I've the same book but a french one, it is the most useful book a reptiles' lover must have. It is simple to read, to understand. There's a good introduction to reptiles classifications (which is not obvious for begginers), the "identity card" for each animal is well conceived.
A good book to bring for travelling.

Like all the books in this series "Reptiles and Amphibians" gives a species by species look at a huge variety of creatures. From Chameleons to Cobras this book has a great selection. There are not many field guides out there with such fantastic and detailed photos so I suggest it for anyone who loves the to some "unlovable" slimy or scaly creatures of our world.

The "Horn Book Review" finds the presentation of this book "stilted," and calls the illustrations "dreadful." Good grief! This isn't intended to be F. Scott Fitzgerald for kids, nor an introduction to the fine arts. It is a "trying to teach Johnny that his penis is called a penis" book, and it works wonderfully for its target audience!

A brother and sister are taking a bath together. As they wash, and then dry off, they talk about the various parts of their bodies: which parts are shared by both, which are for boys only, which are for girls only, and what their proper names are. If this is "stilted," I suppose billions of parents routinely engage in "stilted" dialogues with their own kids in the same pattern.

It's refreshing to me that the book presents a boy and girl together, and educates both genders about *all* the body parts of *each*. There should be no shame or falsely-imposed mystery about basic human anatomy, and neither the author nor illustrator fall prey to that trap. The presentation is straightforward and honest in a way that young children understand and appreciate. The illustrations are accurate without being hideously graphic (the problem with so many of the "line drawing" books that lose children's interest with their black-and-white cross-sections of genitals), yet they are not so cartoonish as to be unclear.

My son loves the book, as do his young friends (many of whom have the book at their house, too), as did my three godchildren. Let the staff of the "Horn" have Gray's anatomy, if they choose -- my family likes "Bellybuttons are Navels," and I think your family will, too.

In a world where kids are exposed to more pseudoscience than real science, it's refreshing to have someone like Bill Nye to present the genuine thing. Like his highly successful PBS series aimed at fourth graders(but enjoyed by hordes of science-bereft grownups), Big Blast of Science is infused with Nye's straight-forward perspective on the universe, and his passion for the remarkable way it operates. Everything, in Nye's view, is a marvelous machination of science, from the kitchen toaster's warm convection currents, to the counterclockwise spin of water draining out of the bathtub, to the kneeling Indian girl making us ponder infinity on a box of butter. He was that geeky guy who helped you pass high school chemistry, who won the Boy Scout Pinewood Derby without too much help from his dad, who saved the frat party by fixing the cocktail blender, and gave up a respectable engineering job to teach your kids some science. Without people like him we'd be looking up h! oroscopes instead of telescopes and putting more faith in the Psychic Friends Network than the National Science Foundation. At first glance, we might assume Big Blast of Science is a book just for kids. The inimitable Science Guy, clad in his signature blue lab coat and winsome bowtie, and looking cooler than absolute zero, pops out of a flashy purple cover surrounded by whirling planets, moons, and stars. With schoolboyish sincerity, he thrusts toward us a flask from which bubbles the subtitle: "A Highly Cool Handbook for the Laws of Nature." Kids, of course, will recognize immediately his zany, Disney-ish style and easy-to-understand delivery. They'll want to try all the science experiments in the book, especially the ones that require matches, rubberbands, clothespins, and adult supervision. But be aware that this little tome will find its way into Mom's and Dad's hands after the kids have gone to bed. Not only does America's "Sultan of Science" explain physics on! a level everyone can follow, he also gently reminds us the! re's a lot about the universe we need to know -- basic stuff we should have gotten in high school but didn't because we spent too much time outlining chapters, looking up vocab words, and bubbling in answers to test questions. We don't want this to happen to our kids, and neither does Nye. The message here is clear: It's never too early or late to become science literate. We owe it to ourselves, our children, and our planet, to do so. Nye assures us we can understand the familiar things -- gravity, electricity, the behavior of light -- plus the weird stuff, like entropy and quarks and the laws of thermodynamics, if we "just do it." And doing science is what Big Blast of Science is all about. Nye's advice is, grab the kids, the paper towels and cardboard tubes, baking soda, vinegar, scissors and scotch tape, lemons, drinking straws, safety pins, food coloring (no experiment should be done without food coloring!) and whatever else is laying around. Be curious, experimen! t, think about what it means, find out how the universe works. The whole idea is so deliciously simple and fun, we wonder why we didn't think of it ourselves (and why our fourth grade teachers never thought of it either). Buy this one, and know that Bill Nye won't mind if you spill lemon juice and vinegar on it. He won't care if you draw mustaches on the pictures of him or color his lab coat pink. We can tell from the way he explains things that he's an easy-going kind of guy. He won't even mind if you give this book to your kid's teachers, which you probably should. Chances are, they'll put away those monotonous worksheets and vocab lists and ask you to start saving egg cartons, popsicle sticks, 2-liter soda bottles, and leftover birthday balloons so they can do some real science in the classroom.

This book is a simple (yet not simplistic), well-rounded and very well illustrated primer to Cosmorgaphy / Cosmology. It is definitely recommended to anyone who wants to acquire a basic understanding of the subject.

The best parts of the book in my opinion are a few schematics explaining the different types of galaxies, the processes of star creation and death, the creation of the various chemical elements, etc. and the associated text. Overall this is a well balanced book with a "Documents" section appropriately short and author's opinions kept to a minimum.

The only negative aspect of the book is dwelling more than it was warranted on the spherical aberration of the Hubble space telescope and its consequences. The author was aware of the planned effort to correct the problem and should probably have spent less time mentioning it in anticipation of the pending corrective action.

The Nicki Holland Mysteries by Angela E. Hunt are a powerful blend of suspense and character lessons. Hard to put down, yet easy to read, these books are excellent for the most reluctant young reader. Even the advanced reader will find it difficult to put these stories down until finished. The mixture of mystery and moral issues combine to make these books not only entertaining but also thought provoking where traditional values are concerned. Well done, Ms. Hunt

My kids and I loved this story. Actually, we love all the Chicken Soup for Little Souls stories, and this one is no exception!

I burned my Spanish dictionary the day I received 'Complete Spanish for Dimwits' with CD. I didn't need to look up anything. Everything, meaning answer keys, translations,
explanations, came in the book on the same page and immediately on the CD.
My Spanish-English dictionary was rendered useless, so I burned it. It was a hassle to use anyway.
My only question is 'Why did it take so long for a company to come out with a book and CD as easy to use as this'?

This book is the best anthology for any beginning poet. It pays homage to poetry's past, while honoring its future. Anyone interested in poetry written just before it bumped against technology and computers will find this a fascinating and necessary book. Great language from a great time in American history.

Edgar Degas has a special place in my heart. No other artist used as many women as Degas did for subject. He is my favorite Impressionist artist and I regard his art as the finest, most realistic, meaningful and most beautiful of the late 19th century. Degas is most famous for his paintings of ballerinas, but he was a prolific artist and seemed to live only for his art.
When he died, he expressed his final wish: that during his funeral service, speeches must indicate that his greatest love was art and that he should be remembered as a great artist.

That's exactly how we remember him. This book provides a plethora of his paintings, and details about his life. It's very sad that this book is close to becoming out of print. I am honored to be the first to review this book. The cover painting is "L'Etoile" or "The Star on Stage". Degas painted ballerinas in the French opera-theaters in the 1870's. He was influenced by Japenese prints which enabled him to draw harmony and space. He was able to capture the transience of life, fleeting moments, as the ballerinas danced or moved in the stage during a performance. He also painted them during rehearsals and waiting in flocks in the wings. The pastels and oils were vibrant, colorful and made the ballerinas look nearly surreal in their artificial theatrical surrounding scenery. For contrast to the light and bright colors, he included gentlemen in dark suites waiting for the ballerinas backstage or observing them from a distance.

Edgar Degas, a gifted intellectual, had many friends in the art and literary world. Among his friends were the Naturalist writer Emile Zola and the Impressionist artist Edouard Manet. Degas participated in the Impressionist Exhibitions, was part of the movement by all means, although he considered himself a Realist painter of natural movement and contemporary society. He was a modern man in many respects and it was Degas who personally defended and helped Mary Cassat, the feminist and professional artist from America, exhibit with the Impressionists. This was a time when the art world was still very male-dominated. Mary Cassat and Edgar Degas remained good friends for many years.

This book seems to be Edgar Degas life through his paintings. Here, we see everything about him and we discover how unique and interesting he was. He never married, there was never any evidence that he fell in love, and although many accused him of voyeurism and presenting women as objects, this is not true. He loved women and respected them and treated them not only as works of great art but examples of people in motion. Later on, his subjects were prostitutes (albeit veiled by the guise of elegant high-class women in cafes), nightclub singers, and "bathers" as they fussed over their bodies and hair or other bedroom objects. Edgar Degas was incredibly gifted and a fine pro-feminist painter, despite what others might think.

To sum up everything he stood for, Degas himself said his art was intended to give "truth an illusion of madness". He was a true artist in the very sense of the word. No artist of the 19th century, in France, could compare to his dedication and his intelligence. Viva Edgar Degas! His paintings, originals, are still on display in the Louvre and in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris. A trip there is a pilgrimage to ballet lovers and fans of Degas paintings.

For years the Fantastic Four had been trapped in their own personal editorial hell, in which they were placed into the hands of incapable writer after incapable writer. The "World's Greatest Magazine" was no longer great, nor was it even good. It was horrible. Atrocious. Disgusting. No writer got the essence of this family (notice: FAMILY) and this fabulous quartet were nothing more than mere shells of their past. The artists never paid enough respect to the team and they never got the true feeling of them in their drawings. The Fantastic Four, ladies and gentlemen, were doomed.

Until now.

Until Mark Waid.

Until Mike Wieringo.

Until Fantastic Four: Imaginauts.

Marvel's first superhero team is having a family reunion, and all of us are invited. We can finally laugh and cry with them for all the good reasons, as the Fantastic Four finally return to their loving roots that's clearly presented within the first chapter of this book.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Fantastic Four haven't been this good since -- scratch that, actually. The Fantastic Four have NEVER been this good. Buy this book -- it's literally some of the best available. This is the ultimate tale of love and happiness, a huge contrast to the more popular "noir" and "dark" stories in every creative medium nowadays. If you read this book, maybe -- just maybe -- you'll begin to see that life's not so bad. After all, there's an imaginaut in everyone. All we have to do is listen to it.

(Note: As of this writing, there currently is no hardcover reproduction of this book. If there is one available in the near future though, get it. This work of art deserves the "deluxe Marvel hardcover" format.)