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In this third book in the H&M series, summertime has arrived with adventures galore for boy & dog. Divided into chapters, each functioning as a mini story but related to each other, Henry and his 180-pound dog Mudge explore the wide, green world of summer. In one of the most notable chapters, a bee stings Henry, and boy does it HURT!! Fortunately, good ol' Mudge is there to make Henry feel better (a good face-licking by Mudge helps Henry forget his pain at being stung-Mudge likes the salty taste of tears).
As a teacher I love the H&M series because the illustrations are always bright, vibrant and immediately draw my students into the story. I also love the short, easy sentences, which are perfect for beginning-to-intermediate readers who feel that they're ready to tackle chapter books. As a parent, I love the way that this series is about the small adventures in life that are right on the level of the reader. Nothing blows up, aliens don't invade the countryside sucking out peoples' innards, and the world isn't narrowly saved from oblivion. Mudge is a wonderfully realistic dog that is completely devoted to Henry, like most real dogs are devoted to the children they live with.
As of this writing, there are some 20 H&M books, each a small treasure and each a wonderful read. Though they're numbered, it's not at all necessary to begin with #1 and progress up to #20; readers can grab whichever title catches their whim and follow along with the adventures. I myself have read them all and am not so patiently waiting for the next ones to come out. Each book comes highly recommended.
Books in this series are excellent choices for emergent or beginning readers. The sentences are short and easy to read, and the illustrations practically tell the story by themselves. Like other Henry and Mudge books (H&M for short), this book is divided into chapters. In this case, each chapter represents a different story for our boy & dog team in springtime (in other H&M books the story is split up into chapters like regular books).
In the first book, H&M discover a beautiful flower that has sprung from the ground. That is, until Mudge eats it! In the second, the spring rains have made the world puddle-luscious and they're just perfect for jumping in (even for adults!!). In the final chapter, a neighborhood cat has her kittens, and Mudge acts as a kind of guardian/father to them when another neighborhood dog comes prowling around.
Henry & Mudge books are by far a favorite of both me the teacher and my students. They're about the simple happy pleasures of everyday that often we tend to overlook in the pursuit for the Next Big Thing To Do For Fun And Excitement. It isn't necessary to start with any one particular book, but once you start reading H&M, you'll want to keep reading them all!!
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I really did find this book invaluable. I have owned it for years and I'm still learning from it. I find it absolutely great for references.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who rides horses, and to those who don't, just so they can truly understand the significance of horse intelligence and human/horse companionship.
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This book is the best! I will buy it for all my kids someday, if they're boys. Girls arent allowed! ... just kidding girls.
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Never having been trained in the social graces, I always felt like a bit of a clutz in social settings such as dinner parties and even simple get-togethers.
Drummond makes the point that if you have love - if you can feel and express love - you have it all. So instead of focusing on which fork to use for the shrimp and salad, I started focusing on how much God loved me and everyone around me.
And that little simple truth enabled me to feel more at ease in every circumstance and in every situation.
Drummond's book is about grace, love, truth, Universal spiritual laws - it's got it all. From little things (like social graces) to big things (like loving our fellow man - irrespective of his lot in life) this book will change your life.
This should be required reading for everyone.
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The History is an encyclopedic account of the known world in the 5th century before Christ (or Common Era for you secularists). The reader not only gets a detailed account of the hostilities between Greek and Persian, but also is introduced to in-depth accounts of the various peoples and tribes that inhabit the Near East and Mediterranean region. Drawbacks to Herodotus as a historian is his tendency to exaggerate figures, such as claiming that the Persian forces invading Greece numbered in the millions (at a time when armies rarely numbered over 100,000). Herodotus also has a tendency to tell a story and situation and then say something like, "But I won't go into the reasons for that happening." This makes modern historians cringe! But this is also an example of modern historians trying to instill their views back into history. Let's be glad Herodotus did what he did. A must for ANY student of history.
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I absolutely love Miller's, "Tropic of Cancer," and was expecting the same style for Maroussi. However, I was mistaken. Miller doesn't include any of his notorious womanizing stories here. Instead, Miller writes about finding peace in contemplating Greece, modern and ancient. Again, his written prose is like reading poetry. There are some passages from this book that I had to "cut out" and keep for inspiration.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Henry Miller or Greece. I must also recommend Edmund Keeley's, "Inventing Paradise," which is something of a companion to Maroussi. In it, Keeley discusses Miller's Greek journey, which he took along with George Seferis, Lawrence Durrell, and other 20th century Greek poets, writers, and painters.
Henry Miller has not always had kind things to say about his native U. S. A. Here, in "The Colossus of Maroussi," he uses the American state as a kind of false backdrop for his discoveries in Greece. For Greece is the central geographical landscape on which he builds. Far from being a travelogue, however, it is a story of that ancient land and some of its people; Miller uses the fabric of Greek life to weave a story of mankind.
His writing is distinctly dated today, but delightfully so. It is full of a poetic imagery that is almost entirely absent from the main stream of post-modern literature. As such, it is very complex writing which occasionally seems to be almost self-serving, as if the author was writing for no one but himself. In the main, it is a very accessible book that tries to reach out in pure, non-political terms to touch the essential core of what is man. At the present time, we could do well to review our own situation in life, and one way of doing so is by simply reviewing the literature on the subject. I recommend "The Colossus of Maroussi" as a place to start. Besides being the work of a truly formidable writer, it will take you to places you probably never dreamed existed.