This is THE best book in English on Belgian cuisine. People who have visited Belgium, love it's typical dishes: Belgian endives, aspargus, waffles, "Waterzooi", mussels, fries, ... This book - which appeals to beginning and expert cooks - explains you in a simple and playful way how to make these dishes yourself.

You don't have to be Belgian to love this cookbook! It's truly awesome! All the recipes I've tried so far are great - and very easy to follow. If they ever come out with a 2nd edition, I hope they include some photographs of the recipes... this is easily the cookbook I use the most!

I married into a Belgian family, and I have to say, I was intimidated by my mother-in-law's wonderful cooking. How would I ever measure up? In fifteen years, I've learned quite a few of her recipes, but after reading this book, I finally understand where she's coming from. Ruth Van Waerbeek not only introduces Belgian food and cooking, but an entire way of life. The recipes are great, and the stories and anecdotes are even better. This is one of those cookbooks you can sit and read cover-to-cover, even when you're not looking for a recipe. I'm ordering one for my mother-in-law --she'll love it!

This is a little book for children that is based on the Russian Christmas tale about the old woman Baboushka who is visited one winter's night by three kings who are searching for a new born child. They ask her to come with them but she can't, saying that she has to finish her chores. Later, bearing gifts, she desides to search for the kings and the babe herself. She visits houses asking about the babe and leaves gifts behind. This becomes the basis for a Russian Christmas tradition. The illustrator of the book was Nicholas Sidjokov and the book won the 1961 Caldecott Medal for best illustration in a book for children. His illustrations enhance the telling of this old Russian Christmas story.

Baboushka and the Three Kings won the Caldecott medal as the best illustrated American children's book in 1961. Stylistically, these images will remind you of stained glass windows and the abstraction of Egyptian murals with Byzantine faces. The pages are done in five colors only (black plus blue, yellow, an orange-red, and green). The result gives the book a religious tone that makes you imagine you are reading from an illuminated manuscript done during the middle ages. All that is missing are the gold highlights.

The story picks up on the Biblical tale of the three kings coming from the East following the star to the birth of Christ. The three kings have lost their way in the snow in Russia, and ask the old peasant lady, Baboushka, to help them. After hearing of their pilgrimage, she wants to finish her chores first, and spend the night resting in her warm cottage before starting out. She invites the three kings and their retainers to join her for the night. They politely decline, not wanting to miss His birth.

The next morning, Baboushka repents and decides to bring gifts to the Christ child as well. But so much snow has fallen that she cannot find their trail. She goes from village to village hoping for word of the three kings, but finds nothing. Eventually, she gives her gifts to the children along the way.

"And it is said that every year, at the season when the birth of the Child was first heralded, Baboushka renews her search across that land with new hope." "And it is said that every year little children await the coming of Baboushka." "They find joy in the poor but precious gifts she leaves behind her in the silent night."

The book points out rather well that when opportunity knocks, one had better take immediate action or possibly rue the consequences for a lifetime. But the repentence can still yield important benefits for the proscrastinator and those who know her or him.

After you and your child know this story well, you should share with your child examples you have seen where waiting was a mistake. To balance that message, also share some stories where waiting was a good idea. In this way, you can help your child prepare to perceive and act on good opportunities that require quick action.

This book obviously will raise the question of what this has to do with Santa Claus from your child, so be ready with your answer for that, as well.

Be generous as you can possibly be in your support of others and always active in seeking God's truth.

Baboushka and the Three Kings is a book of hope and wonder. It has a simple moral: reach for the stars and follow your heart. This is an inspirational story to read.

I first read A Wizard of Earthsea when I was in seventh grade. I could not put it down at the age of twelve. The way Ursula K. Le Guin writes reminds me of a fairy tale told by my grandmother on a rainy Saturday morning. The style is dreamy and reminiscent of old fashioned storytelling at its best. I was able to lose myself in the story, in the people, and in the land. I read A Wizard of Earthsea the second time at the age of 24. The book again captivated and mesmerized me. I am now 32 and I still love this story.
A Wizard of Earthsea is the story of Sparrowhawk, a goat herder from the island of Gont. Sparrowhawk develops an unusual power, which gives him the ability to call animals. When Sparrowhawk learns that he has more power than he can safely control, he leaves his old life behind and travels to the School on Roke.
What we might call magic is referred to and separated from wizardry in this book. Wizards are specially trained (and male) on the island of Roke. Magic is the realm of witches and not held in high esteem. A wizard's life is spent learning the true name of things in the old tongue. Power to a mage must be kept in balance. Every action has a reaction.
To me, this sense of balance is the real beauty of the novel. Sparrowhawk, or any wizard for that matter, cannot unthinkingly use a spell without facing consequences. I think this is wonderful way to look at our own society. We have all but eliminated our social sense of consequences. Sparrowhawk finally understands the balance at great cost to his soul and power. What will it take for us to face the consequences of our actions?

I'm writing this review because JK Rowling's books about the Hogwarts School of Magic reminded me of this, one of the few perfect novels I've ever read.

It's not a light-hearted fairy tale, though it is "high fantasy." It's the story of Ged, from his childhood discovery of his wonderful yet terrible magical powers; to his education at the School of Wizardry on Roke Knoll. There he makes a misstep; overstepping his powers, he accidentally lets loose an evil creature from a shadow world. His self-imposed exile, journeys, and eventual maturation and triumph are written with a deft flair for the beauty and wonder of magic; yet Ms. LeGuin is even more masterful in depicting Ged's character: the young high achiever who must finally make his peace with his inner demons.

As a child, I loved it for the idea of a school of magic. I grew older, reread it during a dark teenage time, and cried when Ged finally confronted his inner shadow creature. Later, studying anatomy in medical school, I recalled Ged's long days in the Namer's high tower, learning the true names of things; and bent cheerfully to my task.

It still bears re-reading to this day. Readers who enjoy Tolkien, JK Rowling, or Alice Miller's "Drama of the Gifted Child" ought particularly to read it; and readers who didn't like "The Left Hand of Darkness" or "The Dispossessed" should give Ms. LeGuin another try, in this, her finest work. . It is one of my favorite novels and I recommend it to you wholeheartedly.

With a limitation of five stars maximum, I cannot possibly give this story all the credit it diserves.

I am a dedicated fanatic of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" which I devoured nearly four years ago in third grade. So far, I've seen nothing but the Harry Potter series come even close to those three marvelous books and "The Hobbit." I was very pleasantly surprised upon readin this book.

LeGuin starts by introducing the child Duny, called Sparrowhawk, who has some very remarkable abilities. When Duny is given his true name, Ged, by Ogion the mage, he becomes his prentice, and is eager to learn the ways of magic.

Eventually, he comes to Roke, and becomes a student in a school for magic. He befriends a kindly boy called Vetch, but also makes a great enemy -- Jasper. Ged, proud and thirsting for power, attempts to outdo his rival by attempting a very dangerous piece of magic...raising a spirit from the dead. In doing so, he accidentally unleashes a deadly and mysterious shadow into the world. Although he is nearly killed during his first encounter with it, Ged knows it is up to him alone to destroy the unnamed evil he has leashed upon the world.

This first book of Earthsea is about Ged's passage from boyhood into adulthood, his mastery of magic, and the journey he undertook to restore Equilibrium to Earthsea.

The book, Ishi: Last of His Tribe, by Theodora Kroebar is a well written book, which deeply describes the life of a Yana Indian. The Yana are one of the last Native America Indian Tribes left in America. She uses great adjectives and indian words to help the readers understand. People who are intrigued by Native Americans, wars, teenage lives, and the true cruelty of human beings will be interested in reading Ishi. Ishi is a young Yana indian boy, on the verge of manhood, getting ready for the responsibilities of having to feed and fend for his family who have supported Ishi his whole life, and have a family of his own. A group of white poeple come to the lands of the Yana and try to capture the land that has belonged to Yana tribes for centuries. The white poeple slaughter the Yana tribes unmercifully, and take the land for themselves. Ishi has to watch the people he has grown up with his whole existance and the ways of his people be demolished, and he is left alone in the world. Ishi teaches people who read it a part of American history which is normally not talked about or read about. The book uses the non-fiction happenings of the Yana and adds fictional situations and turns Ishi into a beautiful story of hate and overcoming obstacles. As I read the book, I felt mixed emotions. I felt proud at being able to identify with Ishi. Ishi was the last of his people, he really did not have much to life for, and no one was left that he could relate to. Everyone feels alone and outcast at some point in their lives, and this book helps people understand and relate to Ishi and how he feels. He was a truthful, deep, spititual person and he was plucked from his life and tossed into a world which was strange and new to him. If any of the readers have ever had to move from one town to another, they know what Ishi is feeling. I also felt hatered towards how the white men ignorantly destroyed this peaceful tribe's way of life without even feeling remorse for their actions. It is horrible how the just slaughtered the tribe, with 'fire sticks' and scalped the Yana for money. It is repulsing how the white men treated the Yana and all the Native Americans, who were on this continent before us and had been living respectably and peacefully, and had such a deep understanding of the land and how to treat it and use it wisely. Ishi was easy to comprehend, with the wordings of Theodora Kroeber. Everyone in America should know about what happened to the innocent Yana tribes and the innocent Yana people, such as Ishi, and see American history for what it really is, and what it really was and what the invading, torturous, white man and his government did to begin the longest war in history (500 years) against the peaceful, loving, spiritual NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN.

I've read this historical novel aloud to both "regular" fifth graders and to Special Education children. All of them have become entranced with Kroeber's wonderful descriptions of day-to-day Yahi life, and with Ishi's tragic story. The fact that Ishi was a real person made it even more tangible to them. This story is undoubtedly romanticized, but it describes life as it probably really was for a small surviving group of California Indians during the encroachment of the "Saldu" (foreigners). They try valiantly to retain the vestiges of their very complex culture, but tragedy inevitibly ensues. The majority of the book describes Ishi's life before he personally came in contact with the White people he has feared and from whom he has hidden during most of his life. It's difficult to find books that accurately describe Native American life pre-contact, in a way that is understandable to young children. I highly recommend this book, especially if you can tie in some of the recent controversy about Ishi's brain, which was removed from his body for study after his death (against his explicit wishes) and was only recently repatriated to Native California people. It's a great lead-in for a discussion about Native People's rights in modern America.
Karen Garcia

I first decided to read this book because I was named after Ishi, and I wanted to find out why. When I finally read Kroeber's novel, I was struck with a mixed sense of pride at being able to identify with such an honest, spiritual, and kind-hearted man; disgust at how ignorantly and inexcusably the white man in power treated Ishi's people, and hence has continued to treat Native Americans throughout this country; and awe at the beauty and grace with which Kroeber writes. I am also a high school English teacher in a rural New England town. I teach this novel, and am continually struck by its ability to speak to teenagers who, for the most part, are not aware of this component of American history. Though the novel is partly fictional, as we cannot truly know, for instance, the conversations that Ishi had in the "watgurwa" with his elders as a teenage boy, Kroeber reveals to us a story based on very real, and very human, events. We read about the unwavering respect for the natural world that is so inherent in Yahi culture, and so lacking in modern American culture. We see Ishi's growth from a boy to a man as he takes on the important reponsibilities of feeding and protecting his family. We also watch as innocent Yahi are killed with the white man's "firesticks" so that their scalps can be cut off and exchanged for money. Every American citizen should know what happened to Ishi and his people; for it is American history at its best, and, unfortunately, at its worst.

Having spent the majority of my life living in northeastern Oklahoma, I was well aware of Bartlesville, OK. I must have made hundreds of trips to what the Chamber of Commerce touted as "America's Ideal Family Center." It had the reputation of being a conservative, white, upper-class community that was progressive as that term was defined by the dominant employer, Phillips Petroleum. In short, it was a typical, though certainly more wealthy than most, small Oklahoma town. Or so I thought. I have since learned, thanks to Louise Robbin's fine book, that Bartlesville had a dark side, darker than most it turns out, that does not appear in the Chamber of Commerce press releases. It is not a pretty story. Ruth Winifred Brown was born on July 26, 1891, in Hiawatha, KS. She graduated in 1915 with a degree from the Univ. Of Oklahoma. In November, 1919, she became the librarian for the Bartlesville Public Library. She served as librarian for 30 years without a mark on her record. It was, by all accounts, a record of outstanding achievement and exemplary service. On July 25th, 1950, Brown was summarily dismissed by the city commissioners. The reason given was she had caused subversive materials, in the form of magazines such as The Nation and The New Republic, to be circulated to the general populace. To be sure this was the McCarthy era, a time when groups such as the American Legion and the Chamber of Commerce, to name but a few, were working diligently to rid our communities of suspected or perceived communist influence. Thus, if a librarian or two had to be sacrificed in this war to protect our cherished freedoms, it really was not too big a price to pay. After all, many American's lost their jobs, reputations, and families under the tutelage of Sen. McCarthy and his ilk. That's the price of freedom. If this were the real story of Miss Ruth Brown it probably would not warrant the publication of a book. Unfortunately, there is more, much more. Thanks to the scholarship of Ms. Robbins we now know that Brown was fired from her job, not for so-called subversive activities, but because she had been active in promoting racial equality. She had the gall to not only help form a group affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) but, even more shocking, to visit a major drug store in Bartlesville in February, 1950, with two black ladies and request to be served. This she did on her own time, without any fanfare or publicity, and some four years before Brown v. Board of Education and other events which began to at least offer a glimmer of hope to those supporting racial equality. Robbins has provided the reader with the history and background of political, social, economic, and cultural events that led to the merger of McCarthyism and racial unrest, which resulted in a sad, black chapter in the history of Bartlesville, not to mention the Nation. It is sad, not only because the community tolerated such behavior by its elected and appointed officials, but also because many of Miss Brown's colleagues knew the real reason for her termination and failed to disclose it to the community. It is also the story of courage and pride exhibited mostly by women during a time when it was not popular to be supportative of African Americans or any other group not on the power structures accepted list. This is a must read book if you are interested in forces ever present in our communities that can, and do, lead to censorship, intolerance, and the suppression of individual rights. The story is about a local event some 50 years ago; the message is about issues that are relevant today. Bartlesville, "America's Ideal Family Center." You be the judge.

This book provides a fascinating micro snapshot of what was occuring on a macro level across the United States during a turbulant time period in American history---the McCarthy era and the blossiming of the civil rights movement in the South. Bartlesville, OK, presents the perfect, middle-American city for a case study on American upset caused by the post-WW II end of American isolationism (with its concommitant fears of Russian world domination) and recognition that American Blacks were deserving of the same rights they died for the Europeans to have. The book recounts the true story of librarian Ruth Brown, who in fighting against censorship and for civil rights, became the victim of an economic, class, and social structure not ready for change and eager and willing to use ignorance and fear as weapons. I appreciated the author's ability to pull together an interesting, well-organized, and comprehensive story from a vast array of sources with very different points of view. For anyone interested in history made personal, and in seeing how every-day people become heroes and villians by standing up for their beliefs, this book is a true gem.

Yan Nascimbene's gentle illustrations bring a fresh new look to a story by Charlotte Zolotow that I have never tired of reading to the children in my life.