Brimner's Raindrops is a gentle, poetic tie-in to primary science units about the water cycle. Big and bold illustrations by David Brooks in soft, pastel colors are dreamy--as if seen through a soft rain. Brimner, who is one of the best loved writers for kindergarten and first grade, has a winner here. Like this one and you'll enjoy some of his other emergent readers--Cowboy Up!, Nana's Hog, Firehouse Sal, How Many Ants?, and the hysterical duo Max and Felix. Kids love them (and so do their teachers).

A first-grade team teacher, I find Brimner's emergent reader to be a useful tie-in to our science unit on the water cycle. Although he doesn't clobber readers over the head with scientific facts--it is, after all, fiction--the cycle is there for young readers to discover and enjoy. An excellent choice for anyone wishing to tie scientific fact to the realm of young fiction.

Collaborative written by ecologists Colbert E. Cushing (Colorado State University) and J. David Allen (University of Michigan), Streams: Their Ecology And Life is a superbly presented field guide packed with beautiful color photography, sketches, charts, graphs, and an authoritative text introducing readers of all backgrounds to the diverse, rich and fascinating splendor of streams and the chains of natural life that form around them. From the different types of rivers to the variety of different creatures that inhabit them and the surrounding area - birds, fish, crustaceans, amphibians, insects and more - Streams: Their Ecology And Life is packed cover to cover with an incredible amount of solid information and highly recommended for personal, school, and community library environmental studies and reference collections.

I've been catching up on Wells' work lately, and up to this point, I've been fairly impressed. His best work, written at the turn of the century, holds up fairly well: it's entertaining and thought-provoking (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds).

I wasn't very impressed with this book, however. It doesn't read like his other works. The story probably could have been told in 20 or so pages, definitely a short-story candidate. I was amazed that Wells stretched this out to its present length, as the middle 40-odd pages were quite dull and really didn't go anywhere.

The science behind the story (while iffy, of course), is fascinating. Griffin is a great character, but more could have been done with him, besides his spending so much time having to convince people that he IS, in fact, invisible ("I am invisible. I really am an invisible man", etc, etc). It gets mind-numbing after a while. I guess the biggest let-down of the book is the fact that the title gives everything away. Once you've seen the cover, you pretty much have it; no real surprises. Yep, he's invisible, and there ya go.

What a great idea to assemble scifi icons from Star Trek to perform various H.G. Wells's classics! Of the works they've performed are: The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The First Men in the Moon, and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

This audio recording of The Invisible Man was easy listening, and fun too. It's definitely worth a listen. I'm going to have to check out the others!

One side note, obviously the original work was abridged and adapted for audio drama. You'll still want to read the classic.

Okay, so Wells didn't load the book with the violence seen in the recent movie Hollow Man. Consider when the book was written, and what was comparable at the time. I, for one, was engrossed in the book and read it in about three sittings.

Wells excellently portrayed Griffin (Invisible Man) as a man crossing back and forth from sanity to madness. You may catch yourself considering how you would overcome his difficulties, or how you might abuse his power.

What really stood out for me was the tongue-in-cheek undertones Wells incorporated into the story, such as the cockney dialect and rustic behavior of the people of Iping. Also, consider Wells' narration during intense moments, such as the fight between Griffin and the people of Iping...
"...[Huxter's] shin was caught in some mysterious fashion, and he was no longer running, but flying with inconceivable rapidity through the air. He saw the ground suddenly close to his face. The world seemed to splash into a million whirling specks of light, and subsequent proceedings interested him no more."
Later elaboration of the events included the terrifying realization that Griffin was "smiting and overthrowing, for the mere satisfaction of hurting."

If you find the book difficult to follow, try the version adapted by Malvina Vogel, complete with illustrations by Pablo Marcos. It's not as powerful, but easier to understand.

The Book is a great collection of articles for the avid historian of Japanese history, or perhaps the struggling college student. The book is well-compiled and thurough. A very good refrence for information on the Tokugawa Era.

I purchased the guide to help me study for the PE. This book is divided into several chapters, each covering a different area of mechanical engineering. The chapters were written by various contributing authors. Although some of the chapters were helpful in my studies, overall I was very disappointed with the book. There are numerous errors in the formulas and example problems which can lead to a lot of time wasted on figuring out why your answer does not agree with theirs. For example, a good deal of the text from a chapter on kinematics and dynamics of machinery came from Norton's book Design of Machinery. However, the PE review author did not copy some of the equations correctly. Fortunately, I had both books so I could find the discrepancy with a minimum of wasted time.

Another disappointment was the chapter on control systems. Most of the chapters had several example problems so that you could see how to solve them. However, the control systems had only three problems, two of which were on how to find transfer functions. The information in the chapter was difficult to follow and instead I relied on my undergraduate books.

Also disappointing was that the answers to the problems from each chapter were in a separate book. The author claims that this was done so that you could bring the review book into the exam with you. However, to the best of my knowledge, in every state you are allowed to bring any material that you wish with you to the exam.

A better option for a review book would be Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual for the Pe Exam : For the Pe Exam by Michael R. Lindeburg. This title is available from Amazon.com.

No mater which book you choose, in the end you need to study pretty hard to pass this exam. Good luck with your studies.