I could almost quote this wonderful children's book word for word. My son and I have read this together nightly since he received it as a birthday gift last month. Freddy the Frog is a charming character with important lessons to share and does so in a delightful way. Thank you Dr. Hope, for this sweet story.

"Dr. Hope" is the author of three delightful, bilingual (English/Spanish) picture story books that teach young readers invaluable lessons that will stand them in good stead throughout their lives. The Frog Who Couldn't Jump is the cheerful tale of a frog who must learn to jump and that there's much more to a competition than winning and losing.

You don't have to come in first to be a winner is the lesson Freddie The Frog teaches in this winning tale. Anyone (any age) who reads this story can't help but fall in love with this determined little frog. The artwork wonderfully portrays the emotions. Great book!

This book is one of the 2 most desirable and collectible books on classical guitars (the other one is: Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Present by Urlik, Sheldon). The figures are superb and the text informative. The hard cover edition is better in the following senses:

1. The hard cover edition is a limited edition (6000 copies only).
2. It is like a textbook which can be opened fully on its back. Easy for reading and scanning.
3. It's got a hard protective slipcase

However, getting the softcover edition might be your choice for its price and availability.

If you are a lover of guitars, specifically classical guitars, you owe it to yourself to purchase this book. There is nothing else like it. Great photography, details on some of the best guitars from some of the best makers...Romanillos, Smallman, Bernabe...They are all here. Inclusively, the book covers players (Williams, Bream, Segovia) as well as an in depth look at wood and the guitar market today. Great stuff and at ..., an incredible bargain.

Any lover of the classical guitar cannot help but appreciate this gorgeous collection of instruments, as well as the way in which they are displayed on the pages. Filled with information about the guitars and their construction, the luthiers, and which players'CDs you can hear them on, I highly recommend this fine edition. I take issue only with the subtitle "A Complete History", as the guitars are based on a single collection of instruments, owned by Russell Cleveland, and not necessarily what any other person would consider "Complete". That fact does not diminish my enjoyment of this exquisite book one bit.

Mario Benedetti, a Uruguayan writer, is well known in South America and Mexico. This is one of his rare collections available in English. This story collection presents a perspective not often used by US writers: that underlying paranoia, cycnicism, fatalism that anyone who has lived through the dictators and hyperinflation and tragic history of South America and Central America is well acquainted with. With recent events, many who have never had to live in fear are now faced with the kinds of dark powers that many others in our world have known for years. Notwithstanding the darker tone and sadness he evokes, the writing is superb and highly recommended.

"Benedetti is Uruguay's most important current writer."--Multicultural Review

"This superb collection...brings together tales of urban romance and political strife from the beloved Uruguayan writer. The fictions, most only a few pages long, are masterful in form, at once succinct and evocative. Many of the early tales...are reminiscent of Kafka-though with none of the weighty mood. Benedetti's language is light and playful..., full of humorous generosity to the reader." --Review of Contemporary Fiction

"What remains...is the singular and surprising nature of Benedetti's stories." --The New York Times Book Review

Uruguayan author Mario Benedetti, one of the most prolific and respected Latin American writers, is little known in the U.S.A. Of 50 years worth of fiction, plays and essays, the two novels published here are long out of print. This collection of 27 short stories should go a long way to bringing him the larger English-speaking audience he so merits.

Benedetti's early work (1940s and 50s) was rooted in and reflective of the middle class milieu of Montevideo. Like all successful regionalists, his keen eye and ear for local ideosyncracy could be bitingly on- target, while transcending the specific to express universal themes. The upheavals of the 1960s added a political focus that was sharpened when he was exiled (and his work banned) as a result of Uruguay's 1973 coup. His writings on political repression and on expatriate life display the same combination of dry irony and warm compassion as his earlier work; while themes change, there is a continuity of artistic vision.

Having enjoyed Benedetti in Spanish, I can recommend this collection. It offers a good cross-section, ranging from 1949 to 1987. I paid particular attention to translation on three of my favorites: "The Budget," a wickedly funny sendup of stultified bureaucracy; "Requiem Over Tea," a beautiful, sad story as told by a 13 year old; "Just Kidding," the chilling tale of a joke gone awry in the era of wiretaps and detention. Throughout, the author's original rythms, his strong sense of narrative voice, and distinctive use of vernacular came across very well.

Ali and Ripley's masterwork cannot be touched in terms of the completeness of individual descriptions, but this volume is amazing in that it draws together all the subcontinent's spp. into one book. Even so, the tome is too heavy to carry to the field. The taxonomy is updated, as is the species list. The colour illustrations are of a very high quality; my quibble is that the individual species are too small to be very useful. The maps are miniscule and that limits their utility; the use of two colours would have helped under the circumstances. Otherwise, this book is a long-awaited treasure.

Simply the best available guide to the birds of the Indian Subcontinent. Subcontinental birders have long awaited a comphrehensive guide to the birds of this region.

No other guide comes close in quality of drawings, text and range maps. Though too large and heavy to be called a field guide. It is still brought on trips to be reviewed after a day in the field.

We eagerly await the publication of this book as a true 'field guide'- that will be useable in the field.

This is the best one-volume book on the market at this time. It has very good illustrations and good species accounts that include excellent range maps. It is the only book of one volume that covers all the birds of the Indian subcontinent with this quality of illustration. The range maps are very good and there is an adequate amount of information about each bird. It's too heavy to take into the field on your trip to India, but it is an excellent reference.

This early Richard Jury novel is more comic than most of the others in this series--the scenes in Littlebourne, despite the fact that this is a mystery, are quite funny, with stock characters who end up being likeable and affecting. However, the strength of this book is in the scenes in The Anodyne Necklace and its surrounding London slum neighborhood, which is full of eccentrics, odd as can be, but fully enjoying their sordid lives.

The murderer is a surprise here as well.

This is also the novel that introduces Jenny Kennington, who is as enigmatic at the beginning of this series as she is later on. I am not sure of her appeal for Richard Jury!

This is the book that began the Jury/Plant series, where all of the books are named after pubs. This is one of the very few books in my experience where I remember who the muderer was because it was a flawless mystery, perfectly logical, nothing held back, but still I couldn't guess the culprit! Definitely NOT the "had I but known" school. There are some wonderfully gory scenes, if you appreciate that in your mudrer mysteries, in adition to wonderful character moments and real humor. I found this book to be the best of all of M.Grimes's marvelous books. I hope they republish! I read this book for the first time when I was nine (child of a mystery reader)and it has not lost its charm with successive readings over the years. My old copy finally fell to bits!

Richard Woldendorf and Tim Winton collaborate to produce a breathtakingly handsome compendium of photography showcasing the beauty, grandeur, majesty, and scenic wonder of Australia in Down To Earth: Australian Landscapes. A remarkable body of work transforming a varied spectrum of landscape images into works of memorable and impressive photographic art recommended to students of photography, as well as the non-specialist general reader who appreciates images drawn from natural landscapes and elevated to the standards of fine art.

As an Australian who has lived for 28 years in the tropics of Australia, I can testify the this book is WYSIWYG. I have seen some of the places depicted, and can assure anyone that the photographs are genuine. I can only urge any person with an artistic frame of mind (or indeed anyone with an interest in Australia) to have a look at this book. They will find it rewarding.

Cheerio

Robbie White

I've bought several other blues piano books over the years, and in my opinion this one outclasses them all. The pieces sound great, and the pacing of the material is fantastic. The book does a great job of slowly introducing the idea of improvisation, by encouraging mixing and matching ideas from the different pieces. It also goes into ideas like horizontal and vertical improvisation without making it too intimidating, and introduces some blues "cliche" endings and turnarounds. It covers many different styles from barrelhouse to stride to jazz blues.

The included CD lets you know how this stuff is really supposed to sound, and it's got a full "Recommended Listening" in an appendix if you want to explore further. All around one of the best instructional musical texts I've seen.

If you can play a little piano say grade 2 or 3 and like the blues you will get a lot out of this book. Beautifully presented with pictures of the masters and different types of blues, takes a slow and easy progression from very basic triads to simple but really terrific sounding stuff to the more complex stuff. He encourges you to experiment and improvise and truely teaches ways to do this. Happily for my nieghbours I have headphones on my piano! CD has all the music on it with some different versions in triplet feel etc. Richards is a performer and teaches at a London music college. Certainly helped me. If you want to learn the blues this is really nice book. The book has its own web site so hunt around. Allows you to download a very nice blues and the sheet music to it.

i borrowed this book from my university library initially,but i found i can't live without it,so i bought it. it provides a clear,thoroughful introduction to samba,and smb. then give u a detail intruction to administer samba. the most convenient part is the trouble-shooting samba,which contains a lot of cases that u will face when integrating samba, so buy one yourself

If you ever wanted to know about SAMBA, what it is, what it does and how to use it, this is the book...the ultimate book...

Not only covers it all features found in SAMBA, it also covers most intergration with other systems, containing many helpful hints for servermanagers.

The book also manages to both look back over the past of SAMBA, but also look ahead into the future use of the product.

Awesome book, you can't go wrong with this buy.

I have been looking for just this kind of atlas for my 5th and 6th grade Sunday School class. The main thing I like about it is that it uses the same map of Israel and shows it at the various periods. Most atlases and Sunday School curricula show various maps instead of one map that changes over time. I liked the comparison maps of the empires. The comments and illustrations with each map are also useful.

This is definitely a worthy purchase if you have a child and as well if you (admit it) still get mixed up a bit with Middle East geography, especially when it comes to what an area was called years ago and what its present-day name is. When you read a passage to your child, show him with this each time where that scripture was taking place at that time period (the atlas shows name changes and political boundaries in different time segments). You both will have a much better understanding of what was taking place where and when.

This game sourcebook is just as you might expect by the title a very good sourcebook for the 1000 Hells. I really can't add to what has already been said, just give my support

This has to be one of the best books I've read through in the Kindred of the East expansion. The 1000 Hells is not to be played with lightly -- it's serious business for those who wish to commune with the likes of Emma-O, Mikaboshi, Tou Mu, Rangda, and a host of other Yama Kings (and Queens) that rule Yomi. It shows you how to create a Yama King/Queen, the type of hell s/he would rule, systems on how to go to hell (literally, no pun intended), the effects of most disciplines while in Yomi (both Kuei-jin and Cainite), even how to commune and bargain with the Rulers of Hell and become an akuma (both standard and the exquisitely monstrous princes of Hell versions). Coupled with the latter half of Killing Streets (where it discusses the Broken Mirror systems), and you have the makings of a very memorable, spine-chilling chronicle. Highly recommended.

Whether you are running Kndred of the East, Hengeyokai, or god forbid a Hsien chronicle, this is the best book for giving the eastern world of teeth. From the greater Akuma to the Demons of Iron and violence, this book has everything you need to bring some major havoc into your game. And if its intrigue you want this book hs plenty to offer.