Even if you are not a Baseball fan, this is a great human intrest story, of a real sounding person and his troubles growing up. If you are a baseball fan or a fan of the late great Nellie Fox it is an absolute most

Just when you think no one can do anything more with how baseball captures the American mind and imagination, you come across a book like this. It's a fun read, light enough that you don't realize you have become caught up in something serious. As I laughed I kept wanting to e-mail Kevin Costner. This book would make a great movie. It's got all the right stuff: an over the hill hero, a rotten kid, a dog, nostalgia. Those of you who grew up in Chicago will love the local color.

This is a wonderful book: funny and touching. The characters are real and the situations they get into are riveting. The dialogue is great; the voices ring so true. An extremely enjoyable read, even for only casual fans of baseball.

Nellie is a good little dog and tells a pleasant story about her life in Port Clyde. Young children can enjoy the story. Adults who have been to Maine will revel in the illustrations. Robert Ensor has created some lovely watercolors. It's a charming book.

Nellie, a wiry dog with a flaggy-waggy tail, is a wonderful guide as you explore a peninsula along the Maine coast that juts far into the sea. Nellie takes you to the general store, post office, and, of course, the Marshall Point lighthouse. Robert Ensor's illustrations beautifully capture the rockbound coast, Maine architecture (big house, little house, backhouse, barn -- all attached), lobsterboats, and the open sea. Year-round residents and summer people (cottagers, as we're known hereabouts) will recognize and adore each and every landmark. Look for the other three books in the series. They're treasures.

In "Shadowed Dreams: Women's Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance," editor Maureen Honey collects a compelling body of texts from one of the most important literary currents in African-American history. Honey notes that these poems span the years 1918 to 1931. Each poem is accompanied with its original publication data.

Represented in this anthology are such important African-American women authors as Georgia Douglas Johnson, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Angelina Weld Grimke, and Helene Johnson. In addition, there appear many authors whose names may even be unknown to specialists in the field of Black women's literature: Esther Popel, Marjorie Marshall, Isabel Neill, and more. Where data is available, Honey provides brief author bios at the end of the book. She also contributes a substantial introduction.

The poems are grouped into four sections: "Protest," "Heritage," "Love and Passion," and "Nature." I must admit, I didn't particularly care for this breakdown. Because the works of individual poets are scattered among two or more sections, I think this editorial strategy dilutes the possible impact of seeing a larger sampling of a single poet's work in one place. Also, the headings seem to impose a particular, limited reading upon each piece.

Still, this is an impressive anthology. The poems range from formal constructions to free verse. Highlights include Georgia Douglass Johnson's passionate pieces "The Heart of a Woman" and "I Want to Die While You Love Me," Dorothea Matthew's solemn "The Lynching," Anita Scott Coleman's sentimental "Black Baby," and Angelina Weld Grimke's haiku-like "Dawn." Particularly impressive are the technical proficiency and linguistic richness of Helene Johnson's poems. "Shadowed Dreams" is an essential volume for those interested in United States literature of the 1920s, African-American studies, and women's studies.

This anthology answers the question, who were the female poets of the Harlem Renaissance era? Also, What were they writing? This book printed duirng the 90's successfully answers and is still the definitive book on the subject of female poets of the Harlem Renaissance era. From Angelina Weld Grimke, Helene Johnson to Georgia Douglas Johnson's famous poem, Heart of a Woman, to some of the poets who are not well known, such as Mary Jenness and Ruth Dixon, this book explores the themes of the notable and less notable in poetry. This book is divided into three sections, Protest, Heritage and Love & Passion. This book gives a wonderful taste of poetry with little or no commentary. This is a must read and must have for anyone who has ever contemplated the question, who were the female writers of the period and what did they write? This will answer sufficiently that question or will tease the tongue for more about these poetesses of the era.

I enjoyed the repackaging of the old Laura and Nellie stories. This would work for readers not advanced enough to read the original (which is still superior)

This is a really good book. I like the part where Laura takes the crab out of the creek and it chases Nellie. Nellie is such a snob.

I loved the TV show Little House when I was growing up but don't get to watch it very much now. I'd like my little girl to enjoy it as well. Through the chapter books, she can. My daughter is only 6 but can enjoy me reading the chapter books to her. Laura and Nellie was the first one we read. We also loved Animal Adventures.

This book is an excellent history of how the midwest was settled - a little like House on the Prairie, but for grownups. From her childhood in a sod house to the Nebraska Sandhills as an adult, she accurately tells the story of what it was like to live in a rapidly changing world. It is amazing to think of how hard life was on the prairie, and yet she found time to make the most exquisite quilts. I read this book because I know of Grace Snyder as a master quilter, and enjoyed this book because of all I learned about the settling of my state, particularly the Sandhill region, of which I knew very little. She brings you into her family, and you rejoice in their accomplishments, and share in their sorrows. This book is a gem.

As a little girl, Grace Snyder had three dreams: to marry a cowboy, to see the top side of a cloud, and to make the most beautiful quilts in the world. This book is about how her dreams came true. Grace lived at about the same time as Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her story is similar. She tells about her girlhood, her marriage and family, and making the quilts that earned her many ribbons and a reputation as one of America's finest quilters. She tells about good times and bad times, but throughout the book is the joy of a woman who lived the life of her dreams.

Grace Synder is my great aunt. i read this book when i was a child. iam now married to a quilter and i want to share the story whith her. Aunt Grace lived a long life and i whish she was here to give my wife some of her ideas. I have fond memorys of her that will last a lifetime.

This collection of essays dealing with youth and drama is an essential one for educators and children's theatre practioners. The essays on curriculum drama, dramatizing history and bringing literature to life are excellent references for the growing trend towards creativity across the curriculum. Using drama to teach other subjects in elementary and secondary ed is the most exciting movement and this book is a great tool to get started.

her work is incredible. I was introduced to her by the work she submitted in "This Bridge Called My Back." She is truly awe inspiring. Her work really speaks to your soul.

This is a really wonderful book. Heart wrenching stories from her youth in the late 1800's to funny anecdotes of medical school and life as a country doctor.

Any Californian blessed with daughters will want to read them/give them (according to whether they're nine or fifteen)a work which roots autonomous, adventurous women on both sides of the Sierra(s). Anyone driving to ski at Mammouth can animate the boredom (through Independence, etc.) with this work. And as for a genteel assault on S.F. (the "City") by a pioneer woman medical student, this will steel your daughter for the scalpel and for any derision that may still hover in surgical theaters and dissection labs.

I'm biased: these reports were written by my great-grandfather, and edited by my great-uncle. That aside, what emerges from this book are well-worded images of a 21-year-old's leaving Utica, NY, for Washington and becoming part of the Army of the Potomac in 1861: marching and bivouacking; social events; provisioning; endless battle preparations; comments on society, the countryside, the mood of soldiers and civilians encountered; personal feelings. The battles in which Ritchie saw great action were those of Seven Pines (late May, 1862), Spotsylvania Court House and the North Anna (May, 1864), and Petersburg (March, 1865).

To give an idea of Ritchie's writing, here is his description of meeting Abraham Lincoln at one of the President's Tuesday evening social events:

I attended the last one and escaped unharmed... I held no conversation with any of the notables except Mr. Lincoln, the main portion of which I can recollect. A man who did not know my name introduced me to the President and he immediately extended his hand, seemed delighted to meet me and remarked with much concern, 'How do you do?' In my blandest tone I responded, 'Very well, thank you, sir' and was about to inquire after Mrs. Lincoln's health when we both dropped the subject and our conversation ceased. As I passed on I noticed that there were two or three hundred others behind me waiting to talk with Mr. Lincoln on the same subject.

The book is an easy read, because it has been well edited from Ritchie's diary, letters written home, and from his reports sent to the Utica Herald, for which he was a correspondent. The book gives a human aspect to the huge machinery of making -- and making ready for -- war. I liked it.