I would recomend this book for all readers. This book teaches you about Ben Franklin and how he invented magic squares. It also tell you about some of the other things that Ben Franklin invented. Some things are stoves, a special rocking chair, the first library, and much more. Then it explains how Ben Franklin became a clerk of the Pennsylvania Colonial assembly. For many days Ben listened to the other members argus. Then one day Bean started doodling. Ben doodled people, new inventions, and his pet squirrel. The other members were still arguing so Ben decided to do a math puzzle. The math puzzle had turned into magic squares. This is how we have magic squares today.

I came to find that this book can make history fun to learn about and that young kids should read this great book about Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin was always busy. He was a writer, a scientist, an a inventer. in this book you will learn some of Ben Frankiln's inventions. The main idea of this book is to tell you how Ben came up with magic squares. How do you think he came up with magic squares. Find out what some of Ben Franklin's inventions and how and why he came up magic squares when you read this great book Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares!!
Katie

Mr.Murphy , My teacher was the Author of this book! I just know that last month. I think it was a great book, there were a lot of stuff about Ben Franklin. But if you want to study Ben Franklin, don't read it, because there were not much informnation in it, it will just raise you time. But if you want to read something for fun, read it, there were some funny picture in it.

I have been attempting to learn Hebrew, but I could never find a book that gave information on Yiddish. When I discovered this book in my local bookstore my heart did a dance, I absolutely love it. Rabbi Blech did a wondrous mitzvah in writing this instruction book for the Goy or the Jew. :)

This is a great book, it was very enjoyable and easy to learn from. It will definitely give you a working start with Yiddish.

This book is totally awsome! It is the funniest, most enjoyable learn-a-language book you will ever come accross. Rabbi Blech is completely on-the-ball with his Judaic knowledge which is interspersed within the book. And why shouldn't he be? He only wrote two Idiots Guides to Judaism, one which I have read and also highly recommend! (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jewish History and Culture)

On page 84 he says "Ask your Yiddish-speaking bobe [grandmother] or zeyde [grandfather], and I can almost guarantee they'll be able to sing ['Di Grine Kuzine'] to you" and so I did. He was right! My Yiddish speaking grandparents got about half way through the song until they needed the bi-lingual printing of the song in The Idiots Guide to Learning Yiddish to help them remember the words!

Expect to read this book and learn the Yiddish language, culture and everything that goes with it (including why your Yiddish Mama won't let you go out in the cold without a sweater.) You will also increase your knowledge of the history of European Jews, laugh greatly (in some cases, so you do not cry) and have an overall great time reading the stories, songs, history, grammer lessons and vocabulary teachings.

There are very few biographies out there for young children that capture their interest. My 8 year old daughter chose this book for her biography book report, was entranced by it and by the subject -- Bejamin Waterhouse Hawkins.
Surprisingly I was also intigued by the book, found the illustrations magnificent and the story "stranger than fiction". Kudos!

I purchased this as a gift for my four year old Grandson and found myself fasinated with the book. The story, although true, was new to me. I was entranced with not only the narrative but also the great and colorful art work. This is a book for all ages and I predict it will become a classic for those of us who marvel at the number of and various sizes of the different dinosaurs. A perfect gift for that Dinosaur-loving Child in your life.
Beverly J Scott author of Righteous Revenge

"Can you fathom a time when almost no one in the world knew what a dinosaur looked like?" Well, back in the mid-eighteen hundreds, that was just the case. Archeologists and paleontologists had found dinosaur fossils and bits and pieces of their skeletons, but no one had actually drawn or created a model of what one might have really looked like. Enter Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. He had always had a passion for drawing and sculpting animals, and now as an adult, realized his dream project, commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, of building life sized dinosaur statues for all the world to see..... Take a little biography and science, add some mystery, history, humor and suspense, and you have the makings of one intriguing and captivating story. Barbara Kerley and Brian Selznick take us from England to America and back with this thrilling and unique story about this special man of vision. Ms Kerley's detailed text is exciting, thoughtful, and inspiring, and beautifully complemented by Mr Selznick's dazzling and intricate illustrations. Together word and art create a vivid and lasting picture of a man who followed his dream through both triumph and disaster. Fascinating end notes are as entertaining as the story, enhance and augment learning and should open the door to interesting lessons and discussions. Perfect for youngsters 8-12, The Dinosaurs Of Waterhouse Hawkins is a treasure to be savored and enjoyed each and every time it's read.

Ben is very well written, very eloquent. He is an extremely informative writer. He gives the whole picture and helps me to have a sharp grasp of the procedures and the tastes that he has experienced. To me, Ben is greatly appreciated.

As a homebrewer and beer enthusiast who travels quite a bit, I have been looking for a manageable beer guide/road map. Thanks to Mr. Myers et al. for providing just that. Let the journey begin!!

When traveling throughout North America this pocket size 'thirst inducer' is a must! Prost to Ben Meyers! ­Merf, Product Development Bert Grant's Ales

I've read both this book and Dave Baum's Definitive Guide and both are excellent. I enjoyed Baum's book more because it caters to an older audience: Baum seems to be writing to an older reader, there's an emphasis on the programming aspect of Mindstorms, and there are more semi-advanced projects.
Erwin's book is a thousand times better for children. The brilliant full-color pictures blow away Baum's black and white book. Erwin is a genuinely interesting author and obviously loves teaching.. Anyone who wants to teach a class with Mindstorms should take a look at the book, because it's full of great "this didn't work, but THIS did" anecdotes.
Ultimately, this never really goes above that level. Teachers and younger students should purchase this book, because it's a beautiful guide and will inspire quite a few youngsters. For the robotics engineers, programmers, and older geeks who wish that they'd had Mindstorms as a child, check out Baum's Definitive Guide - it's definitely more of what I was looking for.

Last year I coached a FIRST LEGO League team of 4th and 5th graders we took 2nd place in California State, as well as the Rookie All Star award. I used a large variety of materials pulled from various sources, but I was really frustrated by the lack of a book that would be directly accessible to kids as well as adults. I discussed my frustrations on LUGNET and was *thrilled* to find out that Ben Erwin was in the final stages of just such a book. I used a pre-press version of the book with my team in the late stages of the competition and they all loved it and wished they'd had access to it earlier. When it finally got through the publication process, I snapped it up immediately!

All I can say is WOW! The pre-press was pretty nice, but the final book is absolutely *gorgeous*.

While there are lots of great mindstorms books out there (most notably Dave Baum's) this is the *only* one that covers ROBOLAB, the standard for RCX programming in educational scenarios as well as the standard LEGO-provided programming environment.

If you're an adult needing inspiration for your own robots, or if you have kids who like mindstorms, this book belongs in your collection!

This book is a great introduction to the world of LEGO Mindstorms robots. I've been working with the LEGO Mindstorms kits for about 6 months, and I've often been frustrated by the lack of detail in the manuals for the kits. This book provides quite a bit of the missing information. For instance, it explains that you lose your firmware if you take your batteries out of your RCX for more than a minute or two (I wish that I'd seen that in a manual somewhere!). It provides a broad overview of alternatives to programming in RCX code, together with examples from each alternative mentioned for comparison. These coding examples are discussed in the text and they are also included on the accompanying CD. In addition to the coding examples, the CD also includes videos and stills of the robots described in the book. The book includes descriptions of a broad range of robots, from the very simple Acrobot robot featured in the Constructopedia, to robots designed by school kids, to robots designed by parent-kid teams, to advanced robots using IR communication and data logging. In each case, Erwin provides the details of the development process, how the robot was first conceived, how it was developed, and how the design problems were identified and solved. This approach makes the book much more than a simple code cookbook- -it explains to parents, teachers, and older kids how robots actually come about. Scattered throughout the book are "Asides" that explain various topics such as LEGO geometry, how to calculate gear ratios, understanding compound gear trains, programming decisions, etc. The book includes appendices of useful information, a bibliography, an excellent glossary, and an index.

There are few authors I feel everyone should read but no matter who you are Herbert Huncke should be read. He is one of the best storytellers/writers I have had the privilege of reading. His stories of sex, streets, drugs, life and friends bring a humanity to what may be considered by many obscure, degenerate, or just plain disgusting, but Huncke's stories I believe are non of these. They are filled with love, beauty, pain and always truth. He takes the reader into a world they don't always want to enter but when the story is finished we are glad we made the journey and had someone like Huncke by our side as a companion.

Herbert Huncke was the true beat. As WS Burroughs wrote, in The Herbert Huncke Reader, "Huncke had adventures and misadventures that were not available to middle-class, comparatively wealthy college people like...me....Huncke had extraordinary experiences that were quite genuine." The sad true is that Huncke was the type that Burroughs wrote about, but didn't like much. He was real. Burroughs was living on trust-fund money for decades (remember that the $200 a month WSB received from family in the 1950s was equal to thousands of dollars a month now-not a bad way to live). Huncke lived the life that others wrote about, but never live. While Burroughs ate steak and drank fine booze, Huncke was still wandering around Times Square. Read the original beat. He makes the other 'beat' writers seem like the middle-class dilatants that many of them were. Huncke never fought for the fame, the fortune, and the boys. He was just a "junkie on the prow." This book is truly hip.

Previously known for using the word "beat" to the fullest, thus inspiring Kerouac for an appropriation of a very hip literary movement, there was more to Huncke than just a "jive" talker. As we know, Huncke was a full time junky (what a rhyme!) who had more of an affect on Burroughs than any other beat writer. Likewise, Huncke spent most of his life helping out on the Burroughs' cannabis farm and taking care of Bill's wife Joan who harnessed a difficult benny habit. In Huncke's early years, growing up in Massachusetts and NYC, he used to entertain the boys at local cafeterias with his succinct yet street jargon-fulled stories; clearly he had a talent for story telling. This story-telling is pretty much what makes up the Herbert Huncke Reader. Starting with Huncke's journal, Herbert gets his feet wet with short-story writing, particularly focusing on introspective work-outs and clever anecdotes. Then the books moves to The Evening Sun Turned Crimson, another introspective composition altho mainly concentrating on structural pieces depicting street life, hanging with the beats, and drugs. Next to Reader introduces Guilty of Everything, a comprehensive series of interviews plus outtakes from other journals. Finally the book closes with Previously Uncollected Material, the chapter says it all. Sometimes moving other times raw and scatological, Huncke writes with a unique style that is easy to comprehend and is inspiring. Although not as transcendent as his contempoaries (Burroughs, Ginsberg, Corso), Huncke's writing should not overlooked as "writings of a drug addict," or "a subordinate Beatnik." Huncke did have talent (most notably with recitations) and has definitely worked to the fullest by publishing what he could, despite his painful heroin addiction and ostracization. In my opinion he's a second Neal Cassady (more of a inspiring icon) and definitely had a major affect on the foremost Beat's writings despite his own sparse collection; that's why I think this Reader is important.

This well-written and concise book gives information on many type of pathologies the massage therapist should be familar with. I also used this book as a reference for the National Certification Examination for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork and found it pretty helpful. However, if you are looking for the type of questions asked on the NCETMB, I would buy the following which is also sold on amazon.com:
The Ultimate Study Guide for the National Certification Examination for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork: Key Review Questions and Answers
(Topics: Clinical Pathology and Recogintion of Various Conditions) Vol 2 (ISBN: 0971999651)

The Ultimate Study Guide for the National Certification Examination for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork: Key Review Questions and Answers
(Topics: Human Anatomy, Physiology and Kinesiology) Vol 1 (ISBN: 0971999643)

The Ultimate Study Guide for the National Certification Examination for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork: Key Review Questions and Answers
(Topics: Massage Therapy and Bodywork: Theory, Assessment and Application. Professional Standards, Ethics and Business Practices) Vol 3 (ISBN: 097199966X)

I am a massage therapist and used this book to teach myself the various pathologies. I recommend this book highly to any massage therapist who needs more knowledge in pathology.

This book was recommended to me by another Massage Therapist. I am so glad I took her recommendation. The book is fantastic! I use it a lot and can always find what information I need. Therapists, you won't go wrong in purchasing this book. I highly recommend it for new graduates or any Therapist that wants current information at their fingertips.

A nice laid-back approach to a father-son memoir, offering interesting insights into the lives of Dads of sons - and the sons of Dads.

Shaving Lessons offers more descriptions of actual Dad-son activities and less of the author's thoughts and reflections on their meaning and importance for the relationship (but, then, this is a guy writing after all). After my initial surprise, I found that it makes for a easier, less imposing read - it allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, inferring the emotions evoked from the events described.

There's a nice, cozy, fireplace-in-a-log-cabin and well-worn-Volvo feel about the book, and while not all Dad's can be as accomplished as Mr. Chandler (playing rock-tunes with a live band to impress a teenage son), most of us can instantly relate to his down-to-earth struggle with a real, honest family life.

For any Son or Dad there is ample food for thought here - not just about male relationships, but about the whole notion of life as the parent of a boy, and as an adult son. Shaving Lessons might even lead some of us to reconsider our relationships with our fathers and/or sons...

Thank you! What a tear jerker! It makes you think about your own relationship with your parents and gives you the opportunity to appreciate them even more. I admire Kurt for opening his heart and sharing his personal thoughts with the readers. That takes courage. Big Kuddos to Ben for letting his Dad write the book;-). Great Job!

Shaving Lessons had me hooked at the very first paragraph in the Prolouge....not to mention had me shedding tears. Kurt Chandler does a wonderful job describing his relationship with his son, as well as examining his relationship with his own father in an honest and sometimes difficult reflection.

This is a very engaging book that raises some of the central issues in the clashing of our Semitic cosmology with the modern materialist worldview, and places them in a historical context. A scholarly discussion of this book could well inform debates over the role of Darwinism in the modern world. It does however present a historical view that is very unorthodox in some ways.

It is a refreshing change to see this important side of Darwinism argued by its opponents rather than the tedious and unenlightening arguments somewhat more separately from the status of natural selection in science or arguments for the contamination of science texts, or the ill-conceived notion of "theistic science." It is the moral implications of a Darwinist view of the universe that seem to be at the core of anti-Darwinism, even though the rhetoric often revolves around the false claim that evolution is "a big lie."

The confusion of the moral implications of a Darwinist view from the factual aspects of evolution are the biggest and most serious complaint from critics like Robert Pennock ("Tower of Babel"), and this book takes a welcome step toward that separation, although it doesn't quite achieve it.

This book at least focuses the core issues where they belong, in the realm of moral philosophy and how we should live as a result of our understanding of nature. It is also refreshing and ironic to see anti-Darwinism approached in a serious historical context, since Darwin's central point was to place the natural world into historical context.

The story here is well told, and correctly establishes the materialist philosophy going back to the ancient Greeks as part of the foundation of modernism later developed further by others. It is clearly an attractive story to opponents of the modernist worldview because it seems by this account to leave modernism rooted in an inferior basis of morality, something that the author finds Christianity to have done far better.

It also makes thoughtful points about the role of hedonistic philosophy in Western culture that are of interest to people who are not strictly anti-Darwinists. It isn't hard to appreciate the role of hedonism today and sometimes feel as if we are, as Neil Postman put it, "Amusing Ourselves To Death."

It is weakened in my perspective by failing to completely separate the factual evolutionary aspects of the modern worldview from their moral implications, and in avoiding the question of whether the roots of *democracy* and other aspects of modernism might also be rooted in those same times. The links between materialism, Darwinism and modern economic theory and their putative role in the Industrial revolution is an important issue that the authors largely avoid. If not from these aspects of modernism, where do they come from ?

Democracy is surely not an innovation by Augustine or Luther, it seems to me. Democratic ideals rooted in ancient Athens seem to play as much of a role in the modern world as Epicureanism, and there is a very serious question in my mind whether this aspect of modernity is being cast out along with Epicureanism and materialism by the author. The baby of modern freedom with the bathwater of modern materialist-Darwinist morality.

Some profound questions raised but not entirely answered to my satisfaction in this book and relevant to culture clash include:

1. Is Christianity, or some other doctrinal religion, therefore the only reasonable basis for morality in a modern Western world ?

2. Is moral humanism neccessarily always rooted in Epicureanism (or more importantly, Darwinism, for that matter), and is it the only alternative Christianity ?

3. Are there also negative aspects of the worldview of Christianity, or positives to the modernist materialist worldview that are worth preserving ?

4. Is a true non-Darwinian morality possible and consistent with the valuable aspects of modernity ?

I recommend this for critical thinkers who want to know more about what motivates anti-evolutionists, and also on slightly different aspects of the same issues:

"When The Gods All Trembled: Darwinis, Scopes, and American Intellectuals," by Paul Conklin, for a penetrating discussion of the logical implications of Darwinism for Christian moral thinking,

"Genes, Genesis, and God," by John Holmes Ralston for interesting discussions of the implications and alternatives to morality rooted in sociobiology, and

"The Unconscious Civilization," John Ralston Saul, who has an interesting take on the roots of modernism that is very different from Wiker, emphasizing entirely different aspects.

"Tower of Babel," by Robert Pennock, a critique of the underlying philosophical and factual claims of intelligent design.

"Amusing Ourselves to Death," by Neil Postman, a social criticism that shares with Wilker an attack on modern hedonism, although from a completely different perspective.

Wiker's analysis of the roots and development of the underlying philosophy of scientific naturalism (Darwinism) is clear and compelling. This is a very approachable book that I recommend highly--a "must read".

This is one of the most important books I have ever read. Wiker writes extremely well and provides much needed research into the history of the battle between Christianity and Epicureanism. He argues persuasively that our culture wars are really cosmological wars. This book clarifies what is at stake and makes the contrast quite clear between the two antithetical and antagonistic worldviews of Materialism and Christianity. This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand the underlying ideas behind our current moral debates.

I bought this for my kindegartner, since his older brother has a school album and I wanted my younger son to have one, too. It's nice, it has all the places to remark about each school year, places for photos, places to keep reports and other mementos. But it's just... ugly! The layout, the design, the colors -- not at all attractive. If I could return it, I would, but my son has already written in it....

...BR> One day while surfing on amazon.com i found my school days.I ordered it and knew immediatley that it was the perfect tool to help me update and stay on top of my childs magnificent development.
This book is great for anyone who is serious about recording the wonder years of children.

Using my "School Years History Album", has helped me very much and as I look back in my book, it brings back many fond memories that I would not be able to remember otherwise. The author is very innovative and I am glad that I have "My School Year History Album".