This book comes nowhere close to living up to the claim that "no volume will provide more compelling and inspiring answers to our children's questions" about what it means to be an American. It is important to remember that while we might be tempted to buy into the kind of simplistic view Bennett presents in The Children's Book of America, what America was and is and who the people are who have lived and are living here are far more complex than he seems capable of conceiving. His stereotypic images might resonate with some people who long for simplicity and the "good ol' days" that never really were, but telling a story the way one wants to does not make it so, ignoring things one doesn't understand doesn't make them go away, and buying into ignorance is never a good idea. His sanitized vision of America should offend our sensibilities in light of the reality many of us live, and represents the co-opting of our children's education and future for the perpetuation of a grossly unequal and unjust status quo. Rather than serving up the pablum offered to our children by Bennett, we need to help them understand and critique the society in which they live, and prepare them for the kind of participatory democracy that can bring about the kind of social justice and egalitarian society that will permit each of us to live a bit of the American dream. We need to develop more critical and democratic thought than that evidenced by a BarnesandNoble.com customer-reviewer whose attempt at critique concludes,
"The unintentional irony of juxtaposing Martin Luther King's 'dream' speech with blatantly racist folksongs is typical of Bennett's charmingly naive and confused view of morality and virtue. The inclusion of songs and stories promoting racial harmony appears to have been driven by a simple-minded sense of political correctness. But Bennett nonetheless succeeds in providing the children of America with a much needed lesson in patriotism and morality. God knows that the public has completely lost their sense of morality. Thank you, Mr. Bennett, for teaching my children what is good and virtuous." This is part of what is wrong with America.

I really liked this book, and so did my children.

Bennett has taken familiar vingettes (Pilgrims, Paul Bunyon, Johnny Apple Seed, Martin Luther King, Jr., moon walk, etc.) and presented them in a short form that is perfect for four to seven year olds and above.

Each story teaches lessons based on core values and can lead to good discussions with children in trying to explain the underlying values. The tales are also a wonderful introduction to the story of our country through our history and myths. They cover the range of the American Experience and are exactly the kind of tales that can serve as a launching pad to introduce youngsters to a wider exploration of our national heritage.

The stories themselves are well written and captivating (though my four year old's attention wandered with some -- it is for older than pre-school on the whole). The illustrations are first rate and help younger children understand the written story.

The format is perfect for bedtime stories -- good length for a one story a night reading. It is also one you'll want to return to again.

This is a wonderful book for children to become familiar with the people and events that helped shape this great nation. The stories are inspirational and guided by a moral purpose. Our children need to know what a special and great country they live in!

Alejandro Monahan is the son of a NY cop and Mexican Indian mother. The old man "retired" to raise his family in the Baja and was killed by drug lords tied to the title drug. Alejandro is now a sexy club singer and also Chilebean, a deep cover agent with the NYPD looking to avenge his father's death.

Ther characters are great: Che-Che, Roberto Barrios and Pizzaro on the drug side; Too Tall Paulie, Sal Elia and Joey the G-man for the cops. You're never sure who's the real boss is or where the line between undercover agents and the drug business is drawn. Amidst a lot of action Alejandro convinces Che-Che he can guarantee safe importation of heroine using a military guided parachute technology.

With 100 pages to go, the shipment has landed and the multiple Cleopatra lines develop: the drug, the queen and a woman whose father called her that. I had it at five stars until the end, which was just too Hollywood and dropped it down to four. A lousy ending, but an otherwise great cop / druggie story.

I'm used to reading page turners. There were too many characters in this book and I found it a bit hard to catch up to them, and who was the good guy or the bad guy. However, there were plenty of action going on enough to make this book into a movie--people getting shot and killed, cars blowing up, etc., drug abuse, sex, blood everywhere, and ridiculous spy devices put inside genital orifice unheard of in real life. I wasn't too happy about the ending and I thought the Alejandro character wasn't appropriate. A latin singer and a cop? Come one! I found that tacky!

Author and former lieutenant of the NYPD Caunitz is the best of the police procedureal novelists, the most innovative, and one writer who gives you uncensored dialogue. You recognize it as fact; he's been there. His other books tell stories from the police side of things. This one tells about the narcotic trade from the inside as the reader follows the dangerous life of a detective who goes undercover. There is a crushing anaconda, a mysterious feminine killer, and much more. Novelists are able to deduct travel from their income tax which is why we see so many exotic locations in these books and this one is no exception. Some authors end up sounding like travel writers but Caunitz makes it work. Other thriller writers have achieved more fame but no one makes police/detective stories LIVE the way this author does. Try it, you'll like it.

John A. Williams is a fundamentalist - and it shows through in his analysis of urban legends. While his treatment of UL's seem to be accurate - and certainly should be educated about, his Christian leanings show through, almost to the point of being paranoid.

If you're interested in Urban Legends, you can find much better texts that are unbaised.

I've often told others that Christians are the most gullible people in the world, and I am one! The first two or three times I saw a petition to sign stopping Madeline Murray O'Hair's supposed campaign for eliminating Christian television (about 25 years ago) I thought there might be something to it. When I kept seeing the same petition endless times over the past 25 years, I began to suspect that it might be a hoax. After hearing the "Vanishing Hitchhiker" story (even from the pulpit!) a few times, I became aware that nobody who told this story actually had talked to a person to whom this supposedly happened (it was a friend of my wife's second cousin, or some such thing). Pretty fishy! And the story about the drillers who drilled deep enough to find hell, so to speak, well, that was too ridiculous for me to believe the first time I heard it, although many did and still do. So before you forward that next e-mail message that Aunt Martha sent you about the Satan worshipers at Proctor and Gamble, please read this book. It debunks most of the "urban legends" that have been passed on by well-meaning Christians and others. (Although it does miss one very popular urban legend that is making the rounds right now: have you heard the one about the guy God told to bring the gallon of milk to this stranger's house in the middle of the night?) The author also has some valuable chapters concerning how people over the years have tried to set the date for Christ's return and have attempted to expose the identity of the antichrist. He also discusses the recent Y2K panic that never panned out.

The gospel itself seems like foolishness to those who do not believe. There is no need for Christians to put more stumbling-blocks in people's path by perpetuating stories that turn out to be fabrications. I don't mind being a fool for Christ, but there's no use being just plain foolish. All Christians should get this book, and maybe buy a few extra copies to hand out next time someone hands you one of those petitions to sign to keep the atheists from forcing "Touched by an Angel" off the air.

One of the most annioying things about e-mail is how normally sane, rational people will take a half-plausible message with a few capital words and blissfully send it to their entire address book without a second thought.

The author does a good job putting into perspective what harm that does to a person's credibility, particularly if they are a Christian. After all, if you believe some of the things being passed on, why should you be believable when talking about miricles, a risen Savior, or God?

Some of the other consequences, such as misinformation, slander, and costing agencies such as the American Cancer Society funds to battle hoaxes, are also mentioned.

He goes beyond the electronic world, to also talk about predictions about the end of the world or the return of Christ, identifying "666," and the Y2K scare. But there are also lots of the well-known urban legends and virus hoaxes as well, especially those relating to believers. And always, there is a scriptural basis to his arguments and observations.

If there's one gripe, it's that he shortchanges many resources that exist on the Internet, such as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, mentioned prominently in the book, but not in the appendix. The author could have also given some "top 10" guideline to determining authenticity, what to do with a half-truth, or effective ways to send general news. However, the appendix leads to some of those.

If people will see the subtitle and ignore the poor jacket design that makes it difficult to know immediately what the book is about, they will find a good resource.

Without going into detail criticing the book, let me just say this: It is easy for people to take relatively ambiguous statements out of the Bible ("there will be wars and rumors of wars" is rather vague for one) and present them in a manner to prove your personal point. It is extremely easy for certain authors, such as these, to gather up a bunch of scary facts (like this is the only time the world has been a scary place), try to match them to the Bible, and then conclude the end of the world is near. I would argue that the reader should take into account what these authors say, but not take them seriously until they've found good reason. (For one, the notion of a one-world government the anti-christ will impose upon the world and use to attack Christians is always a favorite.... but not entirely founded in Scriptural reading either). If one remembers just one thing when reading this book, it should be that a good and truthful book does not have to use their evidence with the obvious intention of scaring you into their idea.

This book makes it frighteningly clear that the end of time is fast approaching. This book covers every insight ranging from the technological aspect (e.g.- TV, the Internet, etc.) to the Middle East struggles that continue as we speak. Without a doubt I recommend this book for anyone into studying prophecy. This book does get rather in depth, but is well-suited for those who have studied Revelation before. I fully recommend it.

This is an amazing book. It made me realzie that the end of the world is, in fact, upon us. I was not so wise two years ago, and I missed my ride on the spaceship with my fellow San Diegans, but this book has made me realize that I must now repent and save my soul before the world pays for its sins.

= Honest to God, 40 years later
Reviewer: didaskalex from Raleigh, NC United States

Honest to God, 1963
If there is anything to be said in evaluation of this book rests with the fact that it is still alive and controversial. These are positive signs, since whatever the late Bishop of Woolwich meant, was in true honesty to the audience he came to address, even though he was not certain about how faithful was he to the tradition, ways of thinking or personal relation with the Deity he intended to be honest to.

John A. T. Robinson
The author was an outstanding thinker who wrote 25 books, of which honest to God was one of his early writings. He came to the lime light when he disagreed to a ban on lady Chatterley's Lover in Britain. He quotes D.H. Lawrence, 'The plumed serpent' in ch.6; (The new Morality). The greatest impact of this slim book which revealed no breaking discoveries, was only its promotion of the essential tension in religious thinking between tradition and change, (Ch.1: Reluctant Revolution) .

Inspiration for Honest to God
Although what Robinson wrote was not unknown, since most likely that he read the then recently published D. Jenkins book 'Beyond Religion,' when confined to his house due to a back injury that stranded for some weeks. His book was inspired by the same thinkers were common to both and most mid century theologeneration: Barth, Tillich, and Bonhoeffer. Robinson further enriched the clash with supporting quotations from Catholic leaders of Nouvelle theologie, De Lubac, and E. Congar, in addition to his favorite existential Jewish philosopher M. Buber.

The Debate
Soon after, that little book was discussed everywhere, by all the Byzantine minded lay theologians, while members of the organized religious institutions took the case to condemn or few times supports the Bishop, who by definition of his office discerns the reality of the faith of his Church. These were gathered, edited, and printed in a book entitled, "The Honest to God Debate, including the Church of England, C.S.Lewis, R.P.Hanson, and R. Bultmann. J. Robinson commented, complementing the positive reaction, writing under the subheading: Theology and the public, "It is a safe assumption that a best seller tells one more about the state of the market than the quality of the product !"

The "Smoke and mirrors" reviewer misses the whole point of this marvelous book, that Christ himself got beyond the strictures of rules and law and admonishes all of us to do the same. Bishop Robinson reminds us that Jesus' message is love, not ritual, and that by loving all and everything we do not OBEY God, we express Him profoundly in the world and EXPERIENCE Him by living His essence (God is love).

I was so amazed to discover a Christian Bishop encouraging us to go beyond being Christian, Jew, or whatever, beckoning to an end of "theism" simply by living lives of love----be we monk, mogul, or movie star. It is so liberating and fulfilling to love; how odd that some of us could not want this fulfillment, hungering instead for strictures of do's and don'ts, for ecclesiastical structures of power and authority, for form over substance.

As the Bishop understands so well, love integrates, enlarging and completing anyone who will love. On the other hand, hatred, and the divisiveness of sect, cult, nationalism, and every other sort of "ism" isolate one into smaller and smaller corners of reality. We cannot fully know God or His creation if we are not willing to extend love to every person, indeed everything our life presents to us.

Thank you Bishop Robinson for so eloquent and loving a book.

I first read this book in the mid-70s after a few semesters at Bob Jones University and it confirmed the rightness of my decision to move on from fundamentalist and conventional Christianity, including the parochial Catholicism I grew up with. Robinson's book helped me in the personal journey from Sunday school and catechism piety to an authentic adult spirituality. Adults everywhere have been making the same move over the past thirty years and it is helping our religions to grow up as well. Read this book and join the movement from the pious pablum of traditional religion to the savory sustenance of adult spirituality

Do not expect to read much about Kaiser Wilhelm II in this book. The title is quite misleading---it is about the era of Wilhelm, but few details about him are included here, esp. his role in WWI.

Professor John Röhl of the University of Sussex has written extensively on Wilhelmine Germany, including his collection of essay entitled The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (1994). Röhl asserts that Wilhelm has for many years "been marginalized by professional German historians," who viewed the Kaiser as one "who played no part in shaping the policies of the Kaiserrreich." Other scholars have depicted him as "an aggressive autocrat who must bear a large degree of responsibility for plunging Old Europe into war and catastrophe." (xi) Regarding Wilhelm and the Great War, Röhl implies that his influence was negligible. The Kaiser was never a "full-scale" autocrat, and while he perhaps "dreamed of establishing absolute rule for himself...it remained no more than a dream." Röhl contends that this was particularly true in terms of military power, of which the emperor had very little. (3) However, Röhl shows that the Kaiser was not uninvolved in Germany's diplomatic and military decision-making process, notably at the start of the war. He cites Wilhelm's influence in the rejection of Britain's generous peace proposal in 1912, a move supported by his chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, and one which might have forestalled war altogether. (6)
For Röhl, the Kaiser's involvement in the Great War was heavily influenced by his personality. Wilhelm "never matured," and was seen as a child-like figure at army headquarters. This trait was coupled with a "notorious overestimation of his own abilities, and a refusal to accept constructive criticism. To emphasize the emperor's requirement that he be at center stage at all times, Röhl repeats the apposite bon mot that Wilhelm "insisted on being the stag at every hunt, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral." (11-13) These qualities did little to endear himself to senior military officers and worked to push the Kaiser to the sidelines of decision making as the war intensified. Röhl holds that Wilhelm's public and private antics brought much scorn down upon himself and the German monarchy as a whole. He opines that
the history of the last hundred years," he opines, "has shown that a monarchy in a modern state can only hope to survive if it restricts itself firmly to its purely representational functions and avoids making any political comment and exerting any influence. That Wilhelm II did precisely the opposite is a matter of embarrassing record. (104)

Röhl concludes that Wilhelm's role in the formation of Germany policies was not insignificant before the war, particularly with regard to the turn-of-the-century naval armaments race with Great Britain, and in the domestic arena-though he was "vulnerable to manipulation by his generals and his military entourage." (166) By late 1914, Röhl declares, Wilhelm's influence began to wane, though the awareness by military leaders of which plans, people or policies the emperor would and would not support acted as "a blocking mechanism," a fact which indicates that the Kaiser could not be completely ignored. (116) Indeed, Röhl reminds his readers that "not a single appointment to an official position, and no political measure, could be undertaken without the express consent of the Kaiser." (117)

This book is a very interesting look into the theory and practice of government under Wilhelm II - particularly in those years of "personal rule" after the dismissal of Bismarck from the chancellorship. The book is essentially a collection of essays devoted to various issues involving the Kaiser and his government. So while it is not structured like a conventional history of this era, or a biography of the Kaiser, an abundance of historical and biographical information is presented.

I enjoyed this book very much - it is very well-written and was a pleasure to read. I think anyone interested in this period of German/European history will find reading this book well worth the effort.

Please do not read this book. The writing is atrocious and full of grammatical errors. The author claims to kill all kinds of protected marine animals some like endangered sea turtles just out of spite. The wife character is so annoying that I almost could not finish the book just because I found her so annoying. Worst of all this is book is so unbelievable that it is certainly a work of fiction and the author claims that this is a real life survival story. For the love of all that is good in this world, do not waste your time reading this book.

...sea survivals books i have ever read!! On my first read-through (i re-read about once a year), i think i finished the entire book in 3-4 hours. The detail & narrative style make you feel like you are actually taking part in Bill & Simonne's daily survival & heart stopping situations. The boats, sharks & dolphin dangers are riveting; even the part about the drug boat. the finale is wonderful, the spirituality very uplifting. William Davis's comments are laughable: yes, Simmonne is annoying...but as a person who has spent time at sea on a sailboat, i know this is all non-fiction. Mr. Davis would soon follow suit with regard to the sea turtles, sharks & sea birds if in a similar scenario.

I heard Bill Butler speak at a school about his adventure and decided to order his book. I read the book in about 3 hours without putting it down. It was great!

No, I haven't read the book. I saw the play put on by The Shakespeare Theater in Washington. Tessa Auberjonois was an absolute darling in the title role; you couldn't help but feel glad for Margery's odd-but-happy ending.

If Wycherley was no Shakespeare, he did this sort of play better than the Bard. Nothing is quotable, the characters are one dimensional and only the "China" scene got real laughs. But Wycherley did a neat and nasty take on Restoration mores and made it enjoyable, too.

Far from being a silly comedy, The Country Wife is a work aimed at lashing Seventeenth Century loose morals. We laugh, of course, but through the alluring yet disturbing character of Horner, we perceive that something must be done if Restoration society wants to survive.

Wicherley presents us with unhappy wives and brutal or indifferent husbands who are utlimately fooled by Horner, the man who knows how to exploit the misery produced by mercenary unions. Poor Margery Pinchwife, the heroine of the piece, eventually brings tears in our eyes when we realize that she shall never be free from a violent man that considers marriage a cheaper substitute for keeping a mistress. Margery is the victim of both her husband and her careless lover. She is looking for love, but she keeps on coming across men who are interested in sex only. They can see her body; they can't see her delicate, naif soul.

However, Whycherley (who, we must remember, was the spiritual son of the great moralists Graciàn, Larochefoucault and so on, whose maxims are easily detected in the whole bulk of Wycherley's works) is able to see a way out in the honest, disintrested love between Alithea, Margery's brilliant sister-in-law, and Harcourt, Horner's dashing best friend. (these characters' names symbolize the perfection of their union: her name means "truth", while his name is significantly "Frank".)

This comedy is at its best when performed; however, it is well worth reading, especially if you have a lively imagination. don't miss the notorious "china scene": fifteen minutes of laughter that will make your sides ache.

Be careful: The Country Wife merely "looks" like a stupid, shallow comedy, but it is in fact a deep reflection on society, marriage and, why not?, even the situation of Seventeenth-Century English women.

I recently reread this play for the third time and taught it in a British Literature survey at the University of Texas. Not only do I find it more entertaining and more brilliant with every reading, but I was shocked to find that the vast majority of my students really enjoyed it and preferred Wycherley to Shakespeare. If you want a smart, hilarious, and dark comedy that plumbs the depths of jealousy and sexual possession, this is a must-read play. If you're easily offended or have a hard time following complicated plots and catching bawdy puns, you'll certainly want to avoid it.

First of all, a beginner is a beginner, and this book states on the back that it's for beginnerish to advanced. To me that is everybody. Secondly, the real point is that people don't want to buy five and six books to learn how to use their computer. Sure that may be good for a writer of several related books, but for the consumer it just means more money spent. They've already spent all that money on a computer, so they want a nice book that tells them as much as it can. The only reason I bought this book was because it was one, or maybe the only, of few ibook books available at the time. Believe me, if "The ibook for Dummies" had been out at the same time, I never would have bought this book. "The ibook for Dummies" covers much more information, presents it in the familiar and fun "dummies" format, and costs merely a dollar more. The "Little ibook Book" is not a bad book, but it may not be the book for you. There are many other ibook references out now, and if you are still in the market for one, then my best advice is to compare them carefully before you buy, and choose what's best for you.

I first got introduced to the Little Mac books in college when we had to get The Little Mac Book 2nd Edition for a class I took. Of course I was blown over by the casual way Ms. Williams addressed all the topics.

The Little iBook Book is for the person somewhat familair with Macintosh systems, not for beginners. It can accompany The Little iMac book which helps a *lot* with the basics. To those saying it's not elaborate enough - if it covered EVERYTHING, the book would be about a billion pages and cost in the realm of $60 or so.

This book is a great way to get re-introduced to Apple (such as myself) and a grat way to learn a iBook... I highly recommend it.

It seems the other reviewers of this book missed the point of the book. It is *not* a book for new beginners who want to learn how to use a Mac; as stated clearly in the information at the top of this page and on the back cover of the book, it is aimed mostly at mobile computing. We assume you bought an iBook to connect on the road, and the book is filled with tips and tricks on how to do that. I beg to differ with the reviewer below, but this information is *not* superficial. I can't tell you how much time we spent finding out all the tidbits of computing on the road and all the little extra parts you need. I don't think it's quite fair for a reader to complain that the content of a book doesn't have what they want if they didn't bother to read the cover or the accompanying information before they bought it. I have written a large number of books for beginning Mac users about the applications and the OS and did not feel it necessary to write it all over again in this book because that is not the purpose of this book!

This book is written in installments: first-person narratives by people who know the main character. Most of them are only a few pages long, and few of the narrators repeat. Thus, it's impossible to really sympathize with any of them. The main character himself, gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, is hard to like: we never get into his head, and from the outside he looks like just another gangster. The reader sympathizes briefly when he's wounded and imprisoned, only to be put off when he commits his next act of mindless violence or drunken stupidity. The post-Civil War American West, as presented by the author, whacks the reader over the head with violence, lawlessness, and what I felt were rather gratuitous scenes of sex with prostitutes. I'm all for "gritty" historical fiction, but here it sometimes seemed like the author was just trying to show off. Without emotional content, grit is just an irritant. Having said all that, the book is intelligently written and apparently well researched, and it might be somebody else's cup of tea more than it is mine.

There was nothing like the American West in the history of the world and figures like Hardin exemplify it; deadly, brave, sad and foolish all at once. His death seemed a relief because by 1895 there was no place left for the bravado of a gunslinger who would draw over an insult.

I found the writing format, the telling through other's eyes, less engaging and certainly less tasty than Blake's current style.

This was some book ! Absolutely outstanding in every respect - as a story, in its style, very exciting, excellent dialect, really funny in spots, ..... Chapter by chapter I went from hating the arrogant ... (John Wesley Hardin), to wanting to be a Hardin. If he really was as portrayed in this book (which I doubt), he was mostly the kind of person I respect - leave him alone and he'll buy you drinks all night long and otherwise give you the shirt off his back. Meddle in his business, get in his face, or harm his family and he'll whip you or kill you. Now don't get me wrong. Any reader would try to see where they fit in, in that day and time and I am pretty much left with the sad conclusion that I would have probably been a sorry, boot-licking peddler of some kind . . . . not a Hardin.