The Faithful Friend is a French tale base in the Caribbean on the island of Martinique. Two inseparable friends, Clement and Hippolyte, are on a journey to propose marriage. After a beautiful woman named Pauline accepts Clement's proposal her uncle sets out to destroy them both. Three zombies have cast spells on the couple and it's up to Hippolyte to save them. The content seems to be appropriate for the ages indicated on the back of the book. However, there are some fairly complex words within the text, but a glossary has been provided at the beginning of the book. The Faithful Friend is definately written for young children, yet adults will enjoy the tale as well. Each illustration brings more meaning to the text. It uses bright, beautiful colors that words could never describe. They are also very accurate and consistent with the story. The artist uses a scratchboard technique throughout the entire book. This book seems to have been binded well, and the front cover bears two handsome young African boys, along with the Caldecott Honor sticker! Two thumbs up!!

This book represents the length that a friend will go to help and care for a true friend. These two young men have built a very strong bond that holds them together like brothers. This story takes place on an island with many twists and turns that make it a very exciting story. I think it is very important to let children know that we should be loyal to others in time of need. This story really hits on the true meaning of friendship, although it is fiction. My students love the illustrations which are done in scratchboard. Robert D. San Souci is a very good author for folk literature. I also like his book, The Talking Eggs. His work is good for teaching good values, or morals to students through unreal happenings.

This story is told similar to that of a folkloric tale passed on for many years from generation to generation. It has spiritual undertones and an essence of an important life lesson passed down time and again in a family. The illustrations are wonderful, (Pinkney's artwork is always great) and it is evocative of the island's mystery and danger. The two main characters' friendship is strong, bi-racial and surprise! The friend proving loyalty is the white man to the black man. This is a new one. It is the black man who has good fortune and is getting married! We need more examples like this in children's literature of mixed friendships, different ways to look at the world, new culture, strange new lands, and ties that bind people together rather than the tired old stereotypes. The students in my classroom loved this tale, because it was so fresh and new. As a teacher who is caucasian teaching in a predominantly black school, I look to Robert D. San Souci for interesting stories that appeal to the population I teach. The students always enjoy his stories such as The White Cat, etc. All are folktales with strong, interesting themes.

The fourteenth of Patrick O'Brian's brilliant twenty-volume nautical series finds Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the south seas. After we get off the deserted island where O'Brian left us shipwrecked in "The Thirteen Gun Salute", we get a new ship, fight the French, find the Suprise, and finally end up visiting the penal colony that is today Australia. O'Brian, of course, has done his homework. The brutality, violence, corruption, and degradation of Australia make for some harrowing reading. Maturin occupies himself with his nature studies, surrounded by wholly new species, including the platypus that provides us with another cliffhanger ending. Because while "Nutmeg" is a sequel to the previous volume, it is also left unfinished. O'Brian's dry wit, intelligent prose, and nautical research are as powerful as ever. On to the next one.

This fourteenth novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series begins where the last one left off, with Jack, Stephen, and 157 crew members cast away on a not-quite-desert island in the South China Sea, attempting to build a schooner from the remains of the wrecked DIANE. After time out for a game of sand-lot cricket (these are Brits, after all), they find themselves holding off a concerted attack by predatory Malays. O'Brian certainly knows how to start his story off with a bang! With a little fortuitous assistance, they make their way back to Batavia, and Gov. Raffles supplies them with a recently raised Dutch ship -- which Jack renames NUTMEG. They set off to rendezvous with the SURPRISE, with adventures and single-ship action along the way, and eventually make it to the penal colony at Botany Bay. O'Brian has some pointed and highly critical observations to make on the British governance of early Australia, and he also maintains his high standards of character development, wit in describing the relationship between the captain and the doctor -- their personalities are extremely differenent in many ways -- and beautifully painted pictures of life and weather at sea. This is one of the best so far of the latter part of the series.

Let's face it, all of Patrick O'Brian's novels in this series are wonderful. The Nutmeg of Consolation is no exception. If you have gotten this far in the series, there is absolutely no reason to stop now. This one takes place primarily in the South Pacific and Australia, and therefore does not have much in the domestic life of Aubrey and Maturin. The novel opens when they are stranded on an island in the South Pacific. Adventures naturally ensue, and ultimately, they find themselves in Australia, clashing to a certain extent with the locals. All in all, a completely enjoyable novel, filled with the humor, the action, the human drama that we come to expect in the Aubrey-Maturin series. Enjoy.

Hard-core comics nerds might be familiar with the writing of Robert C. Harvey through his eloquent and interesting columns in The Comics Journal magazine. That style carries over well to this book. His commentary is refreshingly brief, preferring instead to let the work of a century's worth of creative genius speak for itself.

Rather than give us a straightforward, linear (hence boring) history of comics, Harvey treats them as the masterpieces of art they are--just as there are various fine art "movements" (Surrealism, Cubism, etc.) the same holds true for the comic strip. Harvey divides comic-strip history into five such movements--the formative years, standardization of genres, the adventure strip, the gag strip, and the socially conscious strips of today.

We learn some things that may seem surprising at first, but on reflection are perfectly logical. First, even the most talented 'toonists weren't perfect--we see the strips in their original form--pasteovers, glue stains, pencil marks, and blobs of white-out litter the work. It's akin to seeing an X-ray of a painting by a Renaissance master--even Leonardo and Michaelangelo made corrections, sometimes painting over whole figures.

Second, the supposed decline of the quality of comics (and the rise of artistically bankrupt strips like "Dilbert") isn't the fault of the artists or the syndicates. (Despite sentiments to the contrary by "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoonist Bill Watterson, whose scathing diatribe against modern comics is reprinted in the book). Paper shortages during the Second World War, Harvey tells us, forced editors to cut the size of newspaper pages to save newsprint, which in turn shrank the comic strip. The advent of television immediately afterward forced newspapers to stick to the wartime standard permanently--and they have shrunk even more since. Such developments spelled the end of the lavishly drawn adventure-continuity strips (the detail could no longer be seen) and paved the way for strips like "Peanuts". Harvey doesn't talk about the role of the computer in perhaps reversing this trend, which is one of this book's few flaws.

Harvey, like other fans, pleads for the acceptance of comics as a "legitimate" art form, but does so without attributing to them any more significance than they deserve. No obtuse Freudian interpretations about what the comics "mean"--to Harvey, they are a unique form of art, driven as much by commerce as aesthetics. They are a throwaway medium for the general public, but as he shows us, that's more than OK.

Curated, with helpful annotations, by a leading expert, this is a beautifully produced exhibition catalog of the original art for American comic strips since 1896. Especially wonderful is the reproduction of cartoon originals in full color (not just black and white line art) so that preliminary blue pencil drawings, glue stains, and pasted-over changes are all clearly visible. (Copyright © by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 14, No. 3, Spring 1999.)

This is a much too abbreviated list of the hunters and trackers of East Africa and their wonderful lives. If you are expecting the adventure packed prose of Capstick, look to Capstick not here.
I did not find the book difficult to read or understand, but it was more a historical text instead of an interesting adventure.
This book would serve as a good primer for reading other works like Roosevelt's African Game Trails so the reader would understand who the characters were in that book better.

Considering the absolute wealth of characters and high drama Mr. Herne had to work with this book comes off rather dry and shallow.
For living the most exciting of lives, Mr. Herne does not seem all that excited about any of the people in it. So regrettably 3 stars.

First the negatives: basically, the list of white hunters comes at the reader in a blur of names and brief incidents, so that sometimes the reading takes on a repetitious feel. I found myself a bit overwhelmed at the onslaught of names and personalities, sometimes given no more than a few paragraphs of space. The information is arranged chronologically, beginning with the earliest white hunters like Cornwallis Harris and R.J. Cunninghame, and proceeds at a blistering pace through the 1970's, when Kenya outlawed all safari hunting. Brian Herne, the author, is a good writer, without being particularly inspired. If you are looking for the Peter Capstick (Death in the Long Grass) style of safari writing, you will not find it here. Herne is not the talented storyteller that Capstick is; yet Mr. Herne does have his own particular strengths. His style is very journalistic, in that he relays facts in blunt, swift manner. Take for Instance his concise description of White Hunter, Eric Rundgren's encounter with a charging buffalo: "During one pursuit a wounded buffalo charged, slammed hard in Rundgren, and tossed him over a riverbank. He landed in the gravel stream, but held on to his .450 double rifle. Above him on the bank was the buffalo looking down at him. Lying in the shallow river Rundgren shot the buff in the throat and it collapsed." End of incident. In a Capstick book, this mad charge by a buffalo would have taken a page or two, and by the end of it the reader himself would have felt covered in fear and sweat. Yet, despite the above, I heartily recommend this book for its many strengths: for one, Brian Herne has incredible credentials as a hunter, and one senses in his writing that they are being given the true deal. Maybe not as colorfully expressed as a Capstick, but frankly, more real. Also, there are many nuggets of breathtaking adventure that come jumping at the reader right through the factual prose of Mr. Herne. Nearly every hunter of any note is here, and the reader is given potraits of all the greats: Alan Black, Karamoja Bell, Bror Blizen, Charles Cottar, Bill Judd, and many, many others. Herne certainly can't be faulted for his completeness of the topic. What becomes clear when reading Mr. Herne's book is two facts. First, that big game hunting is an incredibly dangerous profession. It seems that nearly all the hunters were at some point gored or horribly mauled by big game, or suffered malaria, black-water fever, or one of the many diseases that float in the air in Africa. A fair number where killed outright, and these stories make the most gripping in the book, Two, conservation of big game was also an important role of these big game hunters. It was not the white hunters that decimated the rhino and elephant, but rather the various corrupt African governments themselves that allowed, and benefited greatly, from poaching. Herne makes a case for this in statistics that are irrefutable. By eliminating the safari hunters, the only group of individuals that had both the means and incentive to protect the region's wildlife for both personal and financial reasons, the corrupt government officials and poachers were free to roam, now hunting with AK-47 assault rifles and poisons. International prices for rhino horn and Ivory jumped up, as did the death toll for elephant and rhino. In short, this book is a great resource for the true story of white hunters. It includes a fabulous bibliography as well, for further reading.

I have always enjoyed reading about African hunting and looked forward to Hernes book. While it did deliver the information promised, I believe the book could have used a bit better editing. This is for a couple of different reasons. For one, Mr. Here identifies so many different hunters that it gets somewhat confusing keeping track of who did what. As noted by above reviewers, there are plenty of hair-raising anecdotes, and it is a quite thrilling book, but Mr. Herne just briefly touches on a few events of the lives of literally thousands of people that spent time hunting of working for hunters in Africa. It is sort of like a buffet where there are a multitude of courses, but you can only take a bit or two of each course. Secondly, Mr. Herne sometimes changes subjects, persons or topics, without notice. One paragraph you are reading about a particular hunter and another paragraph you read about some political aspects of hunting whose connection to the previous hunter is not always obvious. I think that a good editor, making a smoother transition between subjects, and perhaps eliminating a discussion of some briefly mentioned persons in order to focus a bit more on others who were more influential, could have made this good book even better. Those two criticisms aside, I really enjoyed the book. mr. Herne's recounting of life in pre-WWI east Africa was incredibly intriguing. His analysis of hunting's conservation effects make a powerful argument for the use of hunting as a game-management technique. All in all, I would heartily recommend this book to anyone desiring to learn about either the history of African history or arguments for hunting.

Everyone knows Robert Louis Stevenson; everyone has at least one of the myriad books of his poetry. There are some stunningly illustrated collections of his poetry out now, notably two by Thomas Kincaide, among others. But how many of us have actually read all or most of his work? I'm guilty as charged.

This smaller, quieter version of Stevenson's poetry helped me finally, actually read all the Garden poetry. True, the illustrations are spare, but delightfully accurate. My children (7 and 10) were not as mesmerized by this book as they are by others with fanciful graphics, illustrations and larger type to accompany the poetry.

Still, this small book found its way into my purse to be used for waiting moments, e.g. at the orthodontist, doctor, and also to my bedside, where it's shear diminutive size did not dissuade me from reading "for only a minute or two." And within Stevenson's words and language lie the ferment of creative pictures. I liked to have my children close their eyes while I read short poems to 'force' them to use only their mind's eye.

I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures, moods, and images Stevenson conjures and at long last can understand why his poetry remains so classic.

Most everyone knows that Robert Louis Stevenson was sickly, both as a child and as an adult, and the happy result for the reading public was his nearly feverish flights of imagination. Here, in an edition of his classic "A Child's Garden of Verses," that fever is complemented in spades by the fantastical illustrations of English artist Joanna Isles.

Isles uses an arsenal of utterly frivolous flowers, borders, insects, birds, kings and queens, fairies, and more to expand upon the imagination exhibited in Stevenson's poems. The children in these pictures are depicted as being in charge, being at one with their environment, and being delighted to be alive.

Some of the illustrations hint at the influence of artists more famed than Isles (Henri Rousseau appears to be a special favorite of hers--see the illustration for "The Unseen Playmate," in which a boy lies down in weeds that might have sprung from the edge of Rousseau's painting "The Dream"). Using both primary colors and pastels, Isles creates a world within the world of Stevenson's verse. The marriage of the two is a happy one.

When I was younger, well 5 actually, I had the chicken pox. This was one of my mom's favorite books. The words in the poetry just soothed me. It seemed like the author, Robert Louis Stevenson, knew exactly what I was going through.

You can't forget about the little toy soldiers (a poem) at your feet because when you are sick for days, you can imagine all kinds of things in your mind. The curtains billow like sails, the bedpost is your anchor. I sat there in bed and just floated away with the fun of having someone to share my illness. It seemed like a had a friend right there with me.

I loved the pictures too. The little kids are old fashioned and it made me laugh because the boys wore silly clothes, but they fit the time period, my mom said.

I love this book and keep it by my bed when I need to be relaxed.

Hayley Cohen

We rated it number four because we liked the drawings. We thought the drawings brought out the book. We thought the illustrations were very colorfuland very interesting because it was by the Carrabien Sea. We, also, liked it because some words were in French. There should not have been servants in the story. We thought it was like the other Cinderella stories. The author should have changed it a little bit. We suggest younger school aged pupils would enjoy this book better that upper elementary pupils. We have enjoyed reading this book a lot. By : The Four Recess Lovers*

I am giving the book Cendrillon 5 stars because there are words in French, there are excellent pictures, and San Souci has a very good way at making the story make sense.

I liked that they put in French words because it tells the reader that the people in the story speak French.

The author, Robert D. San Souci, is excellent at writing. I have read more of his books and they are all great.

The illustrater, Brian Pinkney, has a great way of making the pictures stand out. Pinkney has a nice way of drawing the outlines of things. You can almost see things jumping out of the pages. You can see he mixes in colors, so he gets the colors he wants.

The book is great.

This is a wonderfully rich retelling of the traditional French Cinderella story, set in the Caribbean. As a school librarian I've shared this title with students to compare it to the traditional version. They love it! The pronunciation guide in the back is most helpful. The story is unique because it is from the point of view of the spunky godmother. Pinkney's scratchboard illustrations are perfect!

Awful commie propaganda. Slanderous portraits of Liberals and of the Whites in the civil war. Wafer-thin characters all around, from decadent blood-sucking nobles to gooey warm camaraderie amongst their "class enemies." Read Tolstoy instead. Life is too short.

Certainly a masterpiece, spellbinding for 1300 pp., I happened on this amazing book as a remainder at The Strand in New York. Difficulty keeping the generals apart and whose side they were on, but a captivating story that has led me to learn to read and write Russian with hopes of living there/studying there. I had been a fan of Russian poetry for a while, esp Ahkmatova, but this is really simply an unbelievable story. Would be interested in reading more about World War I and this part of the world. Read The Guns of August and now need to read the equivalent for this area. Your suggestions are encouraged.

This is the second time I've read this thousand over page tome and it's truly magnificent. The greatest Russian/Soviet novel this century. Sholokhov is in the ranks of Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky. An intensely beautiful, powerful and action filled tale of heroes in a land changed forever by war and revolution.

With its scenes of war and mobs, CORIOLANUS is a work best expirienced on the stage, of course, being one of his least popular plays, it doesn't get produced too often.

The only killing Coriolanus does is on the battle field, but he still comes off as a much less likable character than the murdering Hamlet or Macbeth because Coriolanus spends much of the play berating the citizens of Rome. CORIOLANUS has often been called Shakespeare's manifesto against democracy because of this, but the play is much more complex than that. Yes, it's a play about the fickleness of the masses, but it's also about leaders who don't perform their responsibilities either.

The play is much more political than emotional, and therefore not one I'll return to often, but its political statements are as timely today as they were 400 years ago, if not moreso.

I never understood why this play is so unpopular. Coriolanus is a very striking figure. He is a brave and valiant soldier. Yet, he has contempt for the people he protects. In all honesty this is very common. Shakespeare never allows the intensity of this play to drop for a moment. At first Coriolanus fights to the extreme for Rome. Then he fights to the extreme against Rome. His reconciliation with his former enemy Aufidius in 4.5 is a very memorable scene. Only when he is confronted by his mother, wife, and son does he go through a crisis of conscience. It is interesting that because he begins to see the world in terms other than himself, his downfall becomes inevitable. To be sure, this play is not a masterpiece like "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet," "King Lear," or "Richard III." But it is A LOT BETTER than some of his popular plays like "Othello" or "Romeo and Juliet." I highly suggest it!

This inexpensive volume is a fine edition with very readable text, good notes, and a nice introduction. Coriolanus is not one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, though it has its partisans. As with several of Shakespeare's best plays, it is an attempt to combine an investigation of the nature of power with a psychological portrait. The nature of power or kingship was one of Shakespeare's great themes, featured in some of the great tragedies like MacBeth or Lear, and this theme runs through many of his history plays. In Coriolanus, however, this theme is handled less well. It is interesting to speculate why Shakespeare, who dealt with this theme so well in many plays, doesn't do such a good job in Coriolanus. The action in Coriolanus is set in a republic, not a monarchy. The structure of republican politics is not one Shakespeare would have known well and the problems of politics and authority in a republican are different than those of a monarchy. Particularly for modern audiences, whose intrinsic understanding of republican politics is much greater than Shakespeare's, the clumsy handling of the tension between the aristocratic Coriolanus and the plebes rings false. In addition, the psychological portrait of Coriolanus is not nearly as rich as Shakespeare's analysis of quite a few of his other protagonists. Much of the language in Coriolanus is powerful but it lacks the dramatic movement and insight of his best work.

I gave this book three stars, one for each good story in here. If you did not get enough of the Underdark from Salvatore's fantastic drow series, then this book is worth it for the three quality stories within. Though none of the stories are of the quality of Salvatories writings about the underdark, three out of five stories in here add nicely to the myth of the Underdark. The Liriel Baenre story is the best of them and even features a brief appearance by my favorite drow Jarlaxle. There is an excellent story about a deep gnome who was captured as a drow slave. And then there is the so-so Zaknefin story, which includes some more back story on Drizzt, and while this story is no where near the quality of Salvatories writing, it does provide some interesting insight into both Zaknefin and Drizzt. As for the other two stories in here, forget about them, I already did.

"Realms of the Underdark" is one of the "Realms" series of short story anthologies. This volume deals exclusively with the Underdark, the subterranean world of amongst things dark elves, Dwarfs and a unique ecology. The Underdark has been made famous by R.A. Salvatore's the hugely popular Dark elf series. Although R.A Salvatore doesn't actually contribute any stories in this anthology some of his characters do make appearances in several stories. Fans of R.A. Salvatore will enjoy this anthology since it fills in a lot of background details about the Underdark and how dangerous it really is. Fans might also notice the differing writing styles between R.A. Salvatore and the other authors but that shouldn't detract too much from the book. After finishing the book it leaves you wanting more... but in a good way.

Well.The book isn't bad. I've enjoyed reading most of the stories.But That's the bad part. They left you wanting more :)_ The stories are great, and, if you don't mind reading just short stories, buy it. I enjoyed the Liriel's story (Elaine Cunningham) the most of all.