What a gift Ms. Settle has! I could smell the wash on the line and dream in the back porch hammock. How wonderfully she evokes childhood with our oh so literal evaluations of the mysterious adults. To paraphrase e.e. cummings,--down we forget as up we grow--.but not so with Ms. Settle. The author draws sharply defined characters except for her own mother, interestinly enough. I sense a lot of unresolved feelings where her own mother is concerned; she's angry but tries to be fair. Addie, the grandmother, is in bright relief in contrast to the sharp and shadowy mother. Addie's self-righteous neighbor snorted over the misbehavior of a certain attractive young women. Addie's response: "I guess if you're not pretty, you're not tempted." says volumes.

As one who has written several family histories, I am intrigued with the idea of writing autobiography and putting it into the family history by beginning a generation or so before birth of the subject. This makes for a firm foundational picture of what the subject is born into and must learn to live with. Mary Lee Settle did a masterful job of showing the conditioning that goes into survival in a West Virginia family based on the marriage of lower caste Addie, her grandmother, to upper caste Preston, her grandfather. It is a clear, telling picture of growing up in the grey area of the depression years.

This was a very special personal find for me. I can't wait to read other books written by Ms. Settle. An excellent writer, researcher, storyteller. I know Cedar Grove well, the town where Miss Addie lived. The history, for anyone in the Kanawha Valley, alone is worth checking out this book. But I can recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading a story that flows so well that you can't wait to read the next page. The account of history, the personal relationships, the writer's command of the written word...not one line was wasted... and it makes one think about their own grandparents and those before them. I loved the book. I will definitely read Ms. Settle's eariler books.

Why must today's textbooks writers nearly always revert to political themes? From Chapter 1 (Tipos y estereotipos) the authors LIBERALLY (no pun intended) salt the text with their political philosophy. Another example is the slum lord who exploits the poor single mother in Chapter 5. Given that today's textbook writers are graduates of the 60's and 70's, I guess this is no surprise. That said, I also find the layout of the book wonting and too complex. Between the textbook, the accompanying "Cultura" book, the combined lab/workbook and the tapes, you're looking at some serious coin to buy supporting materials for an intermediate Spanish course. Add in a dictionary, 501 Spanish Verbs, a tape recorder/player and notebook, and I have to carry it all around in a small suitcase. It also becomes challenging to coordinate all the assignments between the different books. Enough with "learning systems". What ever happened to a simple, straight-forward textbook? Of course, there's even more stuff for the instructor (videos, instructor's manual). Surely these good caring folks couldn't be that heavily motivated by money -- could they?

I use this book with my fourth year High School Spanish class. I have been using it for 3 years and have found it to be an excellent basis for conversation practice. The content in most of the chapters is interesting to the students so they enjoy talking about the subjects and learning the vocabulary by using it in real discussions. It's a buy!

I have taught out of Pasajes Lengua from time to time over the last 10 years throughout several editions. The Fifth Edition, with Rodney Bransdorfer added to the author team, appears to be their hottest edition yet. The grammar activities are better organized and cleaned up, and the presentation in the book is sharper and more comprehensible than ever. While many texts just lose steam after several editions, Pasajes has hit its peak!

In Japan, there is a custum to worship the full moon of early autumm.

Mice children make a box seat on the tree top,and the whole family watch moon. there is vely simple story,few words, but minute pictures gives us many infomations about their country life and familly relationship. Color expression of night sight shone by the moon is excellent.
My daughter two years and 6 months old likes this book to be read ( or shown ), but a little dull for me.

This large print, large picture book is great for teaching and great for learning for young or early readers. Story is as charming as the characters.

I am just getting started with the mountain dulcimer, although I do have some musical experience and I can read music. I found this book rather hard to follow. The tunings were not what I was familiar with and if there were any finger-picking techniques, I missed them. So far David Schnaufer's video has helped me the most. I now know one song!

This book is great for beginning players. Instructions cover beginning techniques from soup to nuts, the songs are great and fun to learn -you won't be gritting your teeth as you zing through Yet Another Round of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" - Hammond gives the reader the good stuff right off the bat, written for beginners who will play on only the first string for awhile - instructions on how to get jiggy and start chording creatively follow soon after. Tablature is easy to read, songs come with lyrics, illustrations are lovely woodblock prints, and the casette is a good quality recording.

I think that book is one from the verey best book I ever had.

As a chronic pain sufferer for the last 15 years, learning about what might be causing my pain, how to reduce the pain, how to minimize its affect on my life and perspective, and how to eliminate the causes of pain have been a top priority. In my search, I have found relatively little help from the medical profession. They are sympathetic, but primarily good at eliminating potential causes of pain through diagnostic testing. The pain goes on. My road has led me through many alternative ways of diagnosing causes of pain and treating it. The lesson for me is that pain has many contributing causes and a wide range of things you can do to help.

Having learned that much in 15 years, I was pleased to see these same lessons spelled out in Erasing Pain. Not only that, but the authors have taken 77 categories of diseases and described their causes, typical pain associated with them, and outlined some potential forms of relief.

The authors work at the Rusk Institute in New York City where a holistic approach is taken to the patient's pain. This includes looking at emotions, psychology, social needs related to ailments and disabilities, as well as how the patient's life environment may be contributing. One man in pain was jogging with a large dog on a leash. When he stopped taking the dog along at the doctors' suggestion, his pain eventually went away.

The book is designed to help patients in pain communicate with their physicians. "We believe that the medical profession treats patient pain very inadequately, sometimes badly." "Most doctors are poorly trained to deal with the phenomenon . . . ."

To make the material more accessible, it is in a question-and-answer format. The questions are the ones that patients in pain answer the most often.

The book also gives the patient new ways to communicate about pain, including how intense the pain is on a scale of one to ten and its exact analogy in other experiences with pain that are widely occurring (burning, stinging, raw, sensitive, throbbing, or sharp as some examples).

Best of all, the book is very open to exploring alternative therapies, and explains why they may work.

In my case, one cause of pain was in a place where I felt no pain. People in pain typically only notice the source of pain that is most intense at the moment. I have very flat feet, and needed orthotics. With them, my back stopped putting pressure on my sciatic nerve and most of my leg pain went away after some chiropractic treatments. After eliminating many sources of pain in this sort of indirect way, I finally got to the point where I could feel the pain in my feet. With self massage, I can get a lot of relief from that pain. Exercise, reading, music, and meditation all help (as the book suggests they usually do).

My only complaint about this book is that it definitely over does describing what can be treated at the Rusk Institute. Much of the beginning of the book reads like a marketing brochure for the institute. Although it is good to know about the credentials of those who are writing a book, I prefer books that do so much more unobtrusively than this one. I graded the book down one star for this. On pain-related content only, this is definitely a five-star book.

If you have pain and cannot go to the Rusk Institute, definitely read this book and apply its lessons. It could make all the difference in how much pain you experience!

May you live in pain-free peace!

From Reader to Reading Teacher is a very useful book for both beginning and experienced teachers who want to improve their theoretical knowledge and practical strategies in teaching reading. The book connects reading theory to classroom activities. It encourages teachers to explore their beliefs and assumptions about the nature of reading and provides theoretical basis for better understanding of the background of various reading strategies.

The book provides a variety of examples of methods based on these principles and enables a teacher to choose the strategy most appropriate in any particular situation. It also examines the factors that influence both native language and second language reading, similarities and differences in first and second language acquisition, and relationship between first and second languages. This book helps teachers learn how to select appropriate reading activities and plan effective reading lessons for L2/FL classroom.

The authors of the book provide the readers with a wide variety of examples of texts used in teaching reading and a selection of activities appropriate for different types of texts. Most of these activities can be easily adapted to any particular group of students and are applicable in many practical situations.

Another aspect that makes this book very useful for educators is practicality. Self-assessment exercises and sample lesson plans and activities provided in its chapters helped me as a teacher to determine my professional style. By comparing and analyzing the efficiency of different approaches to teaching reading, teachers can develop their own methods and techniques which would be most effective in their ESL classroom.

Its clear language with a number of real-life examples and exercises, make this book is a good theoretical and practical source of information for both novice and experienced L2/FL reading teachers.

I truely loved this book.Wehn I read it I felt as if i was that little girl and I felt her pain. The story is of this little girl and her parenst have recently seperated and her mom beats her.