I just wanted to say how wonderful and inspirational Dr. Capehart's book was to me and my children. The book opened our eyes to how fortunate we really are and my children could really relate to the book. I think Dr. Capehart has the biggest heart I know and will be great in whatever he does. Thanks for writing the book. I know it's touched many people, but know that it has touched my family.

I read the book 4 times and everytime, I was amazed at Dr. Capehart's experiences. His illustrations were great and only enhanced the stories he was telling. I also do missionary work and can relate to his experiences. I loved the book and have recommended it to everyone I know. I think Dr. Capehart has a good heart and will be a great doctor. I love his writing style and hope that he writes again.

I'm currently a student at University of Southern California (USC) Go Trojans! I just read Capehart's, "My African Safari." I have to say that it is an inspiring book. If you want a book that makes you visualize what it would be like to be in Africa, this is the bok. It really made me appreciate America and what I have here. I highly recommend this book to anyone. I hope this review helps you to read this terrific book.

Compelling plot and firery finish, bravo Ms Kim!

This is my son's favorite book! He gets a kick out of seeing children doing the same kinds of things he can do. Excellent job!

What fun to share this with your little one. It reinforces their activities and recognizes their growing abilities. Good to send to mothers with little ones.

I loved all of the suspence and action

As the action progresses you feel your heart beating faster and faster. It was so decriptive I could taste it, here it, and almoast touch it.

I am in 7th grade and twelve years old. My mom got the first episode for me and now I got the second one for myself! I really like the airboat chase scene in the beginning of "Mystery @ Lighthouse Point". I also liked how the book kept me going to the next chapter. The suspense of the story was left at the end of each chapter and then you went somewhere else to the other characters. It was one cliffhanger after another! I couldn't believe I read 22 chapters! It was very visual which helped me remember the details. I wish it was an Accelerated Reader Book. I asked my school to make it one. You really can't put it down once you get into it. Now I am on the second episode called "Secret of Fire & Ice" and it was filmed and written about Iceland which I had never seen before. It is like the "Hobbit" in a way but very different from the first episode even though you still have the twins in all the episodes.

I bought this book for my 4 year old daugter to help her to draw more than stick people and flowers. She loves it. She gets so excited when she can actually draw a barn, a pig, a horse.... She wants more books. Have fun with it and learn how to draw using simple directions.

I just bought this book for my boys ages 4 and 3. And this book is great. It really teaches you step by step how to draw. I am very bad at drawing if it is anything other than stick people. But I am actually learning right along with the kids. It is great. It is full color, and you can reuse it many times with many children.

I found this book about 18 months ago and I knew that this book will help my sons to draw. Chris is now 9 years old and Daniel is 6 years old. They both love these books ( book 1-6 ). They use these books most frequently for their projects. Ever since I have been buying these books for B-day presents, even sent them to Singapore !

Covering a period of eleven years (1982-1993) in the life of one family, this touching book chronicles one woman's Alzheimer's journey through her own journal entries, and the paintings and journal of her daughter, Kim. Treasured family photos are included, for example there is, made in 1982, is a group picture of four generations, including Kim's mother, a former journalist, her grandmother, and her daughter at nine weeks old. There is even a photo of the mother's declining writing, as she wrote "I love you" in the fall of 1989. As the years passed and the disease progressed in her mother's life, Kim, a teacher, artist, and graduate student working on a degree in art, was influenced by the disease in her paintings. Kim's paintings changed as she explored her family's emotional struggle and visualized her mother's feelings in her work. Kim and her mother's journey was aided by their creativity in helping them cope, understand, and express the changes brought about by what her mother called "Al, Mrs. Zheimer's son".

"Painted Diaries" offers a perspective on Alzheimer's Disease which helped our family, and especially my wife, cope with the lonely jouney of my mother-in-law's illness. By sharing her experiences, Kim Howes Zabbia awakened us to a positive, proactive perspective on this most difficult topic. It is an excellent book, and we share it with anyone facing Alzheimer's in their family. It has been a blessing to us all.

Painted Diaries is one of the best books I have ever read! I could not stop reading it. It is a great book for families how are expeirenceing the painful Alzhiemers disease. I STRONGLY reacomind it!

I love this book. Although I haven't knitted a sweater from this book yet, I am definitely going to. I love knitting sweaters with interesting textures and I am not a big fan of lots of color changes, so this is the book for me. There are lots of elegant, contemporary patterns for kids in here.

I love love LOVE this book! I have all of Debbie Bliss's books for kids and they are great. But this book is better. The patterns are clean and simple - timeless but really sharp. The models are super-cool. I've made several of the sweaters for my son and they turned out beautifully - and I am not the greatest knitter. The patterns also cover a wide range of ages (I think they go up to age 10), so you can make a baby sweater as a present and a sweater for your toddler as well. The only complaint I have is that, because it was produced under the auspices of Rowan yarns, you have to do a lot of yarn substitution if you don't want to shell out the dough for Rowan yarns. But that happens with most pattern books anyway. In any case, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

I love this book. The designs are practical and contemporary. The book is well presented and attractive. I have spent hours with this book in one hand and yarn shade cards in the other - planning my next projects! There are very few designs I would not like to knit given limitless time and money. I have had difficulty obtaining some of the recommended yarns (in Australia) but have successfully substituted. The instructions are very easy to follow and are not difficult. There are diagrams showing the dimensions of the garment pieces, which I find invaluable when knitting for my 3 year old daughter who still has a chest measurement of a one year old but is much taller!

Did I say genius? I meant to say she's an artist with words. The photography in this lovely book is truly inspiring, but the writing is really the icing on the cake. (I guess that makes her a baker and a genius!)

I go to the Outer Banks as often as possible, but never often enough. This book takes me there right from my living room. The photography as well as the information contained in the book is outstanding. I found it to be relaxing as well as educational. Because the book has something for everyone, I highly recommend it for all ages.

Breathtaking, peaceful, extraordinary photography. Makes you feel like you are there. Mr Drapala captures the essence of the Outer Banks. Your experiences are captured through his lens. Heart felt work. Recommended for anyone who has, or wants to experience the ocean, the shoreline, the tranquility.

OK I laughed my fool head off. This is DEFINATELY bathroom reading of the highest odor.

Highlights of this nasty book:

*Dr. Stephen doCarmo's foreword (ok, so that wasn't written by Kevin Kim, but it's funny as hell).
*The preface - an interview w/Barbara Walters. Who knew Baba Wawa was soooooo naughty? "Anus-tongue", anyone?
*really screwed-up haiku, some of it stealing from Georges Perec's idea of avoiding the letter E
*that Throbbing Prom story
*that story about Satan and the little boy in hell
*the story about the roasted Thanksgiving turkey that comes to life
*ANY of the stories involving Mr. Spock or Star Wars characters, those are some cruel parodies

OK some of the poetry was strange, I admit, and I wasn't sure how to relate. But some of it was just a nasty treat to read, like "Valentine Valediction", which is an acrostic poem.

This guy has a sick mind and probably too much time on his hands. *Is* he a guy? Can we know for sure?

Kim's no Shakespeare, but take Scary Spasms on its own terms and it's damn funny. Am recommending this to friends looking for a cheap (but often literate, go figure) laugh.

Quite possibly the grossest book I have ever read, it also was the most belly-achingly funny book I have ever come across. A great gift for anyone who loves butt humor, fart humor, Star Trek, Barbara Walters (!!!), unique greeting cards, and what might just be the most digusting (but hilarious) poem ever put to paper. While totally inappropriate for a child, this book is wildly popular with all my adult friends... particularly at parties. That serve alcohol. Lots of alcohol.

One of my earliest online experiences was meeting Kevin Kim in a chatroom. All illusions about being online were shattered within the hour. He raced to the edges of TOS (Terms Of Service) rules, and hung over the cliff to doom with rancid, infected toenails. I found that every twisted, askew-with-society thought that ever bounced around inside my fetid skull was given voice by Kevin. I admire him tremendously. I almost love him.
This book, Scary Spasms In Hairy Chasms, will hold a place of honor in your home, as it does mine.... I reach into the shelving, fingers a-tremble with anticipation, pull out my book, and randomly turn to a selection; no matter where you go there is a penetrating insight into something. Or someone. Or both.
...In the dead of winter, I find myself transfixed, lost in the sheer passion of Kim's writing for so long....
Do yourself a favor. If you're becoming trapped in the mundane, if your life is becoming a bore, you need this book to shake up your world view. Kevin will re-tint those rose-colored glasses.
Oh, yeah, he draws really cool cartoons, too....

For years Korean stylists have heard about the Mu Ye Do Bo Tong Ji (MYDBTJ). FINALLY, we can not only see illustrations from the original woodcuts, but read a decent English translation of the work. Sang H. Kim has done more in the popular martial arts media (with the possible exception of He Yong Kimm) to explain Korean martial arts to the general public than anyone else. It says a lot that in the year 2000, someone (Kim) finally found it worthwhile to share the MYDBTJ with the folks who have heard so much about how it impacted the development of their martial art (tae kwon do, hapkido, etc).

Compiled from a variety of (credited) Chinese military texts by court official Lee, Dok-mu, the MYDBTJ came into use in Korea during the year 1790, Yi Dynasty. This 400 page volume offers us an uncommon view of actual practical martial skill utilized in days past, and surprisingly for many of us, finally dispells the myth of the importance of empty handed fighting among warriors of days past. For with the exception of a single chapter (pg 311-332), the entire focus of this volume is upon drilling with weapons (sword, staff, pole weapons, polo, horsemanship, etc)! It is of interest to note that in this section, mention is made of sources that refer both to the Shaolin method and death point striking.

For a truely excellent perspective on the MYDBTJ, a recommended read is the article "Korea's Mu Yei Do Bo Tong Ji: A Sample of Martial Arts training in the Yi Dynasty" by John Della Pia in _Journal of Asian Martial Arts_ Vol. 3 #2 (1994). I should also mention that although the MYDBTJ is compiled from CHINESE documents there are many people who in recent years have used the MYDBTJ as a guide in trying to re-create old-style "native" Korean martial arts, among them Hwang Kee of the Moo Duk Kwan, various Hapkido and taekwondo teachers and others in Korea who have created both empty handed and sword forms based upon their unique interpretations of the sequences contained in this manual. It is interesting to obsrve that virtually none of these independent interpretations agree with one another in form or application, suggesting that even folks with the benefit of growing up immersed in Korean language and culture have difficulty understanding this 210 year old work. This is due in part to vagueness of the illustrations and the terms used to describe the techniques, and the fact that it was originally written in classical Chinese. The terms include a vernacular which probably referred to commonly known techniques that needed no further explanation for an audience of 18 century soldiers. The unfortunate fact today is that native Korean martial arts with the exception of taek kyun (kicking), ssireum (wrestling), and archery have been lost to us as have the specifics concerning the skills shown in these manuals drawn from overwhealmingly Chinese sources. Unfortunately, nothing outside of Korea has been published on either Taek Kyun, Ssireum, or Korean archery.

I highly recommend this volume to ANYONE engaged in martial arts practice (regardless of the nationalistic identity of your respective art). It will offer a unique historical perspective on pre-modern Asian military preparation and drill which is simply unavailable from other sources. You now have the opportunity to form your own opinions and draw your own conclusions from this fascinating historical document.

Wow! What an awesome book! I have always, as far as I can remember since beginning my martial arts training 15 years ago, wanted to know how martial arts were REALLY practiced back when they were really used in warfare. This book is a complete answer to the question. Now, many of you, if you live in the Western world, are probably most familiar with Japanese arts like Judo, Aikido, Kendo and Karate (originally meant "Chinese-hand", and came from the Ryukyu islands). This book, of course, is Korean, but that should in no way diminish its interest for you. Korea was a unified kingdom ever since about 700 AD. Japan arguably never truly was until the Meiji restoration in the 19th Century. So, the Koreans produced a textbook for their military whereas the Japanese kept their techniques secret from each other, and there are few traditions today in Japan that keep them alive (Kendo, Judo and the rest are modern creations meant for modern times). This is also, naturally, the case in Korea as well, BUT there is this book that has preserved the ancient techniques as they were back then for us today. The book describes in detail many series of techniques performed with the whole gamut of weapons, from fists to two-sword techniques on horseback. It even describes contests and games that can be used to sharpen skill and these include things, interestingly enough, like soccer and polo among others. I think in most cases it would not be possible to simply pick up the book and recreate whole forms in the backyard, but you can certainly learn and practice alot of individual techniques with the book in hand or conveniently placed nearby. In this way you can learn many of the techniques used by the ancient soldiers of Korea in their battles against Chinese, Yalu tribesmen, Japanese pirates and invading Mongols. I found the section on the Yedo (the so-called "short sword" which is what the Japanese call the Katana) to be particularly useful due to its detailed explanations of dozens of postures and attack/defense techniques. Generally, the Korean arts have received much less attention than the Japanese and Chinese, and this is probably due to the fact that the Japanese came up with popular sporting versions of their arts earlier than the Koreans and that Chinese culture is so strong worldwide through the cinema etc. The fact of the matter is that the Koreans beat off both the Chinese and the Japanese repeatedly throughout history, having been conquered only once before the 20th Century, and that was by the Mongols, whose victorious cavalry techniques they later adopted. During the Japanese invasions of the late 16th Century, the Koreans were first caught off guard, but soon rallied and through guerilla action on land by warrior monks and soldiers, and through armoured naval technology and tactics at sea defeated the Japanese in spite of the fact that they had the advantage of being equipped with the modern Portuguese-style arquebus and cannon. Another thing I really like about the book is that it speaks well of Chinese and Japanese techniques, many of which are adopted by the authors for instruction to the Korean troops. Rather than be held up by silly pettiness and pride, the scholars of this book make full use of other nations' techniques wherever they are useful. "Know thy enemy, know thyself" as Sun Tzu wrote. Foreign weapons are also displayed and described, and the history of each weapon is given as exhaustively as possible from available sources. If you are the sort of person who always wondered how Korean halberds, swords, spears, shields, staves, and so on were used, and you want to learn how to use them yourself, this is THE BOOK.

In 1789, King Jungjo, ruler of the Yi dynasty (1392-1910), ordered General Yi Duk-moo, Park Je-ga and Pak Dong-soo to compile an official textbook on all martial arts forms then extent in Korea for the purpose of preserving them for future generations. Their efforts became the "Muye Dobo Tongji", and the only surviving classical text on the Korean arts of war. Organized into twenty-four distinct disciplines comprised of empty hand fighting, weaponry and horsemanship, The Comprehensive Illustrated Manual Of Martial Arts Of Ancient Korea is ably translated into English for the benefit of a western readership and a core contribution to any personal, professional, or academic martial arts library collection.

You will think that Brod was reading your mind as you read some of these very inspiring poems!

Rainbows, Head Lice, And Pea Green Tile: Poems In The Voice Of A Classroom Teacher is a unique and memorable book of engaging, sometimes humorous, sometimes soulful poems on the subject of classroom teaching. Warmly illustrated in black and white with the charcoal-style sketches of artist Kim Doner, Rainbows, Head Lice, And Pea Green Tile is an excellent, heartfelt, highly recommended read for poetry lovers of all ages, but is most especially recommended for anyone who has ever taught a class of children! Hope For The Future: Her homework is neat./Her projects are on time./When I send her with the lunch count/She returns on time./And during silent reading,/When I sit her next to terrible Tyrone,/She nods her understanding and never complains.//My wonderful little Megan--/Dependable, upright, and true./If I wanted to clone a few more like her,/What would I have to do?

This is a great resource for anyone that makes presentations to classroom teachers. You can find a poem that fits most types of teachers and it is an excellent way to make teachers feel good about their profession and reflect on their own teaching practices. It is gauranteed to bring a smile to your face and make you think of a special student or experience you have had at school.