"Eva Padlyat lived in a village on Ungava Bay in northern Canada. She was Inuit, and ever since she could remember she had walked with her mother on the bottom of the sea. It was something the people of her village did in winter when they wanted mussels to eat. Today, something very special was going to happen. Today, for the very first time in her life, Eva would walk on the bottom of the sea alone..." So begins Jan Andrews' tale of a young girl's first trip alone through the thick winter ice. In painstaking and intriguing detail she describes Eva's adventure; cutting a hole in the ice at low tide, descending to the dark ocean floor below, lighting candles to illuminate the sea bed, collecting mussels, and exploring this beautiful hidden world..... Ms Andrews' engaging tale, filled with history, mystery, drama, and suspense captures the imagination, and is rich in imagery and magic. Illustrator, Ian Wallace's quiet, dreamy artwork, in soft, textured tones, pulls the reader beneath the ice and right into the story. Perfect for youngsters 5-9, Very Last First Time is a fascinating and evocative experience that shouldn't be missed, and works well as part of a unit introducing the Inuit culture and way of life, or as a stand-alone for story time.

The possibility of gathering mussels under the ice at low tide was absolutely amazing to me. I had never heard of such a thing or imagined it. What a wonderful world we live in! Andrews writes of young Eva's solo walk on the bottom of the sea and she does an intriguing job of it.

The illustrator,Wallace,enriches and expands the written story through his detailed pictures of the village and native life on Ungava Bay.

I hope Andrews & Wallace collaborate again and soon!

This is one of the best books for young girls that I have come across. A young Inuit girl is sent under the ice at low tide to collect muscles for the family.. this time by herself. She gets distracted, the candles burn out leaving her in darkness just as she starts to hear the water returning. What an adventure. I buy this book as a gift whenever I need a present for a beginner reader girl.

I love the perseverance demonstrated in this story. Based on the life of Feodosia Ivanovna Belevstov, the author's mother-in-law, who was born in pre-Revolutionary Russia in 1907, it is one of survival under harsh conditions. The story takes place during the Russian revolution, when the Whites (Mensheviks) lost to the Bolsheviks (Reds), Stalin's 1930s purges and World War II. Belevstov and her husband, who by then had an infant daughter, were captured by the Germans and forced into slave labor. Belevstov emigrated to the U.S. following liberation in 1947. This is a story of hope.

It also offers a tender treatment of the Romany people. As a child, the author's mother-in-law once saw a caravan of Gypsy wagons drawn by tired horses through the first snow. A man and his wife and infant stopped for water, which the child ran to get. She begged her mother to let the family stay the night with them. The young Gypsy woman somehow knew that while the child had a good heart, she was often ill, and told her mother, "Tonight is the first snow. It is a time of healing. Let me try to help her."

Having been to many doctors, all of whom were unable to treat the child's strange headaches, her mother cried in joy at the unexpected offer of assistance. The story goes on, "She bathed my temples with the water from the snowflakes.... She sang to me in her calm, deep voice. The song was old, old. I did not know the words, but they were soft and sure and rocked me quietly with their sound." The next morning the girl awoke to the sound of Gypsy bells as the caravan left the town, and ran after them to say goodbye.

Ten years later, another caravan arrived, this time bearing a fortune-teller who predicted that the girl, now married, would some day cry out for a crust of bread, pray to endure one more hour, take every step in pain. Of course, with the revolution and World War II, all this came to pass, and the rest of the story is framed lovingly around the fortune that the Romany woman told.

The vibrant illustrations evoke the quality of Russian folk art. Alyssa A. Lappen

This is a beautiful bedtime story for all children, and a must for anyone descended of European immigrants. The story is the story of my relatives and my friends' relatives who travelled before, during, and some after, WWII, braving many dangers before bringing us safely to America. As the oral tradition of passing on these stories dies away, it is important to have reminders of our history and what our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents went through to ensure our freedom and safety. It is a tale that also reminds us of the strength and courage of the human spirit, as well as the love and compassion that we all share for each other, even as strangers in foreign lands. The children I have shared this story with have become fascinated with the adventure (both light and dark sides), and enchanted by the drawings and motifs that are caught somewhere in between folk-art and eastern European designs.

I love this book - I came here to see if it is available in hardcover, but it is not. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the words are so perfect you could not add or subtract a single one. I could reread this one forever, which is good because my seven year old girl still enjoys it too. The subtle humour included for adults always makes me smile. "He gathered all the things he would need for a busy night's work and told his mum not to wait up." I also like the creativity of David's play in the pictures. Do not hesitate on this one, it is one to savor.

I can't recommend it enough! Get it for all your children! The pictures are very detailed and realistic, and the maps are excellent.

A Little History of Ireland is a small, charming book which contains a few pages on each major event in Irish history and accompanying illustrations. There are fourteen subsections dealing with specific events, such as "The Flight of the Earls", "The Battle of the Boyne", and "The Easter Rising". The book begins with the arrival of Saint Patrick (believed 423 AD) and ends with the end of republican resistance to the treaty forming the Irish Free State in 1923, and in between it contains a surprising amount of concisely stated information. It is quite well writen and a wonderful way to familiarise oneself with Irish history without pouring through massive volumes. 59pp.

True or False - Swifts fly in their sleep?

There are more than 8,600 species of birds and new species are still being found. In total, about 100,000 million birds are flying, walking or swimming around the world. They can be seen in coal mines and on mountain tops, in jungles, cities and deserts, and over oceans and icecaps. Almost wherever you look you will see birds. This book is a lively introduction to many of the species and concentrates on the more curious and unexpected parts of their varied lives.

Birds range in size from smaller than moths to taller than people. Some are great travellers, literally flying around the world. Others cannot fly at all. This book looks at birds that dance, vegetaarian vultures, birds that fly backwards, bone-eaters, parrots that sleep upside down, a heron that fishes with bait, and a poorwill that sleeps through the winter.

This book reveals the fascination and beauty of birds and shows that there is still much to learn about the way they live.

ANSWER: True - Swifts do fly in their sleep. They rise high into the sky at dusk and sleep on the wing, flying down again at dawn.

When the rock icon of a generation dies, media attention isinevitable. In April 1994, the death of Kurt Cobain created a tidalwave of attention. Thousands of fans mourned Cobain, the lead singer of the band Nirvana, a group often credited with pioneering the Seattle grunge scene.

More than 65 young people eventually followed their hero into death, committing "copycat" suicides.

Cobain's death was a sensational and strange tale that inspired passionate debates about suicide, the emptiness of the 90s generation, and the responsibilities of pop culture heroes.

Cobain, who died at the age of 27, was a brilliant and creative man who led an emotionally troubled life. He was a heroin user who reportedly committed suicide, leaving a young daughter and wife behind. Days before he died he had disappeared from an L.A. drug treatment center.

The book "Who Killed Kurt Cobain? The Mysterious Death of an Icon" does not answer the question posed by its title. But it does provide compelling reasons why the investigation into his death should be reopened.

The book relates biographical information about Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love; the events leading up to his death; information and insights gleaned from friends, relatives and people who had been in contact with the couple; and professional opinions from experts in various fields, including pathology and graphology.

Many people who knew Cobain do not believe that he killed himself. Either does Tom Grant, a private investigator hired by Courtney Love to find Cobain after he left the drug treatment center. Grant does not accept the verdict of suicide and has done everything in his power to convince the authorities to reopen the investigation into Cobain's death. Grant's involvement in the case and his crusade are explained in great detail. The address for Grant's Internet website, which receives up to one million hits a year, is listed.

Compelling arguments are presented to disprove the suicide verdict, which was arrived at very quickly after Cobain's death. The medical examiner at the scene, coincidentally, was a friend of Courtney Love's. According to the expert cited in the book, Cobain could not have shot himself with a shotgun given the amount of heroin found in his body: he would have passed out immediately after receiving that amount of the drug.

A musician who passed a lie detector test stating that Courtney Love had offered him several thousand dollars to kill Cobain was found dead under strange circumstances only weeks later.

There were no fingerprints found on the shotgun that inflicted a wound on Cobain, and what about the so-called suicide note? For starters it does not sound like a suicide note, but rather a note declaring his intention to quit the music business. And then there are the two apparently distinct sets of handwriting on this note, which is reproduced in a photograph.

The book focuses a great deal of suspicion on Courtney Love and her sometimes bizarre behavior before and after Cobain's death. In fact, Love's father is on record stating that he believes his daughter murdered her husband. Shockingly, Grant implicates Love in both the death of her husband as well as her bandmate in the group Hole, Kristen Pfaff.

"Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" was written by two Canadian investigative journalists, Ian Halperin and Max Wallace. Halperin and Wallaces were cowinners of the "Rolling Stone" magazine Award for Investigative Journalism. No concrete proof of the murder theory is contained within the book, although the information is well presented.

"Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" will definitely be of interest to Nirvana fans, and to those who like to ponder real-life mysteries. Because the death of Kurt Cobain was as tragic as it was mysterious.

While authors Ian Halperin and Max Wallace never go as far as to point any fingers themselves, they do lay out plenty of claims from other people and sources. Some are more well-known in the Kurt murder circles like Tom Grant, the private investigator hired by Courtney Love to track her husband in the days leading up to his death. Courtney's own father, Hank Harrison, gives his two cents as well as numerous others.

Like I said, Halperin and Wallace never make any claims themselves but they are great insinuators. The whole book reads like, "Why Courtney Love is evil," but it is a claim they have facts and accounts to back up. Everything is backed up.

Skeptics and old conspiracy theorists alike should find and extremely eye-opening facts regarding the mysterious death of a rock icon. Bottomline, if you read this book you will at least agree that the case should be reopened.

This book is brilliant and easy to read. It covers the life of Kurt pretty well and it also really makes you think about how he died. Did Courtney have anything to do with his death? Well, after reading this great book I must admit that I've got every reason to think she has something to hide. Wether or not she killed him or got someone to kill him you have to decide yourself after reading the book. The book dosen't answear a lot of questions but it sure raises alot of them ! A MUST READ FOR ALL COBAIN FANS.

My first note is that the editorial reviews attached to this book by Amazon seem to apply to a different illustrated volume of Hansel and Gretel, not the one illustrated by Monique Felix.

I ran across this on a search for the perfect edition of Hansel and Gretel. The illustrator does an excellent job, but her illustrations are far too frightening for young children. At times, Hansel and Gretel's eyes seem to glow, and the witch is horrifying... her long tangled hair has bones in it. You can almost hear shrieks and groans as you look at the pictures. I showed the picture to a friend of mine (a graphic artist), and she found it very disturbing.

I cannot give the book fewer than three stars, because it is so well done. But I cannot give it more than three, because I think it would scare the daylights out of young children. Granted, Hansel and Gretel is a scary story, but I remember coming across less frightening versions when I was a kid.