I had checked out this book in the library and I saw the cover. It looked like a very little Santa Cluas in a tree on the telephone. It was a book that would probably intrest me because it was pure nonsense. The book was the best book I have ever read. It makes you laugh on almost every page. The tricks and the poems are great. This book is definetly a book for all ages.

I disliked this book, not because of the lack of sex and alcohol (as did another reviewer), but because the characters seemed so woodenly constructed and the environment unrealistic. I don't know how much research the author did for this book, but I certainly didn't feel like he's ever had a meaningful conversation with a stripper in his life. I was expecting something out of the ordinary, but basically "Stevie" was the same typical stripper archetype that appears in tv movies. I could relate to the character of Carroll to a degree, but he lacked any fire. The unfoldment of the plot, with each chapter being a day/night seemed to work, but unfortunately it was a spark in a mostly unimpressive book. Carroll's struggles at work were boring and lifeless. I know that it was meant to portray the ennui of his life, but it shouldn't bore the reader. Overall, the book was disappointing because of a lack of surprises and a lack of humor.

I need to collaborate on a biography of this O'Brien fellow...any takers?

A perfect rendition of the life everyone lives . . . lonely, secluded, and surreal. The novel screams of O'Brien's talent to connect with the seedy and realistic side of our world. First class entertainment. Maybe it should be retitled "Life Lessons." A must read for everyone, especially O'Brien fans.

This is a great book, but it is just stretched way too long. It starts out great and keeps the reader glued to the pages. Then the book starts to end the same things happen over and over again and you just think when id this book going to end. Personaly i think this book could have ended about 50 pages befor it did. I think the book would have had a shot at the Newbery if it didn't go on as long as it di. That just goes to show that you cant hve a super-de-duper start but then your ending just really stinks your book wont be that good. You need to have a good ending and a good begining in order to have a good book.

Hey, what can I say? ``The Curious Adventures of Jimmy McGee'' is just about the best darned book for BedTime Stories, 2nd only to Pooh. It's fantastical & wonderous, w/plenty of character & originality. With catch-phrases & situational romps, Estes creates a wonderful world, easy for children of all ages to escape to. & I'm sure to catch heck for saying this, but in a time of the over-saturation of a certain `boy wizard', it is more than refreshing to have another little boy come along in ``6-60 time'' with his ``bombazine bag & stove-pipe hat'' & get us all caught-up w/``zoomy-zoomies''. =D Here's to you, Jimmy McGee! ``Hero.''

This book twists the old midevil legend of the Pied Piper. It is very interesting. I even enjoyed it and I'm almost 12 years old. Though it is much better when you have the author of the book there to read it to you (he came to my school today). I think sinse I enjoyed it it wiil be even more enjoyable for younger children.

Author Jim Latimer not only has heard of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, like most of us, he knows that the story can be traced back to Heinrich von Herford, a Dominican and a historian, who wrote the tale down around 1450. Herford told of a event that supposedly happened on June 16, 1284 of a mysterious flute player who appeared in the town of Hameln (apparently Robert Browning added the "i" 400 years later; you know how poets are, especially ENGLISH poets) and led away all the children of the town because he played such strong alluring music. Latimer knows that the rats were added to the story in the 16th century but what he does not know is much about the music of the 13th century that would have been so alluring to children. However, Latimer has discovered that the music found near Ennis in Ireland, in the region north of Limerick, near the Slieve Aughty Mountains, in the Lakelands of County Clare, especially as played in the villages of Tulla and Feakle, is music that may well have charmed children and rates. Consequently, Latimer puts together these pieces and comes up with the story of an Irish piper from County Clare who arrives in Hamelin just as the town is despairing of disposing of its rat population. However, rest assured, the ethnicity of the piper is not the last of Latimer's twists upon this popular tale.

"The Irish Piper" is NOT intended as a first exposure to the fabled story. To fully appreciate this one you have to know the tale, or at least think you know the tale. Jim Latimer's version gives the tale a new vitality aided and abetted by John O'Brien's stylish pictures. If you recognize O'Brien's distinctive style, it is probably because he has frequently contributed cartoons and covers to "The New York" magazine. As for Latimer, he usually writes books about Mooses, which is a reasonable topic when you live in Minnesota.

What a cute concept, word play and visual play on the phrase "change the baby." This story presents a contest of avoidance and one-upmanship between an unusual pair of parents -- a wizard and a witch. When mom tells dad it is his turn to "change the baby," he does so, literally, changing the baby into a cat and telling his wife "its your turn to feed the cat." She responds in kind, and things escalate in a picture book version of "War of the Roses." The play on words is cute; the pictures are cute. In the New Yorker this would have worked beautifully, but the underlying message -- that the competitive spouses are willing to give up everything including their humanity and their home to avoid the responsibility involved in caring for their child and their pets -- makes for a disturbing picture book theme.

My two year old really enjoyed this book although it's designed for older children. He liked reading with me and saying "Poof" everytime I prompted him. He liked it so much that he cried when I returned the book to the library!

I think Poof is a book that can be enjoyed by the entire family. If you and your family need a good laugh, this will be a good one!

"Mother Hubbard's Christmas", by John O'Brien, and illustrated by John O'Brien. Boyds Mills Press, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, 1996.
This book is really written for the sophisticated child or for an adult. If you recall your Mother Goose rhymes, you will laugh at the various outcomes, the strange actions that the dog takes.
"She poured him a cup
Of holiday cheer
But when she looked up
He was riding a deer".

Not a reindeer, but a deer. This fractured version of the ordinary nursery rhyme caused my seven year old granddaughter to constantly giggle, but my young grandson (only three years' old), was constantly asking, "Why is the dog blue?" and "Why are the Christmas Trees blue?" Certainly, this book was not addressed to someone so young, but it is difficult to read a book and exclude any of the near by children.

I only assigned three stars, because this book is a little too cute and a little too sophisticated, and aimed, I think, more at the adults who listen when the book is read aloud. Perhaps I prefer my trees the traditional green...

Uncle Switch; Looney Limericks makes a nice introduction to the genre for younger children. There are lots of terrific illustrations to support the mixed-up antics of Uncle Switch. This book offers several possible writing connections for the elementry school teacher - writing original limericks, other writing using the mixed-up way Uncle Switch has of doing things. Makes a good connection to Amelia Bedelia books, too.

Here's a little excerpt from the book talking about communion:
"When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man. It is a power greater than that of Seraphim and Cherubim. The priest brings Christ down from heaven, and renders Him presenton our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man, not once but a thousand times! The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows His head in humble obedience to the priest's command."
I ask you, "Who is more powerful, a priest or God?" Don't buy this book. Instead go here: ... and buy Preparing Catholics for Eternity. This book will change your life.

This book is an easy to understand explanation of the Roman Catholic Faith. Active Catholics as well as those looking to learn about the faith will find this book helpful and informative.

It is a shame to give this book a "Professional" title - it is rudimental in every sense. I can't even call it a rehash of the manual, because MS documentation is much deeper.
Book is un-inspiring and wriiten in a very bad language.
In general, I see Wrox sliding down on my scale, while Microsoft Press shining. Just try to compare this "Professional" book with Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows with C#"!

Ill-conceived and rushed into print

Wrox sure knows how to put together a beautiful looking book: the dazzling red color of the book cover contrasting with the bright yellow, shadowed titling shows that someone has done their homework on how to attract a reader to a book shelved alongside dozens of other similarly-titled books. Open up one of their books and you'll find a beautiful layout with gorgeous typography employing carefully chosen fonts for the various types of information being conveyed. Their books are chock-full of professional looking diagrams, tables, and screenshots that just suck the beholder into thinking that this must be some excellent book.

Sigh...if only the cosmetics reflected the contents. I know people who buy almost every Wrox book published, yet who express their disappointment time and time again because of a host of shortcomings common to so many of them. Talk about finding the sizzle irresistible regardless of the quality of the meat! "Professional Windows Forms" is a perfect example of a wonderful looking Wrox book that is just plain annoying when you get down into it. The book is supposed to teach you how to program with Windows Forms in the .NET platform (standard thick-client Windows programs). The book does cover all the bases, you can't fault it for that: there is a really good introductory chapter on the .NET framework itself, a fair overview of Visual Studio.NET, a good chapter on event handling (critical for Windows programming), how to connect controls with data from a database (something new with .NET), all the standard Windows controls (buttons, lists, trees, toolbars, menus, whatever), dialogs (modal vs. non-modal) and standard windows, common dialogs, GDI+, a chapter on debugging Windows Forms, even a chapter on localization (internationalization.) The book has all the usual Wrox shortcomings: a host of typos and misspellings, half the examples don't work, the source on the web site does not match the source in the book, sometimes the bugs are in the web site source, sometimes in the book, often in both, class and procedure names differ between the web site source and the book's printed source (so searches often fail), there is inconsistency in the presentation of material from chapter to chapter (because in this case there are eight different authors, which is actually below average for the "Professional" series Wrox books), and there is a lack of focus on the topics presented. There are a couple of extremely elementary chapters that seem completely out of place in a "Professional" series book: "Inheritance and Other Important New Language Features," and an insultingly elementary chapter on interface design (what's a button for, etc.). There are also some topics that may be interesting in themselves but are only marginally related to Windows Forms, such as "Components and Reports." This book is more like a grab-bag than simply Windows Forms. It even touches (but JUST touches) on building web pages with ASP.NET.

All that aside, the thing that I find most annoying about this book is the language mix used to teach the Windows Forms .NET classes. Three fourths of the examples in this book are in VB.NET, the rest in C#. Personally, I don't think any book purporting to instruct us about .NET classes should be using VB.NET, because the prolix and convoluted syntax of this horribly ugly language stands in the way of us clearly seeing what is going on with the .NET classes themselves, the actual topic under discussion. C# has far superior didactic power for this purpose, since it is concise and clean and lets the workings of the classes shine through transparently. A case could be made for saying that the only .NET books that should have VB.NET code in them are books whose main purpose is to teach VB.NET (it will be a detriment to the industry if this language catches on, but that is another story). But to mix VB.NET and C# in the same book, where there is not a total duplication of code for both languages (as some .NET books do), well this is simply egregious. Up to now, all serious Windows programmers, to whom presumably this book is addressed, have used either C with the Win32 SDK or C++ with MFC (or ATL). The natural language for this book's audience is C#, not VB.NET. To burden this audience with VB.NET for exposing the Windows Forms classes is an affront. Then to tease us with a little C# in an occasional chapter, especially when follow-on chapters later in the book are then presented in VB.NET, is a terrible frustration and road block for learning the actual topic at hand. Why cover up the meat with this mess of a language when it is so much more natural to expose it in C#? What was Wrox thinking? Especially nitty-gritty code like illustrating GDI+ you'd want to look as clean as possible, but they chose to write this intense chapter in the muck of VB.NET!!! Oh, how I wished I'd waited for "Programming Windows with C#" by Charles Petzold, which only just now came out. Unfortunately, "Professional Windows Forms" was the only game in town at the time I bought it and I did not look at it close enough before I brought it home and started getting into it, being suckered into it by its wonderful cover and smart typography. Oh, the price we sometimes have to pay for being early adapters!

With practically every book on .NET focusing (screaming ?) on Web Services and ASP.NET, this book is a welcome addition to those like me who write classic applications .. this book has been written wrox-style, with several code samples and a logical progression of content .. since this book has been published before VS.NET release, one can run into minor problems in running the code with the release version of vs.net.. but if you are brave enough to venture into VS.NET, then you should be brave enough to modify and compile them in the release version. Each new control in the toolbox has been discussed in the context of a project .. inheritance has been covered well with good samples .. chapter on components/reports is very new and helpful as these are new to the toolset of the .net programmer .. a comprehensive chapter on deployment will come in handy for those of us who deal with deployment as well ..case study at the end of the book is right-on-target in putting windows forms piece of the .NET into action .. since the title does not refer to either vb.net or c#.net, the code samples and discussions are both in vb.net and c#.net ..

again, with all the hoo-ha about web services and asp.net, classic applications are renegated to the back-burner .. but after one installs vs.net and tries to write their first "hello world" program, one will have to start with windows-forms to warm up to vs.net .. this book provides a good foundation for warming-up to vs.net .. could not give a 5-star rating since security issues are not covered