Excerpts from the Wapsipincon Review (2002/03 issue), book reviewed by Floyd Pearce. "This book is an excellent sampler and, for many, could provide an introduction to these distinquished poets. You don't read poetry? Try these poets! If you are as tired as I am of swagger and irony a la mode of so many modern poets, welcome to the farm."

This book features the poetry of Paul Engle (Robert Dana), William Stafford (Denise Low) and James Hearst (Scott Cawelti) with a foreword by Iowa farm poet Michael Carey. This book is a companion edition to the 5th Harvest Lecture held October 17th, 2002 which dealt with poetry, landscape and popular spirituality.

This book is about Priscilla Foster, a 12 year old girl living in Salem in 1692. Priscilla's friends have started accusing innocent people of being witches and before she knows it Priscilla has joined them in accusing people. Priscilla wants to stop but she finds herself unable to. This is my favorite Her Story book.

Priscilla Foster is one of the girls who see witches in the Salem Witch Trials. She tells her grand-daughter about her tragic and terrifying tale. Gives a must-read account of the trials.

I really liked this book. I learned a lot. It was interesting. Sally was a spunky girl. She had the courage during a bad time to help her family.

This book is about Sally Bradford, a young Confederate girl during the Civil War. This gives a Southern perspective of the war. Sally's father and brother are away fighting for the south. Even though the Brafords own no slaves the Yankees still burn her house and the family must flee to Richmond. Then, Sally's brother gets typhus and is sent to a Richmond hospital. He needs quinine but the stores have none because of the war. Sally must travel across enemy lines to get medicine for her brother before it's too late. This book showed that there was more to the Civil War then the slavery issue.

Hi, I loved this book! It is about a little ,curious boy who gets lost. He gets lost during the 4th of July parade. The 3 investigators are looking everywhere in Venice(the police too)where Bob's report brought them. Pete encounters a shark underwater. This book is not about a live mermaid.I thougt this book was going to be horrible!!The kids dog is found dead in the trash can!!I LOVED THIS BOoK!!

I really enjoyed this book because I had a hard time on deciding on who was the bad guy. The characters also teased each other so you feel sorry for one, but good when he got the other back. I really don't see why anybody can rate this book a one. I highly recommend this book to you even if it's below your reading level! It makes me want to read all of The Three Investigators books!

I'm 28 now and was first introduced to The Three Investigators in 5th grade. I now teach English to 8th graders thanks in large part to my love of reading, flamed in my youth for a love of this series of books. The Mystery of the Invisible Dog was my favorite book in this series, and may be (along with White Fang) my favorite book of childhood. As a mystery, the story had few flaws. The mood and tone of this story hit just the right cord with me. I loved the entire series because it did not condescend to its audience, assuming a certain amount of knowledge about the world in each story. This book was no different in its reference to the Carpathian mountains of Europe and references to Catholic practices as part of the story. I highly recommend this book as truly representative and maybe the best book of the series.

This book was truly inspirational. It has the type of thought provoking advice and opinions people of all age groups can appreciate. The concise chapters are packed full of stories you won't forget. Many chapters are touching, others informative, but all have the wisdom and lessons of life to which we all can live by. A great book for everyone to enjoy!

Notes are essential for this great russian novel. It will take anybody at least a few hundred pages to reslize who evybody is, with those wierd russian names, but the notes eliminate that. Also since this book is very long you might forget something from the begining or you just might stop reading it for a while, which makes these notes very helpful

This was one of my favorite Her Story books. It is about Julie, a young girl who travels west with her family by covered wagon on the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. If you liked the other Her Story books you will like this one.

Cliffnotes added greater depth to my understanding of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS; it did so by providing background information not available in the book itself. I enjoyed reading quotes by Maya Angelou regarding her life, the genesis of the idea to write an autobiography, and the process of the writing. The Cliffnotes points out that autobiography has become an important aspect of African American cutlure.

We had to read this novel by Maya Angelou and I thought it was a very good example of the way you should write. She used imagery and descriptives to show you,the reader, how it really was in her life. I LOVED IT !!!

Maya Angelou's written language is alive, and that's refreshing. There is a specific life-view from the standpoint of a black girl growing up, and it is uplifting how she meets her difficulties with confidence. Her humor in many situations made me laugh out loud. Yes, she is a gripping author, and the tidbits of wisdom shine through like rays of sunlight...

This series by Patricia Finney features Robert Carey, the youngest son of Lord Hundson who in turn is the bastard son of Henry VII and Mary Boleyn, Ann's sister. Carey has landed a position as the Queen's representative at one of the border forts between England and Scotland, at a particularly crucial time, when Elizabeth's heir, James, is king of Scotland, and his succession to the English throne will unify the two countries. Carey's main motive in accepting the position was to get away from creditors in England. And in the first of the series, Carey, began to establish himself as a kind of monarch in his own right in that most politically crucial of geographies. Now less than a year and three books' worth of adventures later, Carey must return home to London at the summons of his father, who is now the Queen's Lord Chamberlain. Carey has to deal with creditors who are stalking him, his father's girlfriend (and once his,) Mistress Bassano, her devoted swain and family servant, the rather unimpressive Will Shakespeare, and the fact that his gullible elder brother Edmund has disappeared in what turns out to be plague infested London, and Hundson's chief enemy, Thomas Heneage, probably has something to do with it. Meanwhile a bunch of counterfeit coins are turning up, and the penalty for counterfeiting is death. And Carey's Scottish man, Seargent Dodd is amusing everyone with his bumpkin ways and accent, while being extremely frustrated by their decadent city ways and lack of recognition for his family rank. It's fun stuff with great characterization and just about the best period resurrection I've ever experienced. But then that's true of all of Finney's work, and here, slick London kind of made me miss the crass and vulgar North.

This book shows evidence of an amazing amount of research into the daily life of Elizabethan London. Perhaps this is, as one reviewer suggests, how Patricia Finney has fun in between her longer Elizabeth I mysteries, but all I can say is she does a lot of hard work too!

Sir Robert Carey was widely though of as the Queen's nephew (the illegitimate grandson of Henry VIII) and Chisholm makes the most of this fact in her mystery, using her hero's physical resemblance to the Queen and his father, Lord Hundson's, temperamental resemblance to Henry VIII to build a complicated tale of revenge, ambition, and murder. A score of minor--but also real!--characters thread through the story: Mistress Bassano (a member of a real family of Jewish musicians at the court), Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, and even the balding Will Shakespeare appear.

So many historical mysteries are more about evoking a powerful setting than telling a complicated tale of skulduggery, but with this book you get to have both. The setting and characterization are nearly perfect, and the central mystery pivoting around the consequences surrounding an alchemical experiment gone wrong is not only perfect for the period but darned confusing as well! I highly recommend this book, and the other books in the series. But, read A Famine of Horses (the first in the series) first or you will find yourself a bit lost for the first half.

This is the kind of book that makes life worth living.

Written in a spare yet vivid style, with outstanding dialogue, Plague of Angels features well-known characters from the first three books of Chisholm's series. But, due to a letter from Carey's father, they've had to ride south to London. Readers be encouraged: this is no Renaissance Faire.

Characterization is particularly strong in this volume because it's from the point of view of Sergeant Dodd, the tough, morose, thoroughly engaging Borderer. His viewpoints on London, the aristocracy, and Carey are not only humorous but have a certain ring of truth. I'd always liked Dodd, but in the course of this book he became one of my favorite historical fiction characters of all time. Carey, seen through Dodd's eyes, retains his notable charm and savoir-faire. And Chisholm does something nearly impossible: writes about real historical characters and does it well. Yes, Shakespeare is in this book, and yes, it works.

The plot is an exciting one, of course. Some of the twists aren't quite as well developed as they could be, but between the plague, the Fleet Prison, and our hero facing torture by the bad guys, it's hard to care.

I was particularly impressed here with Chisholm's presentation of Renaissance mentalities. The pure terror evoked by the plague, in an age when diseases were unstoppable and more or less uncurable, is very well described. It's also worth mentioning that, although her protagonists are male, Chisholm does well with female characters, making them realistic products of their time but still strong, interesting individuals.