I teach 2-6 year old children. What a great help this book has been! The book is broken down into seasons. Many projects are interchangable simply by changing the seasonal theme. The color pictures, templates and simple directions make this a MUST HAVE BOOK FOR ANY TEACHER searching for easy projects that will produce grand results.

I absolutely love this book! It is a little pricey, but well worth the money spent. I teach both elementary and middle school art and the projects in this book are easily adaptable all kids in this age range. The projects are presented with full color illustration (which certainly contributes to the cost of the printing) and easy to follow instructions. Though most of the projects would be considered 'craft' projects, there are many ideas that can easily be adapted to produce 'fine art' results.

So many allergy specialty cookbooks end up with gooey, or bland tasting recipes that are far from exciting.

This book, however, changes all of that. Interesting, easy-to-use, delicious, and practical, this book could be the only one that you need if you suffer from any food allergies or sensitivities.

It is excellently laid out, with fascinating and thorough information, and I have used it again and again. Although it is not as gourmet as I usually eat, it is sufficient for the average cook/chef that has to deal with allergies in their household.

I highly recommend this book.

As a person who is allergic to wheat, dairy, and eggs, I found this book to be an absolute lifesaver. Anyone with food allergies would know how difficult it is to buy or make alternatives that are cheap, simple, and most importantly taste good. I was very excited when I found this book because it is full of delicious, everyday recipes that are very easy to make. Besides being allergic to many different kinds of foods, I am also a college student living on my own. I didn't have much cooking experience, but I had no problems following the recipes. Another great thing about this book is that the ingredients in the recipes are used over and over again in different ways so there is very little waste. The recipes are also arranged neatly in different catagories, and the book includes detailed information about different ingredients and a rotation diet. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone suffering from food allergies because it has allowed me to enjoy many common recipes I otherwise could not have eaten. I thank the authors with all my heart for writing this much needed book.

Levy and Kunitz have been researching Navajo alcohol use for close to thirty years. In this work, they track the alcohol use of a sample Navajo population across time. Unlike early works that emphasized the similarities between Navajo drinking and Anglo drinking, this work spends much of the time on differences between the two populations. Although Anglos and Navajos in the rural Southwest both have alcoholism rates that are pretty much the same, the experiences individual Navajos have with alcohol over time have not been previously explored in great detail. This multi-generational study mixes scientific language with compelling personal stories to great effect. Levy and Kunitz present compelling evidence that Navajo drinking patterns are significantly different from Anglo drinking patterns. In particular, the Navajo trajectory of heavy male drinking during early adulthood turning into moderate drinking by middle age has interesting comparisons with todays college-age men. The study also does a nice job exploring the relationship of Navajo women with alcohol and finds that female Navajos typically have less problems than men, but for those that do have problems the consequences are much worse.
Although this work will probably only appeal to scholars, those with an interest in Navajo culture should read this work, as well as previous volumes by these authors, to better understand the myths and truths surrounding Navajo drinking.

I used this book my freshman year in high school, and it was very useful in beginning the spanish language and getting a base to build on. I also recommend the text book

As an educator for both High School and Collegiate level courses, this is the best resource that a Professor of Castillan - Spanish, can use in his class. The reason is as follows; this book is written before the advent of computer technology and students actually have to think and fill in the blanks. Which in turn creats a better student especially when one is trying to master the verbs and pronouns of the Castillan language. I would recomment this workbook to anyone who is trying to master the Castillan Language.

Sincerely,

R. Edward Lauer III, MA Professor of Spanish

I have used this text in most all of my beginning Spanish Grammar classes and have been amazed with the results. The text is easy to understand, gives excellent examples and reinforces the verbs in an easy to understand manner. The usage of this book along with any text is critical for students who intends to master Spanish Grammar.

This is a useful reference and particularly good for people who prefer detailed observation of objects. For people like me who prefer quantity over quality (i.e. if you don't spend an hour looking at the same object), I'd recommend Kepple's Night Sky Observers guide. Kepple's guides offer a combination of the most useful and comprehensive guides I've seen for intermediate and advanced observational astronomers.

The hardback format of this book isn't particularly good for the field, even though I've seen people referencing beaten-up copies with their red flashlights. It has good quality paper stock.

In sum, this is a standard work on the Messier objects and has substantial value despite its somewhat high price. However, I could think of other books I'd buy first -- Nightwatch for beginners, Kepple's set for more advanced users.

This book is an interesting change from the stereo-typcial astronomy guide which so often tends to be technical to the point of dryness. O'Meara lets fly with some artistic hyperbolae and isn't afraid to let the imagination loose. The result is a refreshingly different perspective on sky viewing. His descriptions of the Messier objects have caused me to look differntly at what I thought were familiar friends until now. The book is best appreciated if delved into - trying to read it cover to cover is not recommended.

This book is a tremendous help to those of us setting out to find the Messier objects. The biggest problem with finding objects is figuring out what they should like like in a telescope -- sometimes I've got something in the finder or telescope and I'm not certain what it is. O'Meara solves that problem by providing photographs and his terrific drawings, not to mention is verbal paintings which could make a blind person see the objects. He devoted hours to each single object, waxing poetic at times about the merits and downsides to every single object. The first few chapters give some good history and background of Messier and other famous comet hunters. As a final plus, the book is printed on very high quality glossy paper so it's a pleasure to read. As a field guide, it would have been helpful to have it spiral bound, but that's my only suggestion for improvement. The author even includes a helpful appendix of other interesting sky objects that are not Messier objects, all of which are worthwhile telescope targets. A winner!

I bought my first computer, a Macintosh, in 1984. I had wanted a computer for years, watching friends with envy at their Commodore 64s, Radio Shack Color Computers, and wonderful Apple IIs. When the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, I had to have it. It was the computer built "for the rest of us." Never mind that I could have had everything I needed in a computer--word processing program, a few games--for $$$, as soon as I sat down in front of the Macintosh, my life changed. The Macintosh, and the entire graphical user interface concept, was truly "insanely great," as Steven Levy quotes Steve Jobs, former chairman of Apple Computers. In his new book, Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything, Levy reveals how and why the Macintosh had such an impact on the world.

Although the Macintosh debuted in 1984, the seeds of its design had been planted as early as 1945. In a post-war statement, Vannevar Bush, then the director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, wrote an essay in which he contended that the next step of technology should be the way we collect and process information. Having seen the early use of computers in the war, Bush realized the awesome potential of high-speed information management, but also knew that progress would have to be made in the interface if ever information management could be useful. Levy follows the chain that links Bush to Alan Kay, who proposed the Dynabook, a forerunner of today's PDA technology, to the developers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center who developed the first graphical user interface (GUI). Nearby, a small team of dedicated programmers were working on the low-cost hardware that became teamed with the new GUI concept that became the Macintosh.

Much has been written about the originality of the GUI concept, and more than one lawsuit has been fought over it. Levy attempts to go beyond the simple desktop metaphor and explain why it was the particular Macintosh implementation of the concept that changed the way people viewed computers. Xerox's researchers were quite happy just to discover "how" to do things; it was Jef Raskin, Steve Jobs, Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfield, and the rest of the Macintosh team that were driven to give GUI to the people. The concept alone didn't change the world of computing--it was the concept, in a reasonably priced computer, with a "killer application" that showed just how intuitive the concept could be that made things happen. Early Macintosh adoptees like myself thought it was the "What You See is What You Get" word processing and graphic programs that would make everyone see the light. It took Aldus' PageMaker to break the publishing barrier for the "rest of us" to wake up to the possibilities.

The Macintosh implementation had (and has) its problems, which Levy does not gloss over. The initial Macintosh, that computer that I bought in 1984, was released underpowered (128k RAM), without enough storage space (it only had a single floppy drive capable of holding 400k), and crippled in expandability (it was a "closed" system without expansion slots). Apple knew this upon its release, but "real programmers ship," as Jobs is quoted saying, and the Macintosh had to be out the door in 1984. Apple quickly followed the 128k Macintosh with an upgrade to 512k and a 800k disk drive, then with new models including a Macintosh with slots.

The author, Steven Levy, is perhaps best known in the field for his first book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Levy's position as an industry journalist kept him in the midst of the impact of the Macintosh, with access to Jobs, John Sculley, Jean Louis Gasse, Bill Gates, Aldus' president Paul Brainerd, and almost every member of the Macintosh development team. This chronicle of the development of the Macintosh is part history, part evaluation of the hits and misses, the politics and relationships, of all these people. Every implementation of the GUI interface as seen in the Macintosh was deeply argued, as was its cost, hardware, and "look." Levy shows you that a product such as Macintosh, which is usually attributed to a few people, is actually the culmination of the development team, and also their forerunners, including the Xerox team, and their competitors, most notably Microsoft and IBM.

Today, the GUI concept is ever present. My original Macintosh (which I fondly call the MacAntique), after being upgraded once, has been passed to my niece and nephew (who, to be entirely truthful, play more with their father's Mac II than with the antique), and I replaced it four years ago with an IBM-PC clone that runs today's most popular GUI, Microsoft Windows (the defection was a result of economics--I couldn't afford a new Macintosh). The last command-line holdout, UNIX, is battering down the hatches in defense against the migration of the GUI in the form of the WWW, Java, and its ilk. The Macintosh revolution is twelve, and shows no signs of dying anytime soon. For those who want to understand the early shots--computerdom's equivalent's of the Boston Tea Party and the shot that was heard round the world--Levy's book is a good primer.

Insanely Great by Steven Levy is about the history of the best personal computer company out there, Apple--how it came to be, what were its obstacles and its triumphs, and how it changed the world and the way people think. Levy sometimes gets lost in the details, making one confused about the importance of what he talks about. Also he used the phrase "dent in the universe" one too many times. However, his book reveals much about Apple, and he often points out its mistakes. This does not make the book boring, which would happen if he only praised the company. Also his writing style is very easy to read, he does not overdo it with advanced vocabulary. And finally the book further expanded my love for Apple, and their product, the Macintosh computer. I recomend this book to any Apple fan, or simply to anyone that is curious about the company. Long live Apple!

Steven Levy's "Insanely Great", chronicles the development of the Apple Macintosh computer. From its early conception as one man's vision of the future to its fine-tuning. Levy is pretty detailed through the step by step developments of the Macintosh, but does not get too technical as to get a everyday person lost in a bunch of computer jargon. I recommend this book to those interested in how computers went from DOS prompts to the Microsoft Windows and Mac visual interfaces we are familiar with today.