This book is incredible! It is a detailed anatomy and physiology text, but applied to childbearing. So it covers the major body systems, but talks about how childbearing affects them also. Then it goes into the physiology of birth and its complications- just incredible. I recommend this to every midwifery student out there, and midwives as well!

When Millie & Fred, in typical sibling fashion, can't agree on who their dog, Sam, loves best, they declare war & the feathers fly!

So Millie bops her brother & he bops his sister & before you know it, the whole world is in a pillow fight!

& where is Sam, the dog, during this global battle? Ahha! Buy the book & find out!

A good workout for that last jittery surge of energy before bedtime!

michael novak points out supressed aspects of our culture.i especially was impressed by the seven seals of americanization.this is just my idea by like gary miller says i may be wrong.

My 5 year old son loves this book. We're learning not to pre-judge people (or robots) by what they look like or by the unusual, but harmless, things they do. The Robobots could be any new family in town (we're military and often that's us!), misunderstood at first but not really so different once the neighbors get to know them. The flying furniture and vocal kitchen appliances are ones we'd like to have! I'd recommend this book to help teach tolerance and not to make snap judgments.

This book is beautiful. A must buy.

I am the founder and artistic director of a community theater group, Green Room Players, that has been in existence since 1993 in Franklin County, Massachusetts, and have directed musicals each year, including Babes in Arms, Snoopy! , A Wonderful Life, Barnum, South Pacific, and Grease.

Of all the books I have read on musical theater production, Staging Musical Theatre by Dr. Elaine Novak (with contributions from her daughter, Deborah Novak, an actress of stage, TV and film) has been by far the most helpful to me. It is written in simple and easy-to-comprehend language, and covers practically every aspect of theater production.

In a very organized and straightforward manner, the Novaks have discussed selecting the musical; analyzing the book, lyrics and score; interpreting the musical; holding auditions; casting; rehearsals; blocking; and polishing. Included are specimen time tables that are very helpful to a beginning director. There are also suggestions for exercises, games and improvisations to get actors acquainted with each other and with the director. The book also addresses potential problems -- such as kissing, slapping, asides, the vocal solos, curtain calls, pit dress, and even duties of the offstage crew -- and rounds out its invaluable stock of information with scenes for practice, an appendix containing lists and descriptions of well-known musicals and various types of musicals, an extensive bibliography on any aspect of play production, and a 6-page glossary of theatrical terms.

I strongly recommend Staging Musical Theatre as a textbook for beginning and prerequisite courses in academic programs in theater. I also highly recommend it for all who are involved with play production -- especially amateur, community, and school theater directors, producers, choreographers, and actors.

Ruby L. Agnir, M.A. Founding and Artistic Director GREEN ROOM PLAYERS 55 Cleveland St. Greenfield, MA 01301 e-mail: rubyleah@juno.com webpage: www.agnir.net/greenroom

This is a wonderful book for teachers, religious education instructors, parents or grandparents. It is all about our traditons if we were brought up in the liturgical Christian Church (Roman Catholic, Angelican etc.). Here in a wonderful timely manner one finds great pictures to illustrate timely information and instruction. the stories not only tell the whys of many of our customs and beliefs, but tie theses in with our life today. We hear about one of the Saints and t then see some activity we can do now to best capture the meaning or truth that he or she represents. I liked the way the author is not afraid to tell the old traditions, there is no watering down of our beautiful traditions, yet everything fits in with contempory life and can be applied. I feel that these pages, all which can be torn out and duplicated so the children can all have one to take home are a very valuable teaching tool. Although I bought the book to use with my three young grandchildren, it sure appeals to the "teacher in me" and I am ordering 2 more copies for my husband who is a full time Church music director at a large parish where he also teaches music in the school and also one for a friend who just started teching in a Catholic School. I am glad that these books are here to help young people love and understand our traditions . The book is beautifully done and a great teaching tool.

An excellent book laying out the authors'view of teaching and learning - The Human Constructivist view. If you are a science teacher and feel that there is something missing in your classrooms, read this book. If you are disenchanted with a prescriptive curriculum that bores you and your students, read this book. If you want to find out how to get into your students' minds (using tools such as concept maps), read this book. I have found this book to be full of interesting and useful ideas that can act as a spark to ignite a period of critical reflection. If science teaching is to drag itself away from a 19th Century perspective that bores the pants off our students, it is thinkers such as Mintzes, Wandersee and Novak that will light the path.

Professor Edward Younkins has selected 29 articles from newspapers and journals, beginning with Novak's first break from social democracy "A Closet Capitalist Confesses" Washington Post (March 1976) and " An Underpraised and Undervalued System" (Worldview August, 1977) up to "Solidarity in a Time of Globalization." He collects these essays under five headings -- the theory of democratic capitalism; free persons and the common good; religion and morality; the responsibilities of the corporation; the global arena - and concludes with the autobiographical essay "Controversial Engagements." Younkins located these articles in well-known journals such as The Public Interest and First Things, in lesser-known journals such as Worldview, Public Opinion, Economic Affairs (London) The Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and the Dravo Review and previously unpublished material. He has included substantial essays such as "The Communitarian Individual in America," "The Silent Artillery of Communism," "The Evangelical Basis of a Social Market Economy," "The Future of Civil Society," "The Jewish and Christian Foundation of Human Dignity," "Economics as Humanism," and "The International Vocation of American Business." He also retrieved two unpublished pieces, one of which offers a new definition of social justice to overcome the powerful objections of Friedrich Hayek. Much of the periodical literature in which Novak has developed the idea of democratic capitalism over the years appears in this collection, in addition, Younkins appends a valuable bibliography listing further articles. The collection displays the development of Novak's thought on democratic capitalism from its embryonic beginnings through its later unfolding.

Michael Novak is probably the foremost Christian thinker on the economy. His "Toward a Theology of the Corporation" is an under-appreciated classic that succinctly, yet powerfully, sets out a theologically sound analysis of the modern corporation and its role in society. In this slender and well-written volume, Novak joins issue with theologians like Paul Tillich who contend that "any serious Christian must be a socialist."

THEOLOGY has two principal themes. First, it is addressed to those who work for corporations. Many Christians have been taught to feel, at best, "faint disdain" for corporations and those who manage them. In contrast, Novak knows that many (most) business men and women are ethical people who yearn for moral guidance and advice. Consequently, THEOLOGY tackles a basic moral question: "Can a Christian Work for a Corporation." Novak's answer? "Yes!" (Those wishing more detailed discussion of practical business ethics ought also read Novak's "Business as Calling.")

Yet, Novak recognized that anyone who purported to think about practical business ethics needed to understand the predominant form of business organization-the public corporation. Much of THEOLOGY is thus devoted to an analysis of the corporation: Is the firm's structure as a bureaucratic hierarchy consistent with church teaching on human dignity? What social responsibility, if any, does the corporation have? And so forth.

Thinking about those questions naturally lead Novak to broader issues, such as the consistency of capitalism with church teachings on wealth. In THEOLOGY, therefore, Novak began working out the line of argument that was later developed more fully in his magisterial "The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism." Novak recognizes that church teaching has been hostile to capitalism, as with much else of modernity. Yet, Novak contends that arguments against capitalism serve mainly to give aid and comfort to the Leviathan state

In the most controversial portions of THEOLOGY, Novak attributes Christian opposition to capitalism to two main sources: ignorance and antique world views. Church leaders and theologians tend to be poorly trained in economics and inexperienced with the world of economic reality. Many believers (again, this is especially true of theologians) "are likely to inherit either a pre-capitalist or a frankly socialist set of ideals about political economy." As a result, "Church leaders are more likely to err in this territory [i.e., economic justice] than in most others." (p. 59.)

To be clear, Novak does not believe that faith should be subordinated to capitalism. To the contrary, he recognizes that the divine plan was that we should enjoy the fruits of the earth and of our own industry. He simply contends that capitalism is the best way Fallen humans have yet devised to obey the Biblical command that we are to be stewards of God's world. Novak never loses sight of the basic proposition that it was equally the divine plan that God should be worshiped, obeyed, and feared. The fear of the Lord, he would argue, is the beginning of capitalist wisdom, just as it is of any other kind of wisdom. Not surprisingly, therefore, Novak's analysis has begun to impact the way the church thinks about capitalism. Pope John Paul II's most recent encyclicals on work and the economy, for example, such as Centesimus Annus, contain obvious marks of Novak's influence. In sum, THEOLOGY is very highly recommended for any Christian interested in corporations.