I loved reading this book. It was really creative. It was neat to see Alison making those wishes and finally learning her lesson.

Because I've been a fan of WordPerfect since its inception, I was extremely enthusiastic to teach a community ed beginners' class when I was asked by my boss. However, I realized that because I've been using WordPerfect for so long, there may be things that I do without thinking. It was very important to me that I share my enthusiam for this program without losing my class. Therefore, I realized that I must focus and think like a beginner in order to make my lesson plans easily understood. I was very excited when I found this book as it is a very good tutorial for the beginner. I made very detailed lesson plans so that I wouldn't forget any of the bridges that I cross without thinking as I became more experienced with WordPerfect. The transition from one lesson to another was easy and, although my "breaks" didn't always happen when the books did, there were still "natural" breaks within each lesson so that I could go let my class the class walk around and stretch. However, no

This book is a wonderful overview of color that I'd highly recommend to children as well as adults. Artists will find the historical information on color of special interest. As with all DK books, the photos and graphics are fun and illuminating.

Eyewitness Art: Perspective is a history of the development of perspective in art. It's profusely illustrated with drawings, with photographs of instruments that artists used to cope with perspective and also with photographs of famous paintings from the Italian Renaissance, the Northern European Renaissance and later.

It's intended for children from 9 to 12, but any adult interested art will enjoy spending time with this book.

This high quality, hardcover art history book discusses various aspects of the northern and Italian Renaissance. It features countless reproductions of paintings, drawings, and sculptures by virtually every Renaissance artist you can imagine. Also included are interesting historical information and little-known facts about some of the best-known works of art. Suitable for use in study by art teachers and art enthusiasts alike. Looking through this book is like walking through several Italian and French art galleries! Exceptional value!

"Larousse's Dictionary of World Folklore" is nothing short of amazing. More than 1,000 admirably concise but surprisingly comprehensive entries handle everything from folktale motifs to folktale props as well as the significance of certain flowers, foods, and the like.(Check out the article on "Totemism.") The index contains a listing of world folklore events such as holidays and commemorations. Of particular interest is the number of entries on revenants (ie., the walking dead, ghosts, vampires, etc.). Teachers, of which I am one, should find this book of particular interest and great use in the classroom.

J. Alison James has taken time travel out of the fantasy world and has put it into reality. In SING FOR A GENTLE RAIN, the author, J. A. James, is showing the reader how someone can change the past and how it will effect them and others for the rest of their lives. Though the use of vivid details, she takes the reader through ups and downs and twist and turns until the end where fantasy and reality are in one place. When one of the main characters, Spring Rain, acually sees two things that were impossible to see, J. A. James is making her point. When two very different things come together, like the rain and the strange man, it can change people's lives in a way that was unforeseen before.

This book is about how James, a 17-year-old high-school student living in the 1990's Southwest, tries to learn more about the Anasazi tribe, which dissappeared centuries ago. While trying to learn more, James is sucked back in time to the 13th century Southwest. Spring Rain, an Anasazi girl living there, prays for rain every morning to end the long drought. She discovers James and they create a great friendship, and fall in love. J. A. James wants the reader to know that Spring Rain believes James has brought the rain because it started to rain when James arrived. Some of the tribespeople think he's a god, but others are suspicious because James can't even set a trap or shoot an arrow. The author brings the past and present together in reality by having the two conceive a child together.

J. A. James is successful in shifting between the current and acient time periods. She gets right to the point and doesn't wander off like some authors. The knows exactly what's going on in the book because she puts a lot of attention to detail. J. A. James has a way of mixing fantasy with reality so that the story makes sense. A boy going back in time 700 years to help the Anasazi survive is believable in SING FOR A GENTLE RAIN.

And a great first book. Lovely images and a good story about love, life, the West, growing up, and everything. Recommended if you like modern literature and fiction.

I read this book when it first came out in hardcover and I recently saw it in the bookstore in paperback. I love the cover! The hunky picture of Billy Lee will tickle your ovaries as you nod to yourself reading of Lucy Fooshee's predicament. Yes, her good looks and unruly passions have driven her life's actions. Her passionately ambitious ego needed to find a way for her to
shine amidst the humdrum predictability of the small town into which she was born and raised. Was she unconciously programmed to create the train wreck we could see coming for many chapters? Her life was not about the intellect or reason. She was not remotely sensible. She drove me crazy! My inner mantra as I read was "Don't do it! Don't do it!" It became hard to turn the page. But that was the fun of it, watching my own reaction to this woman who catches sexual fire and refuses to douse the flames. Then comes the power of transformation that probably required the train wreck to occur. I wonder if we can hope for a sequel with the new awakened Lucy. We get only a taste of her and I suspect those passions will continue to express themselves in new hopefully less destructive ways, but I'd like to know.

Allison Clements pulls off an amazing feat in her debut novel. She creates a character who is vain, selfish, and not particularly self-aware, lets her tell her story in the first person, and makes us cheer for her!
Even as some very predictable plot points come along, when the reader knows exactly what's going to happen and knows it will happen because of the character's flaws, we still hold our breath and hope it somehow will come out all right.
There's a lot of small town stuff that rings true in this amazing novel, and there's a great twist at the end that the reader WILL NOT see coming. There's also a sort of timelessness. Clements has carefully not cemented the story into a specific time or decade, so we can all feel as if it's part of our own life.
In the end, it's not about whether Lucy can get together with Billy Lee. It's about whether she will find out who SHE is. That journey turns out to be incredibly entertaining. This is a perfect summer book. A lot of fun and a great read.

Instead of Eudora Welty's "Why I live at the P.O.," it could very well be Alison Clement's "Why I'm Leaving Palmyra." In a running first person dialogue, Palmyra resident, Lucy Fooshee, describes small town life from a very subjective point of view. While Lucy tells the story, her own blatant character flaws are humorously exposed.

As a result, we seem to enjoy loving or hating the vain, self-absorbed Lucy. Our strong reactions indicate that the main character has enough depth to actively engage the reader. By the end of the book, defenders of Lucy Fooshee are pleased to discover there are hints of her maturity on the horizon. Who knows? Perhaps someday Fooshee fans will find out if there's life for Lucy AFTER Palmyra.

After reading Anne Frank the Last Seven Months, I relized how difficult it was for the jews and for any person during this time. I like this book a lot and I recommond reading it if possible. This book makes you feel like you new exactly how that person was feeling. It put you inside the stories the people told. It was a sad story to read because of all the people that died of other peoples differences. That the samething happen to every person that was a 'jew" that the story didn't change. People were hiding out of years before they were sent off to a death camp. They lived in fear of the next day hoping that the Green Police weren't find them. Once they were found they didn't know if they would live to see there family again. The Nazis killed so many people and so many people got disease and got sick. Everyday more love ones were dying and if you were lucky you could be with them as they die as for some was sent to different death camps, you had no idea if you wife, husband, son, daughter, or best friend since were in third grade had died.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. A must read for all ages. These ladies are some of the most courageous people in the world. They perserved knowing that their demise could be any day. But living was too important to them so they dug deep within themselves to keep their spirit alive and they succeeded. Hooray for them!!! Miep Gies is also a very courageous person. She is right up there with these ladies. "Anne Frank Remembered" by Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold is also a wonderful book. If you are looking for excellent reading and a time frame for the life of Anne Frank, then by all means read this book. I don't know if I could handle the pressures that these ladies went through to live, and I hope that I never have to endure their suffering, but if I do, I will take these 7 women with me and draw on their strengths and spirit to keep me alive.

I read Anne Frank's diary again during my first trip to Amsterdam recently to prepare myself to a visit to the Secret Annex. But the book (and the corny Hollywood adaptation) left me wondering what happened to her after the diary. This book about her last seven months at the concentration camps gives a clear picture of what Anne's life was like through the accounts of the women who encountered her there. I could not put this book down and would sleep at 4 in the morning, read it in bed, in the bathroom, in the car, sometimes it would leave me crying. I am not Jewish and I am only in my 30s but this book touched me a lot (just like Schindler's List) and left me wanting to know more.