I bought this book fully aware that Jane's graphic style is completely different from my tendency to favor realistic applique or gentle color washes. I wanted to expand my vision, and this incredible book is everything I hoped for. Unlike some quilt books that focus on a technique and others that focus on the development of a quilt artist over time, this book tackles both.
Jane shares her background, introduction to quilting as an artistic medium, her struggles along the way, and the progression of her style, presented both in words and in pictures of her quilts over the years.
The last 40% of the book shows you how find your inpirational material, say a dandelion leaf or iris flower, and work with it to identify its signature characteristics.
Using two quilts, Jane shows her two approaches, providing plenty of detail. I'm working with the image of a Christmas cactus (I bought this book during the holiday season). I can tell that it's going to take a while before I get the design to the point where it pleases me enough to start buying fabric and sewing, but it's an enjoyable challenge. I look forward to producing something completely different from anything I've ever done or thought of doing.
Even if someone never intended to make a quilt like Jane's, reading this book and studying the pictures is an incredible education. The intense power that leaps from her designs is a challenge to every artist to put more life into every work of art. This is a book I will read many times, marveling at what this woman has created.

Wow! Jane Sassaman is a fiber artist in the zone. The color plates of her quilts are both awesome and inspiring. Her designs are inspired from nature and from historical designs. I particularly like the way she has taken the tree of life design and gone wild with it in "Willow" and several smaller studies.
There are some practical chapters in this book which should inspire and help quilters that are intrigued by the art quilt, but are not sure how to get started. (How to gather ideas and keep a sketch book, how to simplify designs for fibre construction, stylizing, adding depth and interest.) There is also a section where she explores machine embroidery with the quilting process. I love machine embroidery and I'm always looking for artistic ways to blend it with my quilting.
If you are a serious artist, collect this book so you can see what Jane is doing. If you're currently working in the zone--you are going to see some of these visions there.
If you are a beginning or intermediate quilter and are willing to
read and look at this book from cover to cover--it may influence your work when you get to the point you need to use design and color in innovative ways. Definitely a quilter's quilter book, but worth every minute you spend between its covers.

I loved Jane's work the first time I saw it. Her quilts are filled with an exuberance and energy that fairly leaps out at you. How terrific that she is willing to share, not just her technical know-how, but the secrets of the design process, her ways of finding inspiration and the way she works toward a finished piece. The book is a visual feast, filled with pictures of Jane's work and pictures from nature that inspired her. She explains the details and shows us how. For me, this book was a treasure.

When I first learned of this true life account of a very brave little mother cat, I was moved to tears. There is no creature on the planet, human or animal, who does not fear fire. Scarlet put her life at great risk, again and again, to save her five kittens. How great is a mother's love?

Scarlet may be just a cat to some, but to me she personifies everything a mother should be! If you care about animals, you can't help but love Scarlet. You will be deeply touched by the many caring humans who became intertwined in her little life. From the truly compassionate firefighter, David Gianelli, to the woman who eventually adopted Scarlet, you'll pleasantly savor and revel in the goodness of mankind.

This book should be recommended reading in our public schools because it lovingly teaches children compassion and virtues. Though the photos of a severely burned Scarlet are graphic,they poignantly illustrate the depth of her devotion and willingness to suffer pain in order to save the lives of her babies.

I loved this book. I love knowing that Scarlet is forever loved and cherished and has left a indelible memory in the hearts of caring people everywhere.

If this book doesn't lift your spirits and make you feel like there are still compassionate people in this world then nothing will. It is a "can't miss" book for cat lovers -- or for anybody who has a heart. It's the tale of the power of a mother cat's love in saving her family of newborn kittens, and of the people who worked so hard to help them recover. It is an inspiring story to share.

When I found out the book was out I just had to get it! Reading about her and seeing the pictures of how she was so hurt made me realize was a blessed cat she was. She went through hell to save her family. If this book does not make you both cry and feel great joy, then I wonder about you. Read this book, have your children read this book, you will love it!

I didn't encounter this book until I was 20, and I regret all the years this wasn't one of my favorite children books. Written by the ever amazing Jane Yolen (check her out, folks. She ROCKS!), this "fairy tale" is a riot, a romance, and a sweet little read. Whether you use it to entertain children (which it will) or to keep your college roommate entertained at one in the morning as she pulls her hair out, anyone and everyone will enjoy the book.

My mom used to read me this book when I was little. It teaches young girls that beauty is on the inside. I think more girls need to be read this story.

I remember borrowing this book from the library over and over and over as a small child. I was so struck by the idea that the beautiful princess didn't win the prince (never mind that he was the youngest son of a youngest son with no jewels or wealth or property to speak of), but that she lost him to an orphaned "Plain Jane". It was only recently that I read the opinion of some "enlightened" reviewer that labeled this book as "feministic." What is so feministic about the idea that someone would look past the lovely facade of one to see the inner beauty of another? I read this book to my class of five-year-olds, and I had just said, "The end" when they began chanting in unison, "Read it again; read it again!" At the end, continuing in the strain of humor that flows throughout this tale, is the story's moral: "Let sleeping princesses lie, or lying princesses sleep . . . " while in truth, it teaches something far more important.

I am 8 years old and I love Snow Baby because I love horses. I was disappointed that she was sold and that Blazing Star won all the time. But then I became happy when the little girl learned English and returned to Snow Baby with her daughter. I didn't understand a few of the words but I used my dictionary and figured out the meaning. I liked best the part where Snow Baby came back to the house with sleighbells around her neck. The illustrations were especially beautiful. Mrs. Street has written a wonderful book.

Absolutely loved the book and illustrations! Both of my children adored it and we are all looking forward to the next adventure and lesson with Snow Baby. This is a book parents and children can read over and over again without getting bored - We find something new in the writing or the paintings every time we read it! Looking forward to more great things from both Jane Street and Charlene Yandell.

What a wonderful story and the pictures are fabulous! My grandchildren just loved the book! Real talent here and we are eager for the next one from these two ladies. Keep up the good work.

These short stories are literary but at a very accessible level. They tell experiences I can relate to. They let me see the West and parts of the country I don't know. I recommend them very highly! The people were real and came alive. Even stories with sad elements were somehow inspiring and made me feel better after I read them. I usually like only longer fiction (novels) but I couldn't put this book down.

Jane Ciabattari has mastered the short story. Each story in this collection is a stand-alone. She has the ability to infuse her characters with real life characteristics so they are believable to anyone. She does not depend on a formula-driven technique, but seems to actually live out the plots before she approaches her computer to write them. One of my reactions was, "How can one person understand so much?" I look forward to reading one of her stories with great relish, much as I did with Hemingway, John Updike, and James Michener.

Stealing the fire is a powerful collection of stories full of human drama. Jane Ciabattari is a master at detailing life's lessons and trials. It is absorbing literary fiction at it's finest.

This book will touch on deep and meaningful experiences that you have had while reading as a child and reading to children. By reading those perspectives organized into a series of short essays, you will better be able to read and enjoy the classic tales and bring the most meaning to them for yourself and others. Although I spend a great deal of time thinking about children's literature, this book greatly extended by ability to conceptualize the context for benefiting from these stories.

Ms. Yolen begins strongly by pointing out many of the most important distinctions between oral and written literature. Most of our classic children's stories began in the former, and have been migrating into the latter. The story teller plays a great role in the oral tradition, by adjusting the way the story is told to fit the audience. As parents, I think we all do this instinctively with young children, but gradually abdicate that role as the children learn to read silently to themselves. As story tellers, we can help point out the interesting and challenging parts of the stories. In so doing, we increase the likelihood that the child will learn more about what it means to be human.

Many people are concerned because classic folk tales, like Little Red Riding Hood, have many layers of meaning and can be interpreted in some pretty fightening ways. Ms. Yolen cites research showing that children actually like the punishments to be extreme in such stories, as a reflection of their sense of justice. But when should we be able to treat the outsider harshly? Stories like Rumplestiltskin nicely raise that issue. Whenever I review children's books, I try to point out these opportunities for exploring moral issues. One of the strengths of the folk tales is that they are full of moral issues, and questions of choice. For example, even when you take on the powers of magic, there is often a price to be paid.

At another level, these stories capture parts of ourselves. By focusing in an imaginary world, they allow us to concentrate on that little sliver of ourselves. For example, anyone reading Peter Pan will remember sometimes feeling like Wendy and wanting to grow up, and sometimes feeling like Peter Pan and never wanting to grow up. By being poised with a choice on that ambivalence, a person can make a more successful determination about growing up and in what ways. No child would sit still for such a discussion without Barrie's powerful story.

I was also impressed by the argument that we have many concepts that adults do not usually discuss in public company, like death, good, evil, God, and love. The folk and fairy tales are full of such subjects, and the "disbelief" that we suspend helps make us comfortable with dealing in these semi-taboo subjects.

One of the best arguments in the essays is that by going through Alice's Looking Glass these stories must be very true about human nature, or we will reject them. They will simply be too remote and disconnected otherwise. So the more absurd the setting, the higher the potential for touching the universal.

Naturally, there are things that are regrettable in these stories . . . but there are things that are regrettable in life. Moral conversation and discussion will always benefit from an early beginning in life. How will your children find out what you believe, if you do not use stories of all sorts as one context for explaining your ideas and experiences?

I also agree with the praise here for the time travel books that allow us to more realistically consider earlier times. Now that people study so much less history, there is an increasing tendency to assume the past was much like the present. That has never been less true than now, as our knowledge and technology advance so rapidly.

Perhaps the most persuasive argument of all is that these stories give us common metaphors for communicating with one another. In the absence of the Cinderella story, how can children deal with their universal secret suspicion that they were really born to royalty . . . not their own parents . . . and are fated for a great destiny? Having read many versions of Cinderella, as well as having seen the Walt Disney movie, I as shocked when I realized how impoverished this story would be if you had only seen the Walt Disney version. Then, having been shocked, I also remembered thinking how weak I thought the Walt Disney version was the first time I saw it as a youngster. That took me back to an age of consciousness where I had not been for many years. I was grateful for the experience.

After you finish reading this book and considering its many important messages, I suggest that you also read The Golden Bough, which looks at legends and folklore around the world over time. From that perspective, you will begin to appreciate how common our yearnings and intrepretations are of common life issues and circumstances. It makes me feel closer to every other person when that thought resonates throughout my body while reading that outstanding book, like the reverbrations from an enhanting chanson performed by a troubador's medieval song and lute.

May you touch others, and yourself, better through the most universal human stories from the oral tradition! Also, read aloud daily to your children and grandchildren. If you cannot be with them, you can still do this by telephone.

Jane Yolen offers strong reasons for the absolute need children have for stories and fairy tales, in their glory as well as their gore. In brilliant, almost poetic prose, she lends perspective and personal insight into the food for our souls these stories provide. She shares a particularly powerful example from her own childhood, a book by E. Nesbit, THE POWER OF THE AMULET. As a Jewish child in New York City, reading this book in about 1946, she was completely drawn into the fantasy world created. Only as a young adult, upon re-reading years later, did she confront the anti-Semitic bias in the story. Her point is well-taken, that those themes that an adult considers "ugly," are not what a child who lives in fantasy will take from a story.

Her other essays face head-on the objections that many have to the old tales, and she champions them in their original form. In the wake of the uproar created by the Harry Potter books, her essays are well worth considering. We are, as she says, in danger of denying our children their own humanity when we brush aside the many gems of folk and fairy lore.

Yolen offers a strong collection of essays on children, stories, fantasy, and folklore in this new edition of Touch Magic. Yolen is one of the greatest forces in children's literature and folklore today. She explores the reasons why fantasy and folklore literature is important for children to read and hear. The power of story in individuals and in our cultures is emphasized in each essay. Yolen explains that stories link us to our past and future, helping all of us understand who we are and improve our interaction with the world. For anyone who wants to understand or explain why fantasy and folklore is important for children and adults, this book is a must read.

One of the earliest (1986) accounts from the survivors of the Pol Pot regime, "The Stones Cry Out" seems to have set the style and standard for another more recent child's-eye perspective on the same era, "When Broken Glass Floats". The minute details of everyday life, not abstract poltical assessments, form the basis for our childhood memories. The author's account carries an unvarnished realism which draws the reader into her film-like image of daily life under threat of starvation and execution. This is probably as close as a reader can come to the truth of events in Cambodia during 1975-79. Oral histories such as "The Stones Cry Out" are perhaps the best way for survivors of human rights abuses to indict the perpetrators. Sadly, tribunals driven by international politics are unlikely to have the same impact as the simple testimony of a victimized child. Highly recommended reading for all those with an interest in human rights, Cambodia, and Southeast Asian culture.

Actualy I would rate this 4 and 1/2 stars.

Having read "First they killed my father" by Loung Ung It would be difficult for me to review this book with out comparing it to Loung Ung's memoir.

Both are essentially the same story, a young upper middle class girl living in Phnom Phen in april of 1975 when thier life, family and happiness are torn from them by the khmer rouge.

Many of thier experinces are similar as you might expect (long hours in forced labor, family deaths, witnessing murder ect..) but each has a unique story of thier own.

The writing styles also vary greatly and this is where Loung's "First they killed my Father is the better" book. Molyda tells her story in a very straight foward manner. Her discriptions of murder, torture and rotting corpses are alomost clinical in tone as if she is afaid to visit or express her real feelings at the time (and who could realy blame her) we are giving only hints about her family and life before April 17th 1975 (to be fair this may be in part to spare distant family members still in Cambodia from retalation)

In Loung's book however we are treated to two light hearted chapters discribing her life in Phnom Pehn before April 17th 1975 this gives the reader a chance to feel they realy know her, her brother's, sisters and parents thier strengths and weakness'.

Loung's memoir is far more emotional in tone and feeling leaving the reader almost gasping for air at points.

For those overly squimish that makes "The Stones Cry Out" the better of the two books. It is also the better of the two books if your sole interest is the surrounding history of the killing fields.

But for those just wishing to read a great emotional book "first They killed My father" is the better choice but I would highly recomend both to all.

I am a 12 year old reader, and this book was heart-breaking. It is so sad that something like this hapenned, and so many peoples' lives were destroyed. Molyda Szymusiak's story makes me realize how lucky I am to enjoy my freedoms.

This book is truely a classic in the field of patient education. Everyone who teaches patients/clients should read this book as much of what is written for patients -- can't be read by them. The number of illiterate and poor readers in this country is unbelievable yet this is sledom taken into consideration by health professionals. I had the pleasure to attend an all day seminar given by Cecilia and Leonard Doak years ago and have used their lessons since.

I wish I could tell everybody who has ever produced any kind of health information material to read this book. The advice it gives has helped me write more clearly period - not just for people with low literacy. Given the overwhelming amount of about health care information in the news and on the Web, health communicators need to make their messages accessible and meaningful or get lost in the shuffle. This book shows you how.

This book is misnamed. It shows you not only how to teach patients with low literacy skills--but all patients!

Teaching Patients With Low Literacy Skills shows you how to apply current research findings to actively involve your learner and enhance understanding and retention. It shows you how to prepare written and audiovisual materials so they most effectively teach.

Best of all, the Suitability Assessment of Materials form helps you evaluate teaching materials, quantitatively, so you invest your limited patient ed dollars wisely in the best teaching tools.

It's the classic in the field. This is the book everyone else quotes. Including me.

I just finished reading this in the paperback version and felt the characters and plot were very well developed. It's hard to believe the Davenports' mother was as uncaring as she was portrayed, but I've met a similar type. The up and down romance between Judith and Marcus was very poignant. Enjoy!

This story is so ingrossing I didn't want to put it down. Love, suspense, strong characters. A brother and sister that are a fabulous pair. There aren't many of Ms Feather's books that don't hold my interest till the end. Two of her books I found on auction, as I did this one, and both times someone cut out the insert art done by Pino Dangelico. Not fair, his work is beautiful. I definitely recommend this great book

This was a great book - the heroine was complex and unpredictable, the hero was passionate and loving, but determined not to be made into a fool. The tension-filled love scenes were memorable. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book was the close relationship that the heroine has with her brother - unusual in a romance novel. Who will win the battle for Judith's loyalty - her passionate lover or her beloved brother, who cannot regain his stolen estate and title without his sister's help?

this book has great personality and i could visulise the movements and conversations.I wish every one could read this book because of it's entierty. i love this book i'm gonna buy this book for all my friends !!!!!!!!!!!! i love this book and you will also i bet....!!!!!! thank you for taking your time to read this review.!!!!!!!

The author paints a revealing picture with colorful descriptions of people caught in a web of false hopes and dreams. Eventually, disillusioned and frustrated with today's downward evolution of work lifestyles and typical uncaring attitudes, they lose sight of their goals and sense of self-worth. Family values play a huge part in the underlying problems of today and the mythical Mr. Z in this book is someone we all should meet and get to know in order to put life in its proper perspective once and for all. Forget about all you have read before, this is NOT a fable, this is real. Read it and you will discover truths that will influence the rest of your life and warm you soul.

A simple and insightful approach to what appears to most people to be a futile situation. The simplicity of the message makes it real and now.