Positive Peer Culture is an indispensable asset to all those committed to helping young people reach their full potential as individuals and members of their communities. Vorranth's and Brendtro's writing is the result of a fruitful dialectic of theory and praxis; Positive Peer Culture is a model for youth treatment and empowerment grounded in effective practice. I know of no other approach that so effectively challenges young people to assume the task of caring, helping, changing, and living responsibly (and I've experiences several approaches).

The authors include the vital information necessary for both youth workers and adolescents to effectively implement Positive Peer Culture in residential and school-based programs. This volume also contains insights gained from the practice of Positive Peer Culture not available in the first edition, including discussion of common mistakes staff make during the implementation process and a chapter on evaluating programs based on PPC.

I have seen PPC empower many young people to live responsible and meaningful lives-young people who where labeled hopeless and unreachable. I first read the volume, "Positive Peer Culture," at age thirteen while attending a PPC based residential treatment program. At age twenty-three, I find the authors' concepts and methods as inspiring and compelling as when I first discovered them; they are set forth in simple and straightforward terms easily understood by professionals, laymen and youth alike.

Although PPC has been used primarily to empower adolescent offenders, the ideas in this book, if applied, are helpful for working with young people from a variety of backgrounds in a variety of settings-from community based programs, to public schools, to juvenile detention facalities. In addition to professional youth workers, teachers, ministers, parents, and youth themselves can benefit greatly from reading "Positive Peer Culture."

People who believed in empowering young people asked me to read this book and practice the principles it sets forth so that I might understand the power of caring. If you care about kids, I hope you will buy and read this book so that you may be better equipped to empower them to become the great men and women they have the potential to be.

Positive Peer Culture is an excellent resource for youth workers working with young offenders in a residential custody setting. Ten years of using the principals, which are so clearly explained in the manual, to create a climate of caring and trust with young offenders, has convinced me that Brendtro and Vorrath have got it right. There is no better system of behaviour management and cognitive restucturing in existence that I know of!

This book is the foundation for Positive Peer Culture; a very powerful treatment approach that mobilizes the natural and dynamic potential of adolescent peer groups. Working with delinquent and emotially disturbed youth in residential treatment for over 25 years I have found this to be an outstanding process for staff and youth alike and have utilzed it as our primary treatment approach at the Connecticut Junior Republic.

I read this book every day. It has enriched my spiritual life tremendously. Now I give it to friends and family. We all have places in our lives and selves that need to be healed-- this book speaks to many of those different dimensions.

I was knee deep in the muck, as they say. My mother had passed away much too early in life for me to make any sense of it, and directly thereafter i was going through a painful divorce. I was bitter. This book is for those of you that believe that God is in all things. That pain is a medium for growth, and as A. Powell Davies would say, " . . . There comes a gentleness, a returning quietness, a restoring stillness. This too is a door to life. Here also is a deepening of meaning - and it can lead to dedication, a going forward to the triumph of the soul, the conquering of the wilderness. And in the process will come a deepening inward knowledge that in the final reckoning, all is well."

If you, or someone you know, needs healing of some sort, this interfaith book of calendar meditations can help; but, even if not, the prayers for the healing of society, the healing of the world, are appropriate for anyone to pray. The selections range from ancient times to modern, some are deeply religious, some are more secular. I got multiple copies of this, two years ago, and I have given away my last copy; now I'm ordering one more, for me. The book is divided by the seasons of the year. It is compact enough to travel easily. Even if you already have a daily devotional book, this is worthwhile as a supplement.

Wigglesworth exemplifies the true Power in God's Word. He takes the Word beyond something on paper and shows forth the substance of the Holy Spirit, Who is available to ALL who will be bold enough to believe with total sold-out commitment. This small book comes alive with God's power in a most practical way. The author's simplicity is so refreshing. Just straight forward faith.

This little book is a very nice, hardcover that I leave in my bathroom for myself and guests to use for a quick daily devotional. Like all of his books, it is an annointed word that always stirs up the holy spirit in me.

This book is one of the most impressive books on prayer I've ever read. It gives insight into timeless Spiritual truths about prayer that are rarely discussed. I would recomend this book to anyone who is hoping to deepon there prayer life or desiring to know more about prayer.

This is an excellent series for historical fiction lovers. Set in the Revolutionary War, the book follows a fictional family and friends through the war, with incredible detail. The book is full of interesting facts, and at the end of each chapter, the author tells the reader what was fictional and what was factual, and cites the references for further information.

To those who may be religiously sensitive, the book only touches on the religious aspect, and does so in a very nondenominational way. Mainly, the only mention of religion is with the characters in the book wondering if their actions were being guided by God; something many of the participants (especially Washington)truly wondered.

There are currently five books in the series, with more to come.

These books are so wonderful. I felt as if I were actually there and as if I personally knew the characters. I have learned so much about the Revolutionary War and all the sacrifices and hardships our forefathes endured in order to gie us our liberty. I highly recomend these books to anyone interested in knowing what happened and what life was like back then.

I read this book prior to going on my sixth grade trip to Monticello, Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg, Virginia. The masterfully written novel opened a window of knowledge for me to enjoy and cherish. I learned more about the Revolutionary War from this book and series than from any other source. It is a great book to share with friends. I highly recommend it.

Excelent book to get you started in project management. Easy to read and understand. Great practical ideas.

I'm only 4 chapters into this book, yet I have found practical application numerous times in my job from my reading. Having received an immediate return on investment for my time, I look forward to gaining additional insights for my work as I continue reading.

Just as advertised! This is a great sized book to get me going on managing projects. It was surprizingly comprehensive for a book this size. Contained lots of examples and practical applications. This is a keeper as a reference book!

This book, through a plethora of academic citings and analytical research, describes the many dynamics of why people choose or identify with certain religous beliefs. At times, all the discussion of research done in certain areas of religion can become a bit tedious for the non-psychologist or PhD type, but a simple skimming of these sections will give you the general idea. I am not a psychologist, but I have a strong interest in psychology and why people develop certain personality traits, behaviors, or social networks. This book does a great job of describing different types of people and why or how they evolve or identify with certain religous beliefs, organizations, or groups. The authors successfully keep their personal biases towards the benefit or detriments of passionate and unwavering religous beliefs out of their analysis and presentation of the research. They also make significant efforts to explain the weaknesses of certain research methodologies and how that would impact the findings. This is a great book!

What are the different religious orientations? How do we develop religiously? How is religious development like creativity? These are questions that Batson, Ventis, and Schoenrade try to answer in this work in the social psychology of religion.

Given much attention is Batson's Quest theory of religious orientation. Batson is the leading proponent of this theory and in a number of chapters he explains and defends it against the criticisms that have naturally been lobbed against it.

I believe that his theory is robust enough to be acceptable. It certainly has intuitive appeal, as well as basis in Buddhist philosophy and mystical religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity.

This a laudible work in the psychology of religion. It has depth and focus not be found in other introductory works in this field of study.

[This work was previously entitled "The Religious Experience" (sans Schoenrade) ]

"Religion and the Individual" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

I'm so glad someone took the time to write a how to book on this type of public speaking. With the book's help I was able to write a roast that I gave at a party for a friend who recently finished graduate school. It was very well received, and I had people asking me to help them write roasts. Thank you Mr. Miller.

This is a terrific book that helps those who are nervous about making speeches and toasts. Useful for both business situations and social occasions. The book has great advice and lots of examples. It's about time someone wrote a book for those who want to partiicpate in toasts and roasts but never felt comfortable doing them.

This is the best book that I've seen for anyone who wants to add to the pleasantries of a retirement party, wedding reception or other festive event.

Now in a newly revised edition that includes verses from "Elegy", Larry Levis' (1946-1996) final collection of poetry, The Selected Levis, gathers inspirational and moving verse whose lyrical, picturesque wording evokes an atmosphere all its own -- sometimes beautiful, sometimes bleak and dark. But some things are not possible on the earth./And that is why people make poems about the dead./And the dead watch over them, until they are finished:/Until their hands feel like glass on the page,/And snow collects in the blind eyes of statues.

I'd like to make a correction to my review--when I wrote this I was so excited about the collection that I wasn't thinking straight! There are no poems from his last full collection, Elegy in here; the Selected Poems ends with the Widening Spell of the Leaves. I didn't mean to misrepresent this volume. But if you've never read any Levis before, buy the selected, and buy Elegy, and work from there.

I think it was Michael Levenson who said that "It's easy to have an opinion, but so hard to write a sentence that counts." Nearly every one of Levis's sentences counted, through a deep and original sense of line and a voice that easily alternated between the fierce and tender. Except perhaps from his first book, nearly everything that Levis wrote resonated--he's one of the best, and sadly, one of the most underrated, of the poets of the 80s and 90s.

He did this by creating new KINDS of poems; the cadences (particularly in his later books) are singularly his, and tonally the poems can be elegaic, or funny, but they're not just "feelings put on paper." His poems aren't merely glib, vague confessional prose broken up arbitrarily into lines, as seems to be trendy lately. Tonally they might vary from the elegaic to the absurdly funny--but they are all part of a deep exploration by Levis of human experience. He is often rooted in regional soil (the hardscrabble California vineyards of his childhood) but he is not a "regional" writer; in other words, whatever his experiences in life might be, he uses poetry as a way to transform them, merely than just describe them. He can write a poem about Belgrade, and have the same type of unbounded imagery, rhythms, and lyrical force than he has writing about "home."

Perhaps the greatest poems here are the Elegies from his last book, in which the elegies themselves become kind of semiautonomous creatures in of themselves (the titles say much to this regard: "Elegy with a Thimbleful of Water in the cage," "Elegy with a Petty Thief in the Rigging," "Elegy with an Angel inside its gate," etc), and are probably the best sequence of poems I've seen in a long long time.

In short, this is a fine introduction to Levis's work--but if you're hooked, you're going to want all of his books anyway (most of which are thankfully in-print by both Pittsburgh and Carneige Mellon). It has been awfully hard to pin down in words what makes his work so special, because in many ways, just like his poems, it defies easy categorization. His poems don't necessarily provide nice morals at the end; they aren't sugar-coated. But I can't think of another poet--even Sylvia Plath, whose work I love--who I regret (grieve, really) had died an early death. With any luck a hundred years from now people will be reading, passionately, Levis's work.

Dr. Larry Rivers has really put together a wonderful research on the institution of slavery. A lot of the information that he provides about slavery is not necessarily new information. What makes this research so good and so important is that he puts it against the background of Florida. Whenever the institution of slavery is discussed, the state of Florida is not the first or the last state that is mention in the discussion. However, with this book Dr. Rivers has made Florida one of the most important states in terms of the developments of the institutions of slavery.
The scope of this book ranges from the year 1500- 1865. This study begins with Florida when it was still a territory of Spain. It is here that the author tries to piece together the African presents in Florida before the institution of slavery is established. The author uses a wide range of sources to his point. He utilizes a lot of researched that focuses on Africans who were free when they first set foot in Florida. He uses sources from historians who have done extensive research in Florida such as Jane L. Landers of Vanderbilt University and Canter Brown of Florida A&M University. This to me adds validity to this book and this study.
The rest of the chapters of this book provide a lot of information that is not nessccary new information in terms of slavery. There have been many studies conducted on slave resistance, on slave condition, slave families, etc. However, there has never been such a study done in regards to Florida and slavery. I am a Floridian by birth and a historian by profession and the way that this booked flowed had me on the edge of my seat at all times. I knew about slavery and about slave conditions, but to read about slavery and slave condition in an area that I am familiar with was very riveting. The information provided about Gadsden and Jackson counties were very valuable to me because I grew-up in those counties. I am sure anyone that has looked at this research and has family ties to Florida would feel the same way.
The sources that he uses throughout this book I think are very appropriate. Each one is used to magnify his point. I really love the slave narratives because they reflect a truth that is not tainted by modern society need to be politically correct. The author uses several quotes from a former Jackson County bondswoman by the name of Margrett Nickerson. Her quotes to me are beautiful because they reflect her grammar of speech and you can almost feel her tone of voice as she reflects about her experiences as a bondservant. Since the author uses so many different sources, it is hard to say if he neglected any appropriate sources. I would think that he used so many different sources because he did not want to be accused of not using enough sources.
Overall, I think that this is an excellent book. As a Floridian, I really appreciate this book because it helps me to better understand the environment that I grew up.

A study of this magnitude can only be described as ground breaking and powerful. Larry Eugene Rivers interprets and analyzes the Florida slave's experience in startling, inspiring, and rewarding ways. The author certainly raises the bar for future state studies of slavery. A model study that should be emulated by other scholars seeking to update and revise studies of slavery in those states that had enslaved blacks during the antebellum period.

Rivers presents his work in a scholarly, readable, and evenhanded manner. The author named names; he treated enslaved blacks as human beings. The voices and humanity of enslaved blacks come through loud and clear in this study. The reviewer can see why "Slavery In Florida" is the fourth most purchased book in Tallahassee, Florida through AMAZON.COM. and why it has already won a national book award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association in the notification category. "Slavery In Florida" is a highly original and stimulating interpretation of the contact between Native Americans (Seminoles), enslaved blacks, and Anglo Americans during the period from 1821 to 1865. Read this gracefully written book and judge for yourself.

I found this book, Slavery In Florida: Territorial Days To Emancipation, to be a deeply researched, beautifully written, and well grounded book on the peculiar institution in Florida from 1821 to 1865. This study presents the story of slavery from both the perspective of the bond servant and the master. The book covers every aspect of slavery in Florida. Among the chapters are those that focus on the slave family, religion and community, physical treatment of bond servants, slave resistance, and the participation of enslaved blacks in the Civil War. Rivers presents an engaging analysis of race relations during the territorial and statehood periods in Florida. Particulary, he discusses the relationship between enslaved blacks, Native Americans, and whites in an even-handed yet critical manner.

Readers will find the voices of slave men, women, and children throughout this study. Rivers used the Federal Writers Project WPA interviews of former slaves as well as other newspaper interviews with former bond servants to described "what slavery was like" in Florida from the viewpoint of the enslaved black. From the extensive endnotes, the author apparently used hundreds if not thousands of probate records, appraisals, and inventories to describe the slave family. Given the cruelty of slavery, Rivers argues that enslaved blacks were still able to carve out some semblance of family, connected with generations of kinfolk. Rivers presents convincing evidence that bond servants were far from being passive victims. They were sometimes successful in getting concessions from masters concerning family matters, work routines, and religious worship.

Some readers might find insightful Rivers' suggestion that the largest slave rebellion in the antebellum South was not the Nat Turner insurrection, but the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), where the majority of the warriors consisted of runaway slaves from Florida and state to the north. Apparently this is what General Thomas Jesup thought when he declared this battle to be "a negro and not an Indian War" (p. 204).

In describing enslaved blacks and whites, Rivers further gives a balanced assessment of the human frailties as well as strenghts of both groups. I found this refreshing since most studies paint all whites as the bad guys and all blacks without a blemish.

Anyone knowledgeable of the historiography of the antebellum South will quickly notice that Rivers includes the latest scholarship on slavery. As an avid reader of books on slavery, this is, in fact, one of the best books I have read on the topic in years. It should serve as a model for other state studies. I hope someone will read Rivers' book and use it as a guide to do a study of antebellum slavery in my state of Delaware (which has yet to be done). Slavery In Florida is a gripping read, and I give it five stars.

This outstanding book was one of the mainstays for my Ph.D. dissertation. It explain factor analysis and SEM techniques in a clear and effective way, with an hands-on approach that guides the reader during all the data analysis and result interpretation phases.

I really needed this for my dissertation. As a computer scientist who is using statistically-based data mining techniques in my PhD dissertation, I needed a good "Quick Course" in factor analysis. More important than just "what is factor analysis", I needed to know how to implement my ideas in SAS. This book did the trick. Now let's hope my advisors think so. :)

This book does an outstanding job of taking someone that is somewhat rusty in advanced multivariate techniques and turning them into a conversant and competent modeler. Larry Hatcher uses plain English to explain what a technique may be used for, what the required SAS code is, what the output should look like, and how the output can be interpreted. I'd strongly recommend this book for anyone taking a structural equation modeling course or wishing to apply this technique in research.