Nicely written and superbly illustrated by Patrick O'Brien, Mammoth is an entertaining and educational picture book filled from cover to cover with scientific facts about the mammoth, one of the largest creatures that ever lived, and an animal that died out around ten thousand years ago with the end of the Ice Age. Astutely illustrated in full color, and replete with information on what mammoths ate, how they lived, and how their fossilized remains have been discovered today, Mammoth is strongly recommended for school and community libraries as being an excellent and "reader friendly" introduction for children into the fascinating study of prehistoric animals.

I checked this book out at the library, and now have to purchase it for a nephew who loves trains. It is a great book that details the history of trains, but adds in a story (a family with many generations working on the trains) to keep the interest of children. Beautiful illustrations with a cat on every page my kids had to find.

In order to write good poetry, you have to be able to compress words, add imagery, employ similes, metaphors, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. Then you must try to come up with a new theme, or a new twist on an old subject, so that in the end, we are left with something breathless and bittersweet--an insight that stays with us and enriches and influences our life. Audrey Baird has done all this in her first book, Storm Coming! (Boyds Mills Press).

There isn't a cliché or hackneyed phrase in the whole book. If you didn't like rainy weather, you will now. You will embrace not only rain, but thunder, lightening, rainbows, puddles, fog, galoshes, wind, drizzle, and clouds.

I am amazed at Audrey's freshness. Take lines like "Churning clouds with heavy eyebrows brush the hills at daybreak...." What an original appropriate metaphor.

"Storm Concert" is spectacular with its comparison to the philharmonic, no reaching for comparisons, no grappling for simile, all of it falls into place so smoothly that it fits like your skin. It is never jarring, never overwritten, never self conscious.

One of the best lines in the whole book is in "Rainy Windows." At the very end. The poem reads; "In the car on a rainy day, the blip-blap, blip-blap of windshield wipers makes everything outside blurry and soft-edged, like dreams just after waking."

LIKE DREAMS JUST AFTER WAKING! Blurry and soft edged. Captured exactly. A powerful line.

In "Thief" we have the storm man slipping through the night with a bag of rain on his shoulder . . . lightning flashes from his fingers!

It is difficult to sell a BOOK of poetry. It is close to impossible if you are a new author and don't have a huge track record. So this is a coup, and it is fine to realize someone is out there sniffing out quality in a publishing world that usually looks for more of the same thing. If it sells in pink, do it in blue.

My only regret is the book has illustrations. I don't like to be told, especially with poetry, what to imagine. I want the words themselves to create the pictures in my mind. Illustrations of poems are interference in our creativity and imagination. Any illustrations. And I found some of these illustrations pedestrian. When you read, you can move away from annoying noises, fighting neighbors, unpleasant scenery, to the quiet of your own hearth or atelier. But you can't move away from annoying pictures in a book-you have to take them with you. That is unfair.

But the heart of the beast is in the poem. And the heart of the poem is Audrey.

About the Author: Judy Delton has published over two hundred books with Dell, Harper, Houghton Mifflin, Doubleday, Dutton, Harcourt, Hyperion, Disney and others. Her Pee Wee Scout series has sold over 7.5 million, and has just come out in Turkish, and in Braille. She has two new novels out with Houghton Mifflin, and regularly publishes a plethora of essays, articles, and literary criticism.

The book is about sharks. I like it because it is good and it is interesting. You will like it. One page is funny to me. Maybe it will be funny to you too! The pictures are good.

This work is highly readable for both expert and layman. It gives an excellent summary of the the major events influencing the course of European history. Beginning with ancient Greece and Rome and finishing with modern politics after the fall of the Berlin wall, the book gives an overview which is neither to brief nor too specific. If you've read this book you really can claim to know a lot about history. Moreover, all the events numbers etc. are presented in such a way that history almost comes to life.

This book successfully pulls off the difficult trick of being both a serious scholarly text and an enormously engaging introduction to the history and architecture of Crusader castles for the lay reader. The book is an obvious labor of love, which helps to account for its great charm. You first get a sense of this on the dedication page - "For Xana, with love, to remind her of Syrian days" - whereby Kennedy expresses his appreciation for his daughter's companionship on his rovings around Syria. (In his "Acknowledgements," he also credits his daughter with persuading him "to complete the climb to Bourzey when the spirit was willing but the flesh was getting a bit weak.")

If you needed any further confirmation that Kennedy is a scholar with a puckish sense of humor and a droll wit, you get it at the beginning of his "Note on Names," where he wryly observes that, "Like the naming of cats, the naming of Crusader castles is a complicated problem." Kennedy's writing voice conjures to mind images of a cozy library in some great English country house, where your host relaxes in a satin smoking jacket while both of you swirl brandy in your snifters and discourse about the comparative merits of crumbling castles on the western fringes of Asia. The book's first chapter - a survey of the development of Crusader castle studies from the mid-nineteenth century to the present - beautifully encapsulates Kennedy's discursive style and story-telling skills. "[Emmanuel Guillaume] Rey's life is something of a mystery," he muses, and you want to lean forward from your chair on the opposite side of the fireplace and say, "Tell me more." And he does, with an notable eye for the memorable quote, such as T.E. Lawrence's ironic complaint, while traveling around the Levant in 1909, that he was unable to reach Amman owing to "the unthinking activity of some local Bedawin in tearing up the Hejaz railway."

In form, the book consists of a generally chronological survey of the development of the Crusader castle, with individual chapters on siege warfare and the special features of (respectively) the castles of Templars, Teutonic knights, Hospitallers, and the Muslim princes. Another sign of Kennedy's passionate engagement with this project is the fact that he took all of the 90-some color and black-and-white photographs that illustrate the book himself. (There are also another two dozen plans, sketches, and prints illustrating the text.)

The photographs, together with Kennedy's text, cover not only the well-known structures like Krak des Chevaliers, Belvoir, Saone, and Montfort, but will also introduce you to a fascinating collection of lesser-known castles. Among these are the great Hospitaller citadel of Marqat, near the Syrian coast; the two castles overlooking ancient Petra; and - most curious of all - the cave-castle of al-Halbis Jaldak overlooking the Yarmuk River valley, the subject of a siege memorably described by the twelfth-century historian William of Tyre (which Kennedy helpfully quotes in its entirety). Kennedy's enthusiasm also extends to the humbler fortified towers of the lesser Latin nobility.

Kennedy's secret is plainly that he is both a scholar and a romantic - as anyone who wishes to write effectively about the Crusades should probably be. Let me close this review by quoting his own explanation for his enterprise in producing this book:

"There is something fascinating and frequently moving about forlorn and failed enterprises, those 'old, forgotten far-off things and battles long ago,' however perverse they may now seem. It is impossible for me to stand on the windswept battlements of Crac des Cevaliers, climb to the remote crags of the fortress overlooking Petra or explore the magical stillness of the deserted valley by Bourzey, without feeling a potent mixture of admiration and nostalgia which breathes excitement and emotional commitment into scholarship."

This book can be enthusiastically recommended to history buffs and armchair travelers, as well as to those with a more scholarly basis for their interest.

This book compares different animals such as bees/wasps, spiders/insects, and koala/bears. It gives some basic information on each and compares the differences. This book would be perfect for introducing Venn Diagrams.

Pat O'Brien came to speak to my graduating senior class this year about the reality of college and how to make the best of it. I think it was a good thing to put the end in perspective first and make goals for yourself in order to make your path towards success even more efficient. His Winning Characteristics are not always easy to accomplish, but with discipline and hard work anyone can achieve them. Basic tips on studying, getting to know professors, extracurricular activites, and internships are helpful in envisioning your undergraduate years as challenging, but exciting experiences. Overall, O'Brien offers sufficient and real information that every college freshmen should know, and if he or she utilizes O'Briens advice they will be much more likely to be successful.

This book is about more than just surviving in college, it's about thriving in college. A must have for every student entering college. If you like this book, you'll love "Major in Success," by Patrick Combs. It changed my life.

I have read this book twice now, and will probably read it again. It motivates me so well. It gives you a sense of direction and provides you with the necessary steps to follow. If you are looking for the perfect graduation gift this is the one. This should be on every freshmen's must read list before going to college

A fine first effort with high marks for historical accuracy, so far as I can tell. Master and Commander is stiff in places, but a must-read for anyone who wishes to enjoy the rest of the series. I perhaps am not the typical reader of what is essentially a war-on-sea story with a sad dearth of feminine characters, and I found it somewhat plodding. That said, I liked Jack Aubrey's bold simple character, and I found Dr. Stephen Maturin's eccentric personality quite interesting. I was captivated by their first meeting; as soon as they nearly came to blows I knew that they would establish a fast friendship - remember how D'artagnan irritatates all three of the Musketeers when first they meet, agreeing to dual each at 15-minute intervals? Of course D'artagnan and the Musketeers become life-long friends. Jack and Stephen start their friendship in much the same way. But this doesn't turn out to be a buddy-novel. It's mostly about life at sea and in battle. It's factual, not emotional, a bit dry, but very realistic.

I liked this book, and if I could I would give it 3.5 stars, but I didn't love it as some do. The second book is much better but you really must read the first book first. I recommend this to anyone, even women like myself.

Master and Commander is the first book in Patrick O'Brian's much lauded Aubrey/Maturin series. Like C.S. Forester, O'Brian sets this novel (along with the rest of the series) in the tumultuous years of the Nepoleonic Wars and likewise, O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and Steven Maturin serve in Great Britian's Royal Navy. However, unlike Forester, O'Brian's frequent confrontation of the seemer side of naval warfare as well as Georgian society render his tales far more grittier and therefore, much more true to life. Furthermore, O'Brian's skillful combination of nineteenth century custom, language, and historical events makes these tales absolutely engaging in their overall sense of realism. You can taste the salt permiating the air, feel the cold sea spray blowing in your face, hear the thunderous roar and see the brilliant flash of cannon and smell the acrid powder smoke as it stings your nostrils.
As for the characters themselves, Jack Aubrey is the ingratiatingly sanguineous and impulsive Commander of H.M.S. Sophie who's impolitic and indiscrete shoreside antics continually taint his otherwise brilliant nautical career. Counterbalancing Aubrey is H.M.S. Sophie's surgeon, the eminent Dr. Steven Maturin who is possessed of a wonderfully melancholic and self-abusive nature. Both protaginists are made all the more fascinating for their individual peccadillos. In Master and Commander, Aubrey and Maturin embark on a series of lively adventures, which take place on both the land and the sea. The result of these increasingly enthralling encounters is the open revelation of their particular strengths along with the uncompromisng exposure of their peculiar weaknesses. Meanwhile, a solid foundation is laid for what becomes, in subsequent books, perhaps one of the most intriguing friendships in all of literature.

Rated 9 only because I lacked the courage to rate it 10. If you like to read books you will probably be swept away by this novel, the first of a thankfully long series by Patrick O'Brian. The subjects are the British Navy of the Napoleonic Wars and two men: Aubrey -- a naval officer and (one quickly assumes) one of the best sailors who has ever lived and Maturin -- a physician and "agent extraordinaire" who seems to be bent on giving Thomas Jefferson a run for his money as the man who knows the most of everything that could be known. O.K. so you don't like war, sailing, or the early 19th century. After a few minutes reading this book, you will. Even lazy readers (myself for example) will suddenly develop a great interest in the rigging of three-masted sailing vessels of the era. And did I mention, color, romance, and character development? A lot of natural science as well. The publisher offers the whole set of Aubrey/Maturin novels in hardback for a package price because many who read the first will be tempted to just buy them all and avoid any waits in between. I'm certainly tempted.