I am amazed that no one has tried to review this book.

The introduction is worth the price, even if you ignore the recipes. The authors attack (rightly) the food scolds who try to run our lives through fear and intimidation.

The recipes are amazing. Yes, they are heavy with some of the ingredients that we are not "allowed" to eat, but once in a while or for a special occasion, are well worth a try.

Their "rich noodle sauce" makes the most amazing pasta I've ever tried. However, I have not tried their fried donut pudding recipe.....

This is a very entertaining "foodie" book and is highly recommended. Who knows? You might even find a recipe that you like.

(For readers with similar interests, I also highly recommend "The Man Who Ate Everything")

This childrens book was a great choice when discussing midieval times. It was an enjoyable read. The book "Days of the Knights, A Tale of Castles and Battles", combined fiction with non-fiction. The story was told with action and drama while the reality of items that were used to fight such a battle were illustrated and explained. By doing this, the author, Christopher Maynard, spun history with fable to create an adventurous escape into midieval times.

This beginning reader has everything a beginning reader needs: interesting text (EXTREME MACHINES!), repetitive text, interesting pictures, and a dictionary to help with those unfamiliar words.

Informania: Sharks offers everything a young reader would ever wanted to know about sharks -- on of the Oceans most efficient predators. Here are to be found true stories of terrifying shark attacks. There is also information about sharks as a menu item for people! Readers are treated to a variety of sharks as they learn which ones are harmless -- and which are lethal. Informania: Sharks is a welcome, "kid friendly" addition to school and community library wildlife collections.

This book could more easily be a phamphlet. It has very little useful information; it is heavy on very boring personal anecdotes. Lots of fill. Lots of useless pictures of motors and the like. A number of recipes, but most of them you could make up yourself. Example: fish and butter and oregano. Duh! It does cover the basics of how to cook on an enging and what not to do. This could be done in 2 pages.

I have an old edition of this book (eighties) and I have been amused by it from start to finish. The premise sounds wacky but the authors, despite their obvious humor, are serious. Anyone who likes to cook will love this book- in fact, the more serious the better, since the book takes such a preposterously irreverent approach to recipes and dining.

It's also uniquely American- I can't imagine this book being born in any other culture. Buy it, if you can find it, it's a gem.

The first thing you are likely to wonder is why used copies of this book often go for [fifty dollars] or more in online auctions. Here's why. Once having read it, you'd really truly miss the ability to share it with disbelieving friends. I admit, I am biased, since I happen to have the same type of vehicle/kitchen used in the writing and testing of these recipes. If you own a different type of vehicle, your mileage may vary. Sorry, couldn't resist. It's hilarious reading even if you don't have the guts to try it yourself. The somewhat prosiac nature of the recipes, as derided by one reviewer, actually serves to heighten the surrealism. If you're attracted to the title, the book won't disappoint.

This frothy little book features small, easy to follow descriptions of how dinosaurs may have lived and looked. The artwork is quite good and the primary reason I give it four stars. It can serve as a nice way to introduce the young and beginning reader to our favorite extinct animals. Recommended.

This is an excellent book if you're looking for something on dinosaurs that is beyond the "picture book" level but your child is not yet ready for 5th grade science material.

I found it a really good book for feeding my 2.5-year-old's fledgling obsession with learning about "real" dinosaurs. The book has basic coverage of the major types of dinosaurs & dinosaur concepts. The illustrations are detailed but not too busy, and there is enough information to satisfy but not so much that it overwhelmed her. We were able to use it to identify just about all of her plastic dinosaurs, which made it an excellent book for introducing the idea of using books for "research".

Once again, Dorling Kindersley swabs the decks of other publishing houses with its high quality production, style, and storehouse of sidebars, illustrations, and tidbits of information. This book is recommended for children in grades 2-4, although they caution that these are rough guidelines.

After a brief introduction, there are fictional first-person narratives of adventures with famous pirates from many places and eras, including a slave of Julius Caesar, both of whom are captured by pirates (and eventually freed); Henry "Long Ben" Avery, a British pirate of the late 17th century, Henry Morgan's pillaging, looting, and torture in Jamaica, the exploits of Captain Kidd and Blackbeard.

Along with illustrations of such pirate essentials as guns and swords, ships and navigational instruments, food and flags, there is a drawing of a gallows and a man hanging from one, a man placed on the torture instrument, "the rack," several pictures illustrating a hangman's noose, a hanging body and a severed head tied to a ship. These pictures are not graphic or detailed, but they may be frightening to some children. 48 pages, with a brief glossary, and lots of pictures. The historical angle would have been more complete if an afterward had been written to explain the demise of the piracy.

This book might prove interesting to someone who really desires to know about ghosts or has a short attention span. It is divided up into many sections, which makes it easy to pick and choose what to read. The five different sections are: an abridged ghost story, ghost hunting information, ghost scams, ghost movie reviews and ratings, and a full reference section. The story (Algernon Blackwood) is probably better in the unabridged version. The version included here was anticlimatic, vague, and confusing. The other four sections proved much more interesting. Ghost hunting described the different "types" of ghosts, an interview with a hunter, and stories of that hunter's cases (all fictionalized I assume although the sightings appear to be based on real claims). The phony ghosts section exposes some of history's biggest scams involving ghosts and mediums. The movie section is fairly useful for someone looking for a good ghost movie. The 19 movies included are categorized, summarized, and rated. Finally, the reference section provides an abundance of factual material. It starts out with a timeline of events involving ghosts- dating back to B.C. A map with different types of geographically identified ghosts gives interesting information and is followed by more folklore describing how to lure a ghost or get rid of one. The last part is resources: websites and extensive acknowledgements along with a glossary and index. Not a bad book for elementary libraries to carry. If nothing else, one can say that it definitely steps out of the traditional book boundaries.