I love Edward Lear's story and James Marshall's illustrations are magical. I don't like the version with Jan Brett's illustrations. I've never liked Jan Brett's illustrations. I've spent hundreds of hours looking at children's books and I always pass over Jan Brett's books. Her illustrations just don't appeal to me. Her illustrations are distinctive and I can always recognize her work but I don't like them. There is just something missing--they don't have any life to them or something. I can't explain it. I have always loved James Marshall. His genius transcends understanding. His illustrations complement Ed Lear's beautiful tale perfectly.

A very good illustrated version of the classic poem- the pictures are beautiful with a distinctly exotic flavour, great for all ages!

This book is just so cool. Longing for a trip to the tropics? Read this version of the book to your little one and you can at least feel like you are there. The illustrations are really sweet. They have a lot of details so that kids kind find new things with each reading. My two-year old loves this book. It is a great twist on an old tale

These are great tales of friendship--even for beginners, like my 4 yr old preschool class. They love all the little stories. A few go over their heads, but they get the concept of the humor and companionship represented by these sweet, lovable, sometimes mischevious and selfish hippos. I've tried reading them the other George and Martha books, but this is their favorite. Gosh, thank God for James Marshall and his inventions!
(We have an old copy---the kids love the "pink cookies" Martha offers George instead of pea soup!)
Sampling:
George doesnt want to eat Marthas pea soup, so he pours it in his shoes
George knocks out his favorite tooth. Which is your favorite tooth?
George gets tired of Martha looking at herself in the mirror all the time; she even wakes up in the middle of the nite to do it. So he pastes a silly picture of her on her mirror....
There are George and Martha stuffed animals out there, too.
Any relation to George and Martha Washington?

This is a terrific book for anybody, even though its marketed as a young children's book. I love this book, (and I'm 12) and my parents and older sister, (who pretends not to) do too. This book chronicles the stories of two best friends, who just so happen to be hippos. They relate moral messages, but in a far from preachy way. The illustrations are colorful and the two hippos are shown as cute and cuddly. (awwww.... they sell these really cute George and Martha dolls somewhere) In short this is a great book for anybody. So read it!

This is just one in a fabulous series of books featuring George and Martha, the hippo equivalent of Nick and Nora Charles. Their light banter and misunderstandings set the stage for imaginative, humorous resolutions. The hippos' warmth and obviously mutual friendship is evident throughout. There are five stories in its 47 pages, with big simple pictures adorning every other page. A great book for early and late toddlers up to around age five or so.

A summer in the South by James Marshall is a brilliant book! I think it has enough suspence in the beginning to keep you hooked! I admire Mr. Marshall's type of writing because it lets you view the different types of perspectives in the story. Although the story has animals in it, It definitely keeps you more hooked than a regular mystery story with REAL people. If you decided to read this book, GREAT CHOICE!

When I rented this book form the library I had no idea how brilliant it would be! It got me hooked on mystery stories and ever since Ive read all of the Nancy Drew series. Why did it get me hooked? Its amazing illustrations, its realistic (althought animal) characters. I took it on holiday with me and ended up reading it at least 20 times! Eleno Owl is brilliant and I especially love the descriptions of Maxine the cook, cleaner and just about everything else at the small hotel setting for this book!

Gosh, what would the world be like without James Marshall? I shudder violently to think of it! Oh my, where TO begin? This is a wonderful way to introduce children to mystery stories---with an obvious plotline and easy character deduction. A mystery story for kids, set at the beach in the summertime, with Eleanor Owl and her bud, Mr Paws on vacation----or are they? The story is hilarious, with the characters as the odious flasher Foster Pig, the typical hypochondriac in the story is "Don Coyote," and silly squirrel twins. The Cootie family really IS a cootie family! "Fennimore Cootie" (tee hee) to be precise! Ah, and don't forget the Ladies String Quartet, consisting of large lady baboons.....this book is a must for any kid who will sit still long enough to make it through 27 short (whew!) chapters---but if they are dying of curiousity and they are hooked on the characters, you won't be able to put it down!

I am eleven years old, and I love Miss Nelson Has a Field Day because it was funny and interesting. I liked it when Miss Viola Swamp called one boy, "Smarty". It made me laugh!! I think other kids should read this because it is a really good book. I think it is even better than the first two Miss Nelson books. All kids would love this book!!

Miss Swamp reappears at the Horace B. Smedley School

The Horace B. Smedley School's football team is awful-and their big game with their major rival is on tap. Can anything be done to get the guys into shape in time for the game? Miss Nelson has a plan and, out of the blue, Miss Swamp is on the scene. But where is Miss Nelson??????

This is a truly delightful series that the whole family can enjoy. Good stories, great characters and the indomitable Miss Nelson all add up to great fun and great reading for kids.

My daughter loved this book. She was not an avid reader a couple summers ago but this one was a favorite. She likes all the Miss Nelson books but she was able to write a summary on this one and have all the information correct so she was paying attention. If it is on your summer reading list for school, go for it, it's worth it.

Rarely does a parent find a book so fun to read, and fun to hear! Our first copy came by way of a book club. We read it so often, the cover fell off from over-use. Still, we held on to it and treasured it. It's been years since our first copy wore out. No problem! We've practically memorized it! This lyrical verse about a piggy who induces her whole family to join her in the puddle is both endearing and laughable. Our oldest daughter is now twelve. She suggested we buy a new copy for her brother (7) and sister (6). This time we're going to get a hard-backed copy!

The Piggy in the Puddle by Charlotte Pomerantz is my favorite children's book. My seven year old daughter will love finally receiving her own copy. We keep checking it out at the library and we read it over and over again and laugh at the funny situation: Little Piggy doesn't want to get out of the puddle no matter how much Daddy and Mommy and Brother Pig want her to. We laugh at the cute rhyming words to describe the mud and have the book memorized from years of reading it. James Marshall, the illustrator, captures the funny story with perfectly plump pink pigs and the muddy little puddle. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like pigs and tongue twisters and lots of giggles with your kids or grandkids. You'll love it.

I started reading Piggy in the Puddle when my children were little and my oldest is now an adult. Our copy mysteriously disapeared when it was taken to school for a 9th grader's project. Everyone in our family still recites it from memory 7 years later. One our daughter is now studying to be an elementary teacher and wants a copy of the book for student teaching. I am sure that this book was an important part of the reason that all of our children love to read to this day. It is an essential for the library of every family of young children.

I am a college student and I must say that this was a favorite among the books I read as a child, and it is a great book to read to young children, especially at the beginning of their school year. It has many morals, and many lessons that can be learned such as appreciating your teacher, respecting him/her and knowing how to behave in a classroom. It is a great book to use, especially for new teacher and substitute teachers. It has a great plot and children love it!

The kids in sweet Miss Nelson's class are rude and obnoxious, until a mean substitute replaces her. By the time Miss Nelson returns, they have learned to show their appreciation by behaving well. A great moral, certainly, but hardly sugar-coated: the children's misbehavior and the substitute's grouchiness are outrageous and delightful. This book is one of the most engaging I've ever read to my kids(ages 4-7)and a great success with my ADD child who normally has a hard time sitting through a story. It provides a great platform for inferencing and theory of mind work.

As I mentioned in my review of "Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales," I am taking a Children's Lit class in college, which requires me to read a lot of children's books. So, this is a great excuse for me to write more reviews. If you want to make fun of me for liking these books, so be it. I could care less.

"Miss Nelson is Missing" was always a childhood favorite for me. One of my first picture books I ever read, I think. I even remember that my copy came with a record that you could listen along to as you read. Wow, does that bring back memories. I picked this up a few days ago, and found myself enjoying it as much as I did when I was little, if not more.

This is a book about a sweet and nice teacher who has one of the most terrible classes ever. Everyone is mean and nobody ever listens to her. Miss Nelson knows that something has to be done.

One day, when she doesn't arrive to class, the children are so happy. They think they have driven her away forever. They are all smiles and grins.....until....

They meet Miss. Viola Swamp, an ugly and mean teacher dressed in black and white makeup. She puts them to work, yells at them, and makes them do tons and TONS of homework. Desperate and worried, the children turn to a detective in order to solve the whereabouts of Miss Nelson.

This book is incredible. Fun for all ages, especially the young ones. It's fun and gives a good moral lesson at the same time. It has great writing and very cool pictures. The reading level is pretty easy. Nothing too mind-bending behind it.

I recommend "Miss Nelson is Missing!" to ANYONE! Yes, I don't care how old you are. You're never too old to enjoy a good children's book, and I'm starting to re-discover that. Check this one out whenever you can. And if you have kids, I can almost promise you that this will be a favorite.

We have an inexpensive paperback version (see our reviews) of this classic poem, and we said that's enough for us. That was before we looked through this beautifully illustrated (by Bruce Whatley) edition of The Night Before Christmas.

The lyrics are the same, from book to book, but the fanciful illustrations in this one are enough to engage adults and children as they read this book together.

The perfect gift for any family whose Christmas tradition includes reading this classic!

I discovered this book 31 years ago, for my daughter and it is still loved by all the family. The illustrations are wonderful, warm, charming and delightful and bring a special meaning to the story. We still read it to all the young children on Christmas Eve and for adults we read the story and pass a grab bag gift every time the word THE is mentioned. It would not be Christmas without this book. It is magical.

This beautiful book was in my family as a hard cover edition for many years and was a Christmas Eve tradition for my four sons when they were growing up. It's poor battered body disappeared some time after the last of my little ones went off into the adult world. I am so delighted to see it back again, though this time as a nicely affordable soft cover. Clement C. Moore's enchanting story poem already provides an atmosphere filled with warmth and joyful expectation and with the addition of Tasha Tudor's quaint, nostalgic water-colors from an antique New England the Christmas magic is complete!
The winter landscapes fill our senses and Tasha's own gray tabby cat and Welsh Corgi welcome us into this charming world.
Tasha's Santa that you will meet in this book has been portrayed as the poem describes him...a right jolly old elf. He's not that much larger than the corgi and his team really consists of eight "tiny" reindeer. His pointy ears and his Eskimo mukluks add to the delightful ambiance of the book. He dances with the toys and with the happy animals and we can truly believe it will be a happy Christmas for all.
I hope this book becomes a Christmas Eve tradition for many, many more families.

This is a great mini-coffee table book (get the hardcover if you REALLY dig this stuff!) offering hours of information and photos of the famous atomic bomb tests on naval ships at Bikini Atoll. The 190 page book is broken into nine chapters and has excellent notes on sources. Background information covers the first half of the book while the second is focused on recent dives to many of the famous and lesser known ships that were sunk here. The writing is very informative and the photographs are absolutely haunting, particularly the ones of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga! Several color photos are included in the center. The author pushes no agenda in this book. He merely reports the facts available both "good and bad".

My Dad was there (USS Reclaimer) - swimming in the atoll the day after the blasts, cleaning refuged ships, etc. It's amazing he's still alive.

Nice photos; good summaries. This isn't a full-blown account of Operation CrossRoads but a nice summary of the ships. If you are interested in OC, this is a good book to have on your shelf.

James Delgado does a very good job of reviewing the sunken ships of Bikini Atoll and telling the story of the 1946 atomic bomb tests. I read this book after diving at Bikini Atoll and found it to be a good treatment of a topic that has received too little attention. As far as wreck diving goes, Bikini Atoll is the best in the world, and my only disappointment with this book is that it does not fill the need for a coffee-table-style photographic survey of the incredible shipwrecks at Bikini. That being said, Delgado's book is a nice compromise between such a coffee table book and the more comprehensive historical treatment in Jonathan Weisgall's superb book on Bikini Atoll.

My seven year old daughter discovered George and Martha at her school library and delighted in bringing home a new set of five stories each week. We giggled together each time we read them and even my five year old son asked for them again and again. These stories are brief but filled with wonderful language, important themes and lovable characters. I would recommend them for any child's home library.

Having read George and Martha as a child, I was happy to receive the complete version of Marshall's stories for Christmas this year. The stories are clearly for children, but are humorous for adult readers as well. The pea soup story is a classic. The illustrations are wonderful.

As the mother of a 3-year old who constantly clamors "Read me a story!" I can't say how happy I was she got this for Christmas! It is a struggle to stop at just one, or five, or ten stories. George and Martha are enchanting, and we laugh out loud at the dry humor of the stories and the drawings. A+!

I think you should read The Cut-Ups by James Marshall because it's a good book for me and it's funny, too. I like the book a lot. When they're being so funny because of that girl in the car, that's the best part of all for me. I am a 2nd grader.

I think you should read The Cut-Ups by James Marshall because when Mary Frances puts them in Mr. Spurgle's yard and Mr. Spurgle gets mad at them and they try to run away, but Mr. Spurgle's battery died down so they got away. I am in 2nd grade.

because they are really funny and silly. They do silly things. My favorite part of the book was when Mr. Spurgle was the principal again. I am a 2nd grader.