemic/cibernetic vision. This is bad, because the definitions and concepts are yet of 70's. (the book is a second edition, where is the change?).
- Actually the DEVS is considered the corner stone of basic theory of discreet simulations according to autor and others, but in a book there are not real simulations for probe the theory.
- Where is THE continuous complex dynamic systems?.
- Lack of code production of real numerical and computacional methods.

The good things:

- If you don't know what is a DEVS this book is your resp.
- Is a source of excellent ideas, in special the study of Quantization and the Systems Design and Environments of M&S (IV Cap.).

Finally, the best of book is not the DEVS concepts (the book is 80% about DEVS), is the math-way how the Autor try define a basic Simulation Framework independent of the model.

Because the above, is a must have in a simulations books.

I am a professional model/actor so I picked this book up to become a better model/actor. Boy was I surprised! After reading this book my knowledge of computer systems has increased 10 fold. It has also expanded my range as an actor. I have gone on several sci-fi type acting auditions and guess what? I landed every single part (there were only two actually). Because I have read this book I now have a pretty solid background in electrical engineering or at least enough to fake an acting audition, HA!! But seriously this was a great book with lots of neat-o pictures that look pretty even when they are upside down. So if you are interested in science stuff or want to learn how to sound like you know what you are talking about read this book. By the way those two acting jobs I got were for the Chicago plays - "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" and "OW! Those are Vice Grips".

This book looks somewhat difficult but I think that it is the best book for whom researchs modelling and simulation methodology. Based on mathematics, most contents of it were explained rigorously. From the origin of its 1976 version, now in the 2'nd book, DEVS(discrete event system specification) formalism has been extended to cover the continuous state system as well. In addition to, the various extended versions of DEVS, such as Parallel DEVS, Real-time DEVS, Fuzzy DEVS, has been aloso dealt in it.

If you are familiar with the set-theory and the system theory (dealing with inputs and outputs) and looking for the simulation methodology from any IO system view, the book must be the best book to you.