I am a fanatic for children's books. My husband and I read one or two per day every day, partly because we write them and partly because we simply enjoy reading them. There are wonderful ones out there. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. I don't often bad-mouth a book and try to give only good reviews, but this one is an exception. It is poorly written (consensus of the household on this one) and is not a book I'd recommend to a person wanting to buy a quality children's book. Perhaps this author has better ones, but this one doesn't "fly" with us. Frankly, I'm surprised it got a good review from someone else. I'm through complaining now. :)

James Stevenson is not your typical kid's book writer but that is why I like him. He's sweet without being sappy and there's a storyline with just enough tension for little kids. These are great, loose drawings and characters you can love. Read his other books, too, like The Worst books and the Grandpa books, and Monty.

We love this book. The drawings are perfect--they're loopy, full of character, and with just the right amount of detail and color, not overworked like so many children's-book illustrations. We love the story, the dialogue, and the names--regular human names for these creatures, who act just like your neighbors and friends. Who would have thought that a snail has a personality? We like all the chapters, but the one we keep acting out is the Smelliest Skunk Contest. Franklin is so cute and Mr. Tokay still has what it takes. We kept checking Mud Flat Olympics out of the library until I (mom) decided it was about time to have our own copy.

This has been one of the more interesting biographys I read. This book focoses in more on his childhood than more on his life in polotics.

My mom was always encouraging me to read biograhies. One day, my mom sat me on a chair and forced me to read at least one chapter. I didn't think I would like it, but I loved it! Tons of info on Abe Lincoln! Some conversations were added to make it more interesting, but most of it was true. I am reading tons of bios from the same series (the Childhood of Famous Americans series). I would encouage everyone to read this book and other books of the series!

The book was poorly written.The model building idea was half-baked. The book is a dissappointment.

This book has all sorts of information I had not see before - for example the important African-American entrepreneur in old San Francisco, Leidersdorf, is buried at Mission Dolores in San Francisco. This book has very helpful background information for students for each mission. The model section has layouts for all of the missions and ideas for making a model which come from actual models created by a parent, using styrofoam.

This is one of the better DK 'Eyewitness' books I've read. It contained a pleasant mix of hard science, accounts of sensationalistic disasters, and the effects on the environment / cultures. The usual mind-boggling amount of details and facts are accompanied by numerous pictures and drawings to keep younger and more mature readers interested. One oddity is that this ended on a seemingly odd topic--the role of gods and religion in people's interpretation of volcanoes and earthquakes. Just prior to this the study of volcanoes, and improvements in detection / building codes had been addressed (a very forward-looking topic) but then the last page is about gods (a historical perspective topic). Whatever.