Eloise Klein Healy could be the girl/poet-next-door, with her down-to-earth language and her affection for baseball and dogs and diners. But only if the girl/poet-next-door has a passion for other women, and a rage at injustice. In PASSING, Healy's fifth collection and perhaps her best yet, the poet also stops to extol and mourn those who have passed from her life: her father, the poets Lynda Hull and Gil Cuadros, photographer Francesca Woodman. The juxtaposition of these elegies with poems about opossums, magpies, constellations, and learning Spanish brings the sacred into dazzling collision with the everyday, and everything seems richer and more textured as a result.

I heard Eloise Klein Healy read at a poetry reading just last night ... and she was wonderful. She read a lot of the poems from her new book "Passings" and I enjoyed everyone of them. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Her raw honesty, humor, and talent make this book a MUST READ for all poetry fans!!! Everywhere I went to try and get a copy, the book was sold out. If you can get your hands on a copy of this book, you will not regret it!!! ...

Eloise Genest has woven historical facts into a compelling and exciting story. Her characters are vivid and believable and the actions that they take give us a strong sense of the history of the era.

The story begins in 1733 at a time when the French still dominated much of North America with forts from Quebec and down along the Mississippi to New Orleans. The action ranges from Louisiana to the court of Louis XV and continues through to the fading years of the French regime in 1760.

You'll find excitement, romance, conspiracies, clandestine trysts, court intrigues, alliances, and betrayals galore in this tale of eighteenth-century French Louisiana. From Louis XV, the Marquise de Pompadour, and Richelieu to the colonists, Native Americans, and slaves who habited Louisiana, all have roles that move the story forward at a lively pace.

A must read for history buffs who will get an inside look at why the French lost their struggle with the Spanish and the English for domination over the new Continent.

It was hard to put the book down. It was even harder to see it end!

Eloise Genest has woven historical facts into a compelling and exciting story. Her characters are vivid and believable and the actions they take give us a strong sense of the history of the era.

You'll find excitement, romance, and conspiracies galore in this tale of Eighteenth-century French Louisiana as you meet the colonists, Native Americans, and slaves who all lived under the shadow cast by the splendor of the court of Louis XV.

History buffs will get an inside look at why the French lost their struggle with England and Spain for dominance on the new continent.

I hated to see it end!

Over the years that I have taught Sunday school I have used this book on many occasions. The words in it are simple enough for small children to say and meaningful enough for us older children to use.

Good for teaching children on prayers

I had to read this for an anthropology class prior to visiting Cameroon, little did I know how accurate it would be, I don't even think I grasped the whole story the first time because I had never been in that culture. This is an excellent work, fast reading and very informative. Good for anyone who wants to learn about Cameroonian culture or just another view of the world in general.

Your Madness, Not Mine - A Review. "We're the matches that will light the gunpowder that has been lying cold like ash. If we don't take a step who will . . . ?" This definitive assertion and rhetorical question, posed by an enterprising Beba woman in Juliana Makuchi Nfah Abbenyi's collection of short stories,Your Madness, Not Mine,is evocative of the author's own project which in many ways is as potent and innovative as the above metaphor. To read Makuchi, a Cameroonian woman writer, and postcolonial intelligentsia in the West, is to land at once in a rich, complex and contradictory world, bubbling with tensions ensuing from gender conflicts, polyglossia and constant shiftings of center / periphery, self / other dichotomies. In a span of nine short stories, Makuchi guides us through the contours of her native African land which shares the patriarchal history with the rest of the world, while exposing its own unique gender quarrels, compromises, and victories. The first story, "The Healer", for instance, plays upon the myth of motherhood that is upheld as the major or sole criterion of womanhood in most cases. It shows how a society that sees barren women as a curse, can end up shoving them into the hands of wicked charlatans who cheat them ruthlessly and drive them insane. The title story also has a woman domesticated and deprived of individual freedom by her typically patriarchal husband despite being educated and capable of making financial contributions to the household. But if these are stories of women's biological pathology and gender vulnerability, then in "Election Fever" we have a story of women's manipulative and conniving powers. The grandmother in this story takes her entire family by surprise when she secretively joins many (opposition)political parties and accepts bribery in the shape of cash and Pakistani rice. She also instills a lesson on flippancy and exploitation that leaders and followers mutually play as part of the political game, in her young granddaughter who accompanies her to party meetings. "Bayam Sellam" however, is the story that presents the traditional strength and entrepreneurship of Camaroonian women in the shape of market women. Descendants of strong willed mothers and grandmothers, these market whizzes possess the solidarity and business acumen required to call up a strike and force the government into declaring a state of emergency. If the women in Makuchi's world are economically and politically aware and active, than her men are by no means lacking behind in this arena. They have their own share of pondering and debating over the postcolonial scramble that Camaroon has become since independence in 1960. Hailing from that part of central Africa which has been thrice colonized (Germans, Britishers and French, all had their share of plunder of this land) and is still struggling to wrench free from the clutches of the neocolonial beast gnawing in the shape of capitalist America, the men in these narratives are often concerned about the grim socio-economic fate that awaits them. "American Lottery" and "The Forest Will Claim You Too" are two such stories which delineate the myriad of home grown as well as imposed problems that jitter the heart of this country. Government corruption in particular, and elitist callousness in general, French aggression and racism, in addition to the economic exploitation by next door neighbors like Nigeria, deforestation or "environmental genocide" by both French and Asians, leading to other social hazards like "timber babies", and loss of ancient herbal medicinal provisions are some of the ailments that contribute towards breaking the backbone of Camaroonian economy, and falsifying its persistent efforts towards modernization. No wonder Makuchi blatantly points at the devaluation of the CFA (the Camaroonian currency) and the escalating inflation scenario to be the root cause behind the brain drain that America is enjoying today. The implicit question that lingers right under the narrative surface seems to be: If the "Third World" youth is often eager to have a way out of this labyrinthian hole and aspires for that alluring land of promises, who is to blame? Nonetheless, it is relieving to find that not all Camaroonian youth are attracted to the West. Peter and his friends in "American Lottery", for instance, are well aware of the dilemmas of identity loss, alienation and frustration that are quick to follow the fate of those who turn their face away from the poverty and confusion of motherland in the hope of totally adopting and assimilating a foreign culture. The same densely packed story depicts local riots, curfews and rebellions to be amongst other things that keep Camaroonians perpetually involved in their country's future. Like her themes, Makuchi's images and metaphors are often drawn from both indigenous and foreign sources. So we have palm and plantain, wrappa and nsaa, juxtaposed with the image of the Marlboro man with his will - o'- the - wisp pose and foreign embassies with their whining twining queue of locals. Her stories, with both rural and urban settings also often break into poetic strings of thought and are embellished with sprinklings of the Beba language, some pidgin, Anglophone as well as Francophone diction. Reading these superb pieces of fiction has definitely been a very enriching experience for me. If you are looking for thought provoking yet lucid, and passionately written fictionalized theory, or theorized fiction, then this is the text for you.

This is not your standard hippy type batik. The work in here is incredible. I have never seen anything like it, and I've seen most of the books on batik that are out there. The artists featured are fantastic. The book has extensive information on working with wax and other resists, removing the resists, using different types of dyes. I highly recommend it.

I already have all the materials, had them for years, didn't know where to start. This will help me get going.

This is a wonderful book. The story is enchanting, the illustrations absolutely beautiful, and the characters (especially the cat, Bucket, who used to be a pirate) charming and full of, well, character! It's a great book for reading to children, but it also appeals to adults. The intelligent story (no tele-tubbies here!) and its setting in a peaceful fishing village in Alaska's Aleutian islands makes this book different from your average children's book. I can't recommend this book enough.

This book is a collection of 27 poems & nursery rhymes. The text is short & simple. The pictures are beautiful depictions of babies and toddlers with lots of nature and animals. Includes favorites like, Peek-a-boo, My Puppy, Pease Porridge and many others you'll recognize. Was absolutely my daughter's FAVORITE book for quite some time. She wanted it read over & over again on a daily basis. For about 1-3 year olds is best. A definite must-have!

A little boy is too excited to go to sleep, his Dad is coming home from a trip and he wants to stay up to greet him. Mom says OK, but suggests some ways to be "more comfortable" while he's waiting. Dad is coming home when the sun first hits the sky and makes a pretty pink light. This was one of my favorite books as a child. The pictures are so soft and sweet. Whenever we would leave for a vacation, my parents would say we would leave at the first pink light in the sky. This is a gentle, touching story about a loving family. If you have a child too excited to go to sleep, this should be the bedtime story to choose.

Excellent book. Two questions though, why don't you offer this song book in a spiral bound? Have you ever read and tried to play music out of a paperback! Duh, most instruments take two hands to play with, plus a hankerchief. How am I suppose to hold the book open?

Thanks for listening,

Dr. Jazzbo ("Sneezey") Bumfletcher, a., CH;U., Esq..

The book THE GOLDEN GOBLET is an great book for kids. It is about an orphan boy named Ranofer. After his mother and father die, Ranofer is forced to live with his half-brother, Gebu. Ranofer labors at the gold smiths shop and comes home every day to find a half-loaf of bread. Ranofer finds out Gebu is stealing gold, and with the help of his two friends, Heqet and the "Ancient," they try to stopped him. The big theme in the story is family. Throughout the whole book, Heqet and Ancient are becoming Ranofer's family. Ranofer learns to trust in them for help and encoraging. I would give this book 5 stars. It really takes you into the land of Egypt with a view like you have never seen before.