Sometimes it seems as if there is never enough time for enrichment activities at school like art. I checked this book out from my local library hoping to find some inspiration for making some new art projects and later purchased it for my classroom. Since my elementary classroom has students with very disparate levels of English language ability, I needed a book that was written clearly enough to not discourage my ESL (English as a Second Language) students and yet not so simple that my more advanced English speakers would think of it as a "baby book."

This book was exactly what I needed with clear concise language and an abundance of beautiful color paintings and illustrations. There were also "look closer" sections for each topic, which gave useful prompts and questions to encourage further exploration by students. Suggested activities were also tremendously useful in translating learning about art into projects that my students could enjoy. Difficult words were also printed in bold so as to make vocabulary review easier for students. We ended up making a Van Gogh "The Starry Night" project and learned about foreground and background as well as color and light. The children loved it and that says a lot for often-difficult-to-please sixth graders.

I highly recommend this book as an introduction to art for third through sixth graders.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

Great Coffee Table Book especially for those who love the elusive Leopard Seal.

I've been an Art Wolfe fan for years, but Rhythms From the Wild is by far Art Wolfe's best, most inspirational, most relaxing book. The photographs in this book are truly lyrical in their beauty. There's both a gentleness and a sense of movement to the images. Outstanding production quality, surprisingly fairly priced, this is a book to be kept by your bed for late night pleasure.

This book includes a pattern for a santa racoon with detailed steps as well as patterns for 6 other creatures. These patterns are cute, fun to carve, and of moderate difficulty level. The photography is extremely accurate in the instrucitonal seciton; the angels given make the designs easy to follow.

THIS BOOK IS WONDERFUL! HURSTON IS A WONDERFUL WRITER. IT IS A SHAME THAT SUCH A TALENTED WRITER DID NOT RECEIVE MUCH RECOGNITION UNTIL AFTER HER DEMISE. "THE GILDED SIX-BITS" HAS TO BE THE MOST COMPELLING SHORT STORY WITHIN THIS ANTHOLOGY. IT IS A VIVID TALE THAT TRULY REFLECTS THE POWER OF MONEY. IT ILLUSTRATES THE EXTENT THAT SOME PEOPLE WILL GO TO IN ORDER TO GET THEIR HANDS ON "THE GREEN." SIMULTANEOUSLY, IT DOES REINFORCE THE IDEA THAT "ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD." MOST IMPORTANTLY, THIS STORY ILLUSTRATES THE POWER OF LOVE AND THE BEAUTY OF LOYALTY AND "FORGIVENESS." NEVER BEFORE HAVE A READ SUCH A POSITIVE STORY ABOUT AFRICAN-AMERICAN LOVE.

After elevating the development of skateboarding from criminal activity to its proper place in modern culture with Dogtown and Z-Boys Stecyk, a long-time contributor to The Surfer's Journal, presents the artifacts of surfing culture in an equally intelligent manner. This book is developed from the recent exhibition at the Laguna Arts Museum. A must have for anyone interested in surfing. Steyck has come a long way from epoxying bronzed roadkill to major California roadways. He's an artist too.

I purchased this book about 8 years ago, and am just now getting around to actually doing the "primary" Santa depicted in it.
This is a great book for beginner to intermediate carvers. It's chock full of photos, and has the finished product depicted from several different angles......all at a great price, too! Buy this book!

This is an amazing book! It has hundreds of photographed, all of water, and all are breathtaking! You got to see it to believe it.

A *coffee table* book with beautiful photos by Art Wolfe, one of the best US nature/wildlife photographers. It gives basic descriptions of different wildcat species , commenting on general conservation issues in the last two chapters. It's worth buying just for the photos alone.

I feel sorry for the people who have not read this choppy yet wonderfully written account of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. My dad went to Berkeley during the sixties and he reccomended this book to me. I obviously appreciate the story and writing on another level than my dad because our lives are quite different. It was the perfect book for me to read this summer because I also read Stranger in a Strange Land AND One Flew Over... They both tie into this eye-opening, brain Mal-Functioning masterpiece. It reminded me of Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction (...also a 4 star piece of writing...). However, it frustrated me. I want to live like that so much; it is so appealing. I want to be a boho. A beatnik. But that era has passed. Maybe I will start my own "group". Want to join??? Kidding. Puts a different spin on drugs(el...es...dee,etc.) and why people use them. The popularity of this book is due to both Kesey (his life) and Wolfe (his writing).

There is something so sweet and so innocent about the myth of the 60s that you almost forget that these people were just as prone to infighting, backstabbing, selfishness, jealousy, and all the other sins that shows like Survivor capitalize upon.

Tom Wolfe takes a rare journalistic travel with some of the original hippies - Ken Kesey's merry pranksters who travel the country on a bus driven by Neal Cassidy in his post-On the Road, pre-dead on a railroad tracks glory while dropping acid and having lots of sex. There are gang bangs, acid laced koolaid, arrests, faked deaths, and the beginning of one of the greatest novels in America.

Written with less journalistic objectivity than most book, you can tell that Tom Wolfe is a fan of these guys even as he doesn't directly participate in their lifestyle as you imagine Hunter S. Thompson would do. Wolfe compiles thousands of interviews and experiences in order to bring people into the heads of these tripped out losers and in the process makes them into legends. The only problem is that sometimes WOlfe goes a little too far off the deep end and in creating dialogue and internal monologues for these characters he's more projecting his own biases. A later book of his (The Right Stuff) takes this method to extremes as he spends a good deal of time writing his narrative from a test monkey's perspective. While there is nothng so extreme in this book, it is more pervasive here.

This is both a classic of the 60s counterculture and a great example of gonzo journalism (which is to real journalism like Herodotus is to history). At very least it is a great insight into the mind and work of Ken Kesey who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (partially on acid) and who became a celebrity in his own right.

By the way, if you are going to buy this book you might as well buy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. You won't be able to resist that book if you read this one.

Let's face it: the Sixties, for better or worse, had a tremendous impact on American culture. Most of it, fortunately, has been good. A large part of Sixties culture was born in and around the San Francisco Bay Area and spread, like ripple on a pond, across the nation and beyond. Wolfe's "New Journalism" coverage of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters drew me in 30-plus years ago and, having re-read the book for the umpteenth time not long ago, it helped remind me how life is too short to be taken too seriously. Sadly, we lost Ken last year, but his spirit lives on in this delightful snapshot of a special time and place. Anyone who reads this will want to read the unofficial but necessary counter-balances that put this book in perspective: Kerouac's "On the Road" and Kesey's own "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." And, since a little band called the Warlocks got plucked from playing a pizza parlor and became the house band for the Acid Tests detailed in this book, and that band is mentioned in the book (see Grateful Dead, duh...), it helps to have some Dead music playing in the background to give this great book some atmosphere. The first time I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test I read it non-stop. It drew me in and in the process changed my perspective on life, and forever changed the direction of my life. If you want to know why Haight-Ashbury was just so damn special, this is a good place to begin.
Highly, highly recommended for anyone interested in Sixties culture.