If you don't care about Mickey Mouse or Porky Pig, this is the coloring book to get for a child. They are going to use coloring books at some time in their young lives. It won't destroy their creativity! With this coloring book you get the opportunity to talk about the great masterpieces of art. I recommend having a good art book to show them the originals. Hey..the great masters copied from those that went before them on their way to becoming great. It's a fun book. Adults might enjoy it as well.

This book contains excerpts from 100+ different medieval texts on diverse subjects. The excerpts are arranged thematically, with like subjects grouped together. There is, for example, a section on monastic life and practice, with several different texts provided to illustrate monastic life both as it was supposed to be, as it actually was, and as it was seen by non-monks. The texts chosen provide accounts of various monastic orders (the Franciscans, the Cistercians, etc.)in different parts of Europe. Similar thematic sections are provided for nobles, peasants, craftsmen and merchants, and there are thematic sections on a range of more specific subjects to boot. The kinds of texts chosen range from the highly literary and erudite (poems, philosophical treatises, etc.) to the mundane and prosaic (court records, trade accounts, etc.) All in all it's an excellent compilation, although I wish more had been provided to "introduce" each selection-- with a bit more said about the author, the work the excerpt was taken from, it's specific historical context in which it was written, etc., so that the reader of "The Portable Medieval Reader" could be a bit more informed about the sources provided.

In preparation for travels next year, my 4-year-old and I are attuning our ears to French. What's for Supper (along with other books in this Barron's series) is just our speed. Carol Thompson's appealing illustrations make it easy for a preschooler to "tell herself the story." Mary Risk's story of children buying groceries and preparing supper for their mother - a surprise! - keeps us turning pages, whether in English or French. The cassette is familiarizing us with the sounds, and the end-of-the-book phonetic spelling lists are polishing some of the rust off my encrusted college French. It will be possible to use these at developing levels, too. Right now we read the English, then the French on each page and listen to the tape doing the same. Later we can cover the English on the page and just read the French. And on the flip side of the cassette, we can hear the whole story in just English or in just French.

Okay, I think this book was so unrealistic. I mean come on! If the girls in the BSC were really Mary Anne's friends they would have been supportive even if they didn't like her hair.

I thought this book was good because it was fun to read about Mary Anne's makeover, since that stuff always interests me. But the reason i gave it 3 stars was because it made me so mad! Her friends, who I always thought were so cool, were the biggest jerks alive! I mean, what kind of people would spread rumors about you and then be the biggest jerk alive to your face, just because THEY DIDN'T LIKE YOUR HAIR? Luckily, this is the only book I have ever read in this series where the BSC acts this immature for something so stupid. Mary Anne needs to get some new friends!

When I first read this book, back in junior high, I couldn't believe what jerks Dawn and the others were acting like toward poor Mary Anne. All Mary Anne does is get a haircut and a new wardrobe, and suddenly she's being attacked from all sides by the people she thought were her friends!

But read more closely -- aside from a few comments toward the beginning of the book, and some rudeness from Dawn, her friends really AREN'T mean -- it's all in Mary Anne's head. Her imagination and those initial comments lead her to believe everyone hates her new image, so she, in turn, avoids THEM. Then THEY feel hurt by that and don't speak to HER out of fear, so she thinks they hate her . . . and it all goes spiraling downhill.

I think the point this book is trying to make is that friendships can suffer and even dissolve if friends don't communicate the way they should. Mary Anne assumed too many things; instead of confronting her friends, she avoided them, and that led to chaos.

The sub plot of the book is pretty cool. One of the Arnold Twins, who loves 'Back to the Future', builds a time machine in the basement -- and honestly believes it will work.

I don't like this book as much as the other books because you can judge everything by the cover. the ending is not so good either, since I thought this book was not the best BSC book. the moment I read the sentence when Mary Anne left for the meeting, the moment I know what the next chapter's going to be about. I really don't think this is a good book. I dislike the title too. I do not recommend you to read this book, HIGHLY!

If you like animals, especially cats, and a little mystery without the real scary stuff, then this book is for you. In this particulary book, Mary Ann can't find her kitten. Becoming concerned, she and the Baby-sitters look for the missing animal. They even have an award for whoever finds the cat, and returns it to Mary Ann. One afternoon, Mary Ann receives a letter in her mailbox saying she must pay $100 for the cat's safe return. She and her friends wonder if this is just a joke or if Tigger has been really kidnapped. I like this book because like Hunter I'm allergic to many things (including four legged creatures.) I have also enjoyed the books in the Baby-sitters Club, and this one was no exception. So have fun cat-hunting, and reading this good book.

This book is one out of few of the baby sitter club book that ve read and acully liked. Mary Anne can't find her kitten tigger and then a mysturious not comes up saying they have taken tigger and if she wants him back she must pay $100. The thing is they do not know if this i a joke or if tigger was taken.

The author was one of my boyhood icons. In this autobiography she undermines my high opinion with unwitting revelations of her unending self regard, and her obsessive craving for celebrity and adulation.She fails her children, paricularly Larry, in this frantic search for theatrical success. Yes, she was a talented lady, but she bought success at a terrible price to those around her. I stand disappointed.

I thought this was a terrifc book from cover to cover. From her childhood memories to her Broadway hits, there was the simple truth. She told it like it was. Reading it, I felt as if she were sitting across from me, telling me the story herself. I loved her before the I read the book and after, I loved her more.

This is a lovely book-warm, endearing, breezy, just like the lady herself. Filled with charming and hilarious anecdotes ("Mary Martin slapped here") and oodles of Broadway lore. She is also frank about how her career sometimes upstaged her family and the price she paid for that. Although I suspect there are truths she chose not to reveal (which one expects in any autobiography), this book is altogether delightful and just what you'd expect from Mary Martin.

It's really not a bad book, but it's not good either. Like the guy who gave it no stars, he had pretty much the exact complaints I do. The author makes the book seem like the life of a few kids leading up to the murders. She seems to know what they were all saying at certain points in the 80's and early 90's. Like the past reviewer said-- she must have had a tape recorder on them all before the murders. Learning about the killer was fun, I will admit. Spending pages learning about the killer was good, but I'll admit halfway through the book, I was tired of learning about the characters and wanted to skip pages so I could learn about what the hell exactly happened as a whole during the time of the Gainesville murders. I thought I would be reading about the crime and punishment of Danny Rolling, what he did, how he did it, and what he's done afterwards. Maybe learn a little about him, too, which I did at the least. It just became tedious-- it dragged on and on, and you want to skip pages, but I didn't. I now wish I did so I could have gotten onto one of the other books I recently got. Over all, it's really not a terrible book, it just has some useless things that fill up the book rather than interest you. Learning about the killer and his life and why he could have done these terrible things was good. But reading little clips of what the future victims were doing at that moment that Danny Rolling was maybe robbing a grocery-- who cares? They were playing tennis, they were sleeping, etc. Yeah? Okay...
A lot of things are also repeated. The first thing you get into in the book, is the killings. That pulled me in right away. The beginning was good, then when it got into the life of the killer, that was also good. Then after about 200 pages of that, you want to put it down. I'll give this 3 stars because it wasn't trash but it wasn't a good read either.

Having read Rolling's book co-authored with Sondra London, there is no comparison. This book far outstrips the former in exploring the personalities of not only Rolling, but of the victims and those close to them. I lived in Gainesville and went to the University of Florida not long after the murders, and the shockwaves of these crimes still perpetuate through the town to this day. Ryzuk captures the environment of fear that enveloped the campus and surrounding area with razor-sharp accuracy.

Ryzuk also does a superb job of painting a complete picture of events from several different angles, having interviewed many of the victim's friends and relatives, as well as others involved in the investigation. Some of the events are repeated in the book, but it's for this purpose that I believe this approach was worthwhile. Her use of a timeline during the events leading up to the crimes builds suspense and takes the reader along on a fateful ride with doom.

I have driven by the 34th Street wall memorializing the victims hundreds of times, but only after reading this book do I feel like I have a sense of who the victims all were. They are no longer five semi-anonymous names painted on a wall, but clearly distinguishable lives with different goals that, sadly, will never be achieved. My only complaint is that the personalities of Sonja Larson and Christina Powell do not come off as vividly as did those of Christa Hoyt, Manny Taboada, and Tracy Paules, which may have to do with the willingness of those left behind to talk, but that's only my speculation. By walking us through the victims' relationships and daily events leading up to the killings, Ryzuk almost breathes life into the victims again. Friends and families of the victims are also explored, and their anguish is palpable.

The author does not neglect the killer, though. I came away with an even better sense of his motivations and the life events that led up to the events of August 1990 than I did after reading his own account, co-authored by Sondra London. This is saying something, as this book does a far more insightful job of exploring Rolling than does the killer's own account, which seems like a alter-ego-explaining manifesto scattered with a few short mentions of the killings in detailed, almost mechanical fashion. For those interested, the accounts in this book of the murders themselves are clearly and more fully explored, from Rolling's initial selection and stalking of the victims, to the commission of the heinous acts, to the discovery of the bodies, his subsequent events and beyond, including the arrest of a "red herring" suspect that left the city breathing a premature sigh of relief. I am left disgusted by Rolling's need to murderously dominate, then eliminate, to make up for his own inadequacies as a human being.

There are facts in the book regarding the killings and the investigation I have read elsewhere that were nowhere mentioned in London's account. Also, Ryzuk captures the essence of Gainesville and the University of Florida campus so clearly that it feels as if I were back there again myself. It is by comparing this lovely, generally serene southern town, once again filled with all the excitement of a new fall semester, to a living nightmare of horror at the events and fear of the unknown that even greater impact of the events are realized.

There are only a few small inconsistencies as far as references and places, but most would only be picked up by a native (e.g. the victims were not "five University of Florida students" but four UF students and one SFCC student, "Union Reitz" vs. the correct "Reitz Union," a lake that is not really in front of Marston Science Library, and things of this nature). Other than that - a full, multi-angled, incredible account. I couldn't put it down, and am filled with an even more profound sadness about the murders than I was when I actually lived across the street from where Manny and Tracy met their fates.

Truly tragic, and I hope that, if nothing else, readers get to know and remember the victims as extinguished bright young lights on the verge of their creating their own futures. For many in Florida, the healing will not begin until Rolling meets his fate.

While I can't say reading a book about the deaths of 5 young people with bright futures was enjoyable, I can say that the author did her best to allow the reader to get to know the victims. What I mean by that is, she didn't just write about the killer and his pathetic life. She crisscrossed between the victims and the killer to show just how promising their lives were, and what they were doing before this sick and vicious killer ended it for them. I was in Florida when this was happening and I can remember being scared and wanting to go home. The Author doesn't sympathize with the killer but she does allow us to see how his upbringing could have contributed to his diseased mind. I don't like true crime for its blood and gore, I like true crime for showing people that the world has alot of evil in it, and we should not always take people at face value. I think true crime books (especially those against women) should be mandatory reading in high schools and colleges. It really changes the way you think about situations that you might not ever have given thought to.

Marry anne's dad and Dawn's mom get married. This is a good book to read but would you really be that happy to have to move into a house with your best friend? And I know I would not want my dad to marry my best friend's mom especially if she had been divorced before. But overall it is a good book that goes pretty quickly.

As Mary Anne's dad gets set to marry Dawn's mum,the sensitive 13 year old(Mary anne ,not the bride) goes through some real ups and downs.

Mary Anne's family is expanding, her dad is marrying Mrs.Schafer- Dawn's mom! And she is feeling very mixed emotions, Excited about getting a stepsister and brother, worried about possibly lossing Tigger, generally nervous, angry about leaving her home, dissaponited that it is just going to be a small wedding. But most of she's wondering how things are going to turn out....