What a fabulous book!! Everyone in the family enjoys reading and hearing this book again and again. It is so full of fun and imagination. Read it and see...you won't be disappointed.

Our daughter has taken this book out of her pre-school library 5 weeks in a row. We all love the wonderful, lively illustrations. Most of all, we love the message -- different can be absolutely beautiful! With Mrs. Pennywort's encouragement, the especially talented Pauline can produce any egg she wants. A great story on all levels.

It has become a tradition in my home to read this book before painting our Easter eggs. The story and illustrations are so comical, colorful and exciting that we can't wait to turn the page and see what happens next. Then we pick our favorite egg. What fun! You won't be disappointed.

One of the best short story collections- Robison is a genius and her style shines in these exquisitely crafted stories. Short, sharp, hits the mark and transforms you. An absolute favorite.

This terrific kids book is about Derek, a sort of nerdy dinosaur who hangs out in the house all day knitting while his macho brothers reak havoc on the earth. Lucky for Fang and Fearless (the brothers Macho), Derek has plenty of warm woolen things to wear when the earth's climate changes. Derek saves them from extinction with his knitting hobby! My two year old really thinks that some dinosaurs knew how to knit!

With the recent interest in genealogy research, I feel this book is an excellent source for all researchers looking for cemeteries within the Delaware County boundries.

I just recently found this book and recommend it to everyone doing genealogy work. The draw back is that it is out of print.

I feel that a reprint would definitely be in order. I understand the first time around was a huge success and see it doing the same again. Who ever would make this decision would be well advised to give it very serious consideration.

A superb book on the location of many old and forgotten cemeteries as well as a great source of lost historical information on old villages and their peoples and lives.

This book is for anyone who ever wanted the inside information on how some of sports top exuctives got their start. I was delighted to see that all contributors mentioned internships in their personal climb to the top. The book and its contents inspired me to work hard from the bottom of the job totem pole to the top. The book also gave practical information on how to get started and who to talk to. I would recommend this book to anyone graduating from college and those who are already in the field for some insiders advice. A very insightful and interesting book!

Although not quite perfect in its smallest detail, this is the most authoritative analysis yet available of the aid that the UN and the international community tried to provide to Rwanda after the genocide of 1994, concentrating on the period from the author's arrival in June of that year and tending to discuss UNAMIR's work at the operational rather than the tactical level - although it does cover, with dispassion and objectivity rather than overt emotion, a number of individual horror stories.

This must be regarded as a classic case study and, as one who worked under Ambassador Khan in Rwanda, I recommend it without reservation for students of the United Nations, those obliged to deal with this and other international organizations and, especially, those considering their resourcing.

The areas in which I would wish to assist Khan were he to revise his text for a future edition are: definition of the boundaries between Operation Homeward (which escapes mention under this name) and Operation Retour, and to give due credit due to Lt Col Tom Mullarkey for his formulation of Retour; Operation Hope and its role in the chronology of UNAMIR-RPF relations; Khan's somewhat rose-tinted view of UNAMIR's discipline and performance; and the captions of some photographs (Plate 5 is not of the medical centre in Kibeho but of a church somewhere else; Plate 6 is misdated - and definitely not of a scene in 1943; Plate 7 is of Kigali Prison rather than of Gikongoro's); amongst a full and mostly accurate coverage of the tragedy in Kibeho, correction of some minor flaws in the attribution of witness testimony.

In identifying these errors, this is not to say that I think this a poor book: I think it quite the opposite and believe that it deserves to be read very widely!

At a time when Mary Robinson's work is being recovered with much enthusiasm, Judith Pascoe's long awaited volume of her poetry is useful both as an introduction to Robinson and as a tool for further advanced study. Pascoe's introduction to the volume combines biographical information, an overview of available criticism, keen critical insight, and suggestions for further research, making it a valuable starting point to the collection. Pascoe has included selections from all of Robinson's published volumes of poetry together with samples of Robinson's letters, reviews of her poetry, and a complete publication history for the poetry. She includes poems to Robinson by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, contextualizing Robinson and her poetry among her more well-known contemporaries. Interspersed amongst the poems are well-chosen illustrations which contribute to the cultural context that Pascoe evokes. As the cover suggests, Robinson was "a poet of sensibility, a poet of popular culture, a chronicler of the major events of the time, and a participant in some of its chief aesthetic innovations" and this is clearly highlighted by Pascoe's editorial choices. Pascoe's editorial comments and footnotes are insightful and useful; furthermore, they are non-intrusive, making this volume a must to anyone just beginning their study of women in the Romantic Period, to those doing further work on Robinson specifically, or to anyone simply interested in reading the work of an accomplished poet.

This text could be quite beneficial to students: it's easy to read and covers a large number of countries. However, Mr. Schultz's vision and depth of understanding about human rights are severely weakened by a pro-U.S. and pro-west world view that renders it as useless as many of our partisan texts on world wide human rights abuses. Even though he notes how important it is for countries to first examine their own human rights record, he only discusses the US record in chapter seven of the text. He repeats the same old superficial human rights dogma that one finds in newspapers like USA Today. He rarely touches on the middle-east question, and the refusal by the Israeli government (with U.S. complicity) to recognize (and respect) a decent sized homeland for the Palestinians. This has proven to be the central human rights issue and abuse of our current time. I was saddened to know that the head of Amnesty International thinks so narrowly but understand why that organization has made so litte progress in this arena over the past few decades.

To be honest, I really don't care to make people believe it's in their own self interest to care about human rights. I'd rather people give up caring about their own self interest altogether. But if I'm truly concerned about human rights, and dedicated to working for change, perhaps it has to be any port in a storm. If torture, rape, starvation and abuse are stemmed by the voice and demands of millions of people motivated by the wrong reasons, they are stemmed nonetheless. Right?

I think William F. Schulz would agree with me, and I venture a guess that such an argument convinced him to write this book. It is a well-researched and clearly written exposition of the ways that it truly is in our own best interest to care about human rights. He shows that political "realists" who believe that a country cannot afford to make human rights a priority when forming and implementing foreign policy are, despite their hard-nosed and pragmatic appearance, naive to believe that human rights don't matter.

For instance. Working democracies very, very rarely go to war with other working democracies. Thus it is in the best interest of the US to promote democracy across the world, and thus make stable allies. Of course, the definition of "working democracy" has to do with human rights -- democracy in itself is fundamentally based on a respect for each individual's voice and decision-making power, and where this is not respected (as in Milosevich's Yugoslavia) the stability does not exist.

For instance. As globalization races across the planet, political stability in a country is a vital element in a solid investment choice. The 3 basic factors that enhance political stability -- lack of corruption in government, rule of law, and feedback loops (freedom of press, independent investigation, etc.) are all intimately tied to human rights issues. Countries that abuse human rights are notoriously unstable. And instability scares away investors.

For instance. Crowded and unsanitary prison conditions are breeding grounds for disease. And in a world that gets ever smaller due to the ease of intercontinental travel, a super-strain of tuberculosis developed in a prison cell in China can easily have reached the other end of the world -- that's us in America -- in no time at all.

For instance. Torture not only provides unreliable information, it hardens whole communities againt their oppressors. To torture one terrorist may provide you with the names of five others, but likely motivates fifty others to become terrorists. And in a world as interconnected as ours is, where they will strike out has become wildly unpredictable.

And the instances continue. Schulz makes an incredibly convincing argument that we can no longer "let well enough alone". There are no isolated places, no isolated incidences in the world anymore, and it is indeed naive to think that such destructive forces as human rights abuses will have no effect on us. James the brother of Jesus tells us that if we know what good we ought to do and do not do it, we sin. And if that is not motivation enough, it is in our own best interest.

Let's start with the negative. The author comes from a religious background. The first chapter promotes the concept that commitment to human rights is related to religiosity, the most destructive force ever created by our species. If he ever mentioned the role of religious fundamentalism in war, torture, and human rights abuse in general, it was a minor comment. To be fair, he did explain that he was pragmatic ,and he obviously wants to reach politicians and CEO's, who rather effectively exclude atheists and secular humanists from their ranks. However, his comments in the first chapter were totally unnecessary and inappropriate. Virtually every advance in human rights has been opposed by mainstream religion and fundamentalist sects, and supported by atheists and agnostics.

Aside from the first chapter, the tempo builds, although it is not for the very squeamish. The litany of abuses is interspersed with detailed descriptions of individual experiences, and usually prefaces and followed by comments on the economic impact. Some examples were familiar to me, most were not. It is too easy to get lost in the stories and forget the main point that all life on this planet is interdependent, but there are enough reminders for the intelligent and attentive. (Of course GW5-4B will not read it!) The volume of references is impressive.

The issues balance in geography and American participation is difficult to judge. He fairly presents cases in which the United States is culprit and hero, but he slights the role of Arab regimes.

How to write a review for a book which thousands of articles and reviews have been written on? I'll try to stick to the primary highlights and pros and cons, and let you be the judge. Set in the US after the Civil War, blacks are technically free, but not really as they is still oppression from the white majority. However, in Beloved, that's only one aspect of the oppression, as it also comes in the form of the black community within its self, within people's personal lives, and from... a ghost.

A very unique, but powerful form of prose that Morrison uses is that the storyline is not linear. Meaning you jump around from present to past and from different points of view almost constantly. It works, but you can read it like a regular book and will have to read more slowly. It can be worth it, but it can also be frustrated at times. But by the end, you realize it couldn't have been written any other way, and still have the impact it leaves upon you.Now let me say right now that my description above is a VERY shallow scratching of the surface. There are tons of issues throughout this book for the read to think upon, which is why this book earned both a Pulitzer and the National Book Award. So do not classify this as a "ghost story" as it's much, much more. Indeed, it is more of a post-Civil War story on the black experience than anything else, if you can believe that. In that sense, the "ghost story" seems out of place at first, but it definitely lends itself to the ex-slavery aspect very strongly as you continue reading.

One thing to note that I did not care for, and others may not, is the rather animalistic portrayal and graphicness of the sexual tones throughout the book. It may be accurate of the times, though I don't know, but it is disturbing regardless. All in all, a very good read, and I can see why it's fated to be an instant classic. For that reason, I probably should have given it 5 stars, but I can't say it's my favorite type of book personally. But for any literary critic out there, or anyone interested in the black experience after the civil war, this is a must-read.

Toni Morrison is not an easy read, and I suspect that people who found this book frustrating only read it once. You can't read Morrison once; every book she writes is a treasure, but she makes you work for it. 'Beloved' tells the story of Sethe, an escaped slave who finds sanctuary in Ohio, and posits the unanswerable question: is it possible to kill someone out of love? When the slavecatchers find Sethe in hiding, she kills her youngest child, Beloved, to spare her from being taken back into the hell Sethe escaped from. Her act can be viewed as horrific (as her lover, Paul D, reacts when he tells her 'you got two legs, not four'), or as desperation; Morrison lets you decide for yourself. Beloved's ghost returns and causes all kinds of chaos in the house, and her actions raise the question of just who is Beloved -- is she some kind of demon, or is she a lost soul searching for love so she can finally find peace? This is one of the most powerful, disturbing, and ultimately uplifting books I have ever read. As I said, Morrison makes you work for the treasure hidden her books, but the search, and the reward, make it all worthwhile.

I would first like to note that while most of the reviews I have read on this amazing novel asume that their audience has already read Beloved, I will not. It seems to me the object of writing a review is to give a prospective reader an idea of what the book is about. On that note.......

Beloved is the epitome of perfect literature. Reading it is like listening to a Beatles cd or being inside a Van Gogh Painting. It is not only an interesting story of spiritual enslavement, Civil War era African American Culture and mysticism, the human condition, redemption, and time. It is a book full of amazing imagery( beloved's rebirth into Sethe's life), symbolism( beloved is the symbol of the repression Sethe felt from slavery) and language use, such as " grown men whipped like children; children whipped like adults...," a simple, yet very clear statement.

A breif summary: A young woman named Beloved appears upon the doorstep of Sethe, an escaped slave and mother of four. Beloved is a reincarnation(or gohst, some say) of Sethe's first baby girl whom she killed in order to save from the abominations of slavery. Besides her obvious reason for coming back, Beloved ultimately becomes a healing proccess and a redeemer for many.

Also, I wouold like to say, although I understand what Ilana(reviewer a few people down the list) is saying about trying too hard to create symbolism and double entendres, I disagree. When someone's writing does have so much symbolism and creative diction, yet it still flows so freely and fastly, like Morrison's novel, there is no way it was written purely to win the merit it did. So many people search all of their lives to find their purpose in life and never find it, but when someone writes as well as Morrison, it is not only a blessing for her but all of her readers as well.