This book has an autobiographical feel, set in Ontario in the last quarter of the 19th century. It deals with the interaction between an adolescent loner "from town" and the people and environment of the back country through woodcraft, and with his growth in that context. Though it contains much of Seton's wonderful woodcraft and illustrations, it is most valuable for the story and the lessons about human nature and rural poverty (my own youth).

My mother first read it to me from a tattered hand-me-down copy in the early 1950's when I was too young to read it for myself. It shaped my attitudes toward the natural world and helped me understand my own adolescence. To me, it is probably the single most important book I ever read.

I first read this book as a teenager, and have re-read it many times since then, discovering new levels of enjoyment as forty years have passed by. The story is set in the early or mid-1800's. Yan is the sickly city boy who goes to visit his cousin Sam in the country to recover his health. They gradually get better acquainted, making allowances for each other's differing experiences, perspectives and education. An enjoyable story and plot line unfolds, including conflict resolution, evaluating personalities, recognizing age and generation differences, and building trust. The book is absolutely filled to overflowing with fascinating woodlore information, skills and techniques, and countless drawings and sketches to explain or illustrate what the boys are discovering, doing, making or building. I have nothing but praise for this American Classic!

The first copy I read was a hand-me-down from my father. In 1924, at age 11 he wrote in it...

I pity the river,

I pity the brook,

I pity the crook,

that steals this book.

I read it the first time when I was 14 and have read it several time since then. It may be a little more difficult to read than more modern literature because of the writing style, but it is a wonderful story for anyone interested in wildlife, woodlore, Indians woodcraft, and young boys doing things on their own. Boy-scouting should be this good.

This is a wonderful book about two boys who were curious about the indian way of life and about outdoor survival. The story is lively as it documents their discoveries, and the many illustrations are elegant as well as educational. I'd recommend it for anyone of any age.

I think the authors are full-of-it, trying to present themselves as brilliant. Somewhere, I believe the authors have found papers with theoretical derivations using partial differential equations and matrix multiplication symbols. However, there are no practical examples from derivations that are more complicated then algebra. I suspect the authors may not understand many of the derivations they present in the book.

I am annoyed with the book. It has been a while, but I have had quite a bit of math. I know a good math textbook. Good math textbooks will define the terms well, and the derivations will be followed by good examples to help you understand the derivations. I do not recommend this book to anyone that does not have more than an undergraduate degree in math or engineering. Professors of mathematics will probably understand the derivations and may not examples or a clear definition of all the terms.

The authors do present a lot of good general information. For those who are interested, in addition to American and European options, there are Russian options, perpetual options, compound options, binary options, chooser options, Asian options, lookback options, and "out-of-space" options (just kidding on the last).

Most people wishing to price options, which is quite complicated, need more than the theoretical derivations of this book. Also, they should have more than just a method to follow blindly without understanding that some options programs provide. If after the theoretical derivations, this book had provided specific derivations, followed by practical understandable examples with clearly defined terms, I would recommend it highly.

The statement on the back this book that all the reader needs is some basic calc and a bit of probability is, as when you see it on most other similar books, false. To truly understand what is going on you need a prior knowledge of PDEs as well as some stochastic calculus. If you read this book after you have studies these you will learn a lot from it, but without this prior knowledge the book is too difficult to follow. I would recommend it to a reader who has seen the martingale approach to the subject before, and has at least studied ODEs and has a book on PDEs to refer to when the PDEs become too difficult to follow. The book manages to cover a lot, but you can't read a chapter and expect to have a good understanding from only reading the material. Most derivations, and even formulas, are left as exercises, and you need to complete at least 30% of the end of chapter exercises to firmly understand the material that the authors have covered. If you already have a good grasp of mathematical finance, this book can be a good way to further enhance your understanding, but don't buy this as an introductory book unless you are very strong in PDEs.

This book covers the formulas describing the mathematics of derivatives, and does a good job of it. It introduces the basic concepts in a fairly comprehensive form. While I like this book a lot, I gave it only four stars, because it falls short on practical applications and descriptions of current products.

For example, I bought and recommend "Credit Derivatives" by Tavakoli, since I was looking for material on this subject, and this book didn't give any description of the types of products.