The author says, when she was young, she dreamed of walking out of this world and into another. She realized that dream by writing this book. Like many other well-crafted stories for children I have not found this one to be any less sweet when I read it, not (as I did at first) as a young teen, but as an adult. Track down this story at a library, and for a brief while, walk into another world.

Two children, brother and sister, cross over from this world to a fantasy world and are instrumental in overcoming the evil dwelling there - the plot is familiar to any reader of fantasy novels. But "A Walk Out of the World" is not just another competent-but-familiar Young Adult fantasy. Written when the author was eighteen, this lovely novel has a haunting, lyrical quality to it that lingers long after, a knowing innocence and a gentle strain of melancholy that touches the soul. Most fantasies are symphonic in scope - this one is a string quartet, with an aching cello sobbing softly, sweetly at its heart. Long overdue for reprinting!

If you have young adults at home, you must get this book. I first read this book in middle school and fell in love with it!! It is a fantasy novel in the best spirit of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. It is a wonderfully written tale of two children who feel that something is missing from their lives, and find what is missing when they are swept into another world. In this world, they help fight against an old evil, and, in the process, they discover themselves.

I am a fan of fairy tales. And I love to share my passion for a good story with my son. My 5 year-old loved this book from the first reading.

It is not a short read for a 5 year-old, but it held his attention again and again. It is one of his favorites.

I bought this book because I love the illustrations of Ms. Hyman. We have read "Bearskin" by Howard Pyle, "Little Red Ridinghood", and "The Fortune Teller", all illustrated by Ms. Hyman. Her colors are vibrant and exciting. It seems that every book Ms. Hyman is involved with includes a great story and a great story teller.

"The Water of Life" has it all, love, tests and trials, devotion, greed, and betrayal. It gives us, mother and son, lots to talk about. I recommend this book heartily.

I am amazed that I never heard about this story until I was over 40 years old! This is an excellent book for teaching children the value of being loving and kind. I recently attended a talk on heroes at work and this book was mentioned. I am so glad that I purchased a copy because it will encourage me (and hopefully some friends that borrow it) that we can be heroes to those around us.

My daughter who is getting her Master's in Art asked for this book for Christmas. She adores Trina Schart Hyman illustrations. I really loved this book. The illustrations are really beautiful with many little interesting things to pick out in them. Children will find the scene from the enchanted castle especially fun. All the princes are sitting frozen in time at a banquet table. One is a frog, one a unicorn, another has butterfly wings, etc. Most of the pictures have a dark cast to them but the last one of the wedding is bright and cheery with little children wearing red costumes and throwing pink petals. The bridal couple are gorgeously dressed too. Moral of the story: Be kind and good and you will achieve true happiness.

There are hardly any artists painting today who have the strength of technique and breadth of vision that Bhupen Khakhar enjoy. Despite being partly recognised in Britain (the BBC commisioned him to paint Salman Rushdie's portrait - a work called "The Moor", the Tate have examples of his work, and he has had gallery shows in the Cork Street area) he remains an artist whose works have ben very different to access. Timothy Hyman, a personal friend of Khakhar's and an artist himself, does everyone interested in painting an incredibly valuable service by making available a book which includes a history, an intelligent discussion, and lavish illustrations of the relevant part of Khakhar's work. For Bhupen Khakhar's work only became outstanding when he began to make reference to his homosexuality in his 50s and as he acknowledged it and as he continues to discuss it. In India homosexulaity is illegal and despite Bombay's (and nearby Baroda - Khakhar's home) position as epicentre of liberal, Western-orientated, gay friendly India any Indian of Khakhar's generation was bound to suffer even worse torment than their Western equivalents. But rather than using this torture to produce a teriffying vision of the world as meat (a la Bacon) he celebrates it. He has been called the Indian Hockney, but the innate spirituality which saturates the Indian creative arts - as, for example that very diiferent Indian artist whose work is so adored in the West, Anish Kapoor - raises Kharkhar's work to another level making it work for all time. Khakhar's work never suffers so unduly from its innate beauty as Hockney's work can suffer and the end is a joyous celebration, an uplifting experience of successful synthesis colour, form, and subject never bogged down by 20th century Western criticism. By not treating Khakhar's work with the respect we give to Hockney and Freud we deny ourselves the opportunity to chart the vision of an artist as great as Freud, with as great a faith in art, but with an outlook that is fundamentally humane. A codicil: Khakhar must be ranked close to the top of contemporary figurative watercolourists, higher than Dumas and certainly Fischl. As an oil painter he is perhaps inferior to Freud but to no one else.

This is a beautifully written book about a wonderful contemporary painter who bridges East and West. I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in modern art, the artistic process or Indian art and culture.

I read this book last year (2000) after reading a book of Ada Lovelace's letters (mostly to Babbage). I had purchased my hardcover copy at the Computer Museum in Boston MA back in the late 80's or early 90's, but had not read it because it looked daunting and dry. Was I wrong! This book is very readable and utterly fascinating; in fact a page turner that I could hardly put down. I've been looking for a softcover (or even another hardcover) for some time, so I could loan to friends. How delighted I am to find one! Babbage was a fascinating character and this book not only illuminates the man but also the times and the politics and the other fascinating technological events and efforts of the day. The discussion of the "great gauge wars" (the fight for the "ideal" width for railroad tracks) and Babbage's involvement was delightful. It appears he may have invented the first working strip chart recorder. This book was delightful and I got so involved with Babbage that I cried when his death occurred and the book ended. He was a giant among scientists and yet was frustrated all his life, by petty politics and short-sighted politicians, in the effort to build his stupendous and wondrous machines. A wonderful story, full of technological history. Other highlights: descriptions and pictures of the machines (of course); description of the effort to build a tunnel under the Thames river (by the the Jr and Sr Brunels); Babbage's methods (at times he did all phases of the work for his projects) and his workshop; his notes on working out the operation of the machines; family life; involvement in the technical societies of the day. (The book of Ada Lovelace's letters is also highly recommended if this is an interesting area for you.)...

In the early 19th century, a moderately well-off and very well educated Englishman dreams up an elaborate calculating machine for doing log and trig tables. When he begins this project, the railroad and the telegraph do not yet exist. The machine tools and manufacturing methods of the day are not up to the task, so the inventor pushes out the envelope. He more or less succeeds in building his machine, but the British government is not interested.

The inventor goes back to the drawing board, and dreams up a much more elaborate machine, still all mechanical and steam driven, that essentially embodies all the abstractions of a von Neumann machine. Data and instructions are fed to it via punched cards. His collaborator for a number of years, and the author of the best description of the machine and what it can do, is Byron's daughter. The inventor is well known to all intellectual Britons of his day, including Charles Dickens. The inventor even realises that Boolean algebra is may prove important to operating his machine. The Italian government is fascinated. But the British government again cannot be bothered, and so refuses to fund the first computer. And so all that is left are hundreds of detailed blueprints.

The above, and more, is a true story, told in this remarkable book. After this book was printed, IBM paid to have Babbage's machine built by a Swedish team. It works as Babbage expected it to, and is exhibited in the IBM museum in Armonk NY.

If you want to know what happened to the Maine, read this book. There's a little historical background, but not the hundreds of pages that some authors devote to this subject.

It deals mostly with the "nuts and bolts" of the explosion and what caused it.

The story of the U.S.S. Maine and the disaster it encountered has been written many times. The tragic loss of 266 lives was blamed on a mine, and it was a partial cause of the Spanish-American war. Admiral Rickover's couriosity was tickled by a newspaper article, which indicated that the original Court of Inquiry ivestigating the cause of the explosion and destruction of the ship had some peculiar irregularities involved. The Court did not call on existing experts in explosions and mines to testify or examine the available evidence, and the ship's captain who might have been responsible was allowed to attend all court sessions and question witnesses. Admiral Rickover assembled a team of historians and explosions experts to examine all original records and evidence to form his own picture of what happened in the light of modern day knowledge of explosions. The book is the rsult of his team's work, and the first, and so far only, work that has dealt accurately with the technical aspects of the ship loss. All his team members were competent in their field, drawn from Navy experts, and there can be no doubt that his finding that the cause of the explosion was internal and purely accidental is accurate. His book is the definitive verdict on the story, and it is presented very clearly, even the technical details are explained so a layman can understand them, although not proven in the sense that scioentists would demand. From a purely scientific point of view, the reader will have to believe in the expertise of Admiral Rickover and his team. But who is to doubt the father of the nuclear submarine?

What I never learned in school about World War II, I learned from this book. I recommend it highly to anyone, from the person who enjoys reading romance stories to history buffs....there is something here for everyone. Captain Samuelson's writings are honest and sometimes painful, as he probably never intended his diaries to be published, and I commend Ms. Midlo for presenting (and thereby preserving) a bit of U.S. history, as well as a story of an extraordinary man.

Contemperaneously made diaries and correspondence of Captain Hymie Samuelson, a young Jewish man from New Orleans, introduces the reader to the life of this soldier in the jungles of the South Pacific. The author matures before your eyes during the two and one-half years he leads a segregated engineering unit in New Guinea The tragedy of his personal life reminds us that war is fought by mere mortals.

Magic in the Mist is a maravelosly gentle tale, woven with warmth, immagination, whimsy and MAGIC! The young boy, Thomas, is studying to be a wizard and lives in a crude shelter by the sea. His sole companion is a frog, he named Jeremy. Kimmel captures the essense of magic and wonder for children or those with an open heart, of any age. The illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman enrich this fanciful tale resulting in complete captivation. I was able to hear the wind and the song it carried.

This is a gentle, sensitive story about a child who has studied wizardry long and hard and has only a little luck with his magic. He is not able to light a proper fire to keep his house warm. The only company he has is one small toad. On one remarkable day he listens to the song of his toad and notices the beginnings of magic. The friendship shared between the two focuses the child's magical efforts on songs about wind, flame etc. and that is when the spells work the best.

The black on white sketches are clear and inhance the story set in Wales.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. During this Harry Potter era, I have been looking for a gentle approach to the magical for our little people story time at the library where I work. I also have a 4 1/2 year old who loves Harry Potter on tape and enjoys this story even more since he can imagine himself as the character more easily. I hope the publishers reprint this since my copy is on loan from another library!

Sincerely, Childrens Literature Specialist CAS

In his most comprehensive writing Spotnitz outlines 50 years of his Modern Psychoanalytic approach to treatment of schizophrenia. Freud's concept of the transference is advanced in order to fit the needs of the analyst in eliciting the 'constructive emotional interchange' necessary to reverse the effects of the schizophrenic reaction. This work serves as an essential handbook to the clinician interested in applying psychoanalytic techniques proven to be successful in treating schizophrenic disorders.

When looking for technical information about treating the pschotic patient using modern psycoanalytic technique this is the place to go. Spotnitz explains in explicit detail the use of transference, counter-transference and resistance. The application of technique and its ramifications on communicating emotionally with the patient is especially helpful when the patient or analysis is blocked.

I loved this book when I first read it 25 years ago and it's still as wonderful today. It will be especially wonderful for readers wishing to become writers and people who love to observe the world and discover the small mysteries of life.

Twelve year old Julia is struggling with changes in her family and in herself. This is a book about thoughts and dreams as well as growing up. Eleanor Cameron fills the book with vivid descriptions of nature and people. There are memorable scenes between Julia and several special people: Daddy Chandler, a lovable, funny old man; Mrs. Moore, an elegant and mysterious former concert pianist; Paul, a kind 14 year old boy; and Leslie, another aspiring writer. There are also moments of pain and fear, especially Julia's encounters with the "disfunctional" family of her best friend Addie. But these moments are handled well and add to the plot.

A host of living, complicated people live in this book and you will come to feel part of the family. As part of the family, you will laugh and cry with Julia and never forget this remarkable book, nor look at the world in the same way.

This was the best and most intriguing book I have ever read in my whole life. Even though I am almost 15 I absolutely loved this book! The way Eleanor Cameron desribes every little detail in the book makes Julia's world so perfect and beautiful!! Julia lives in the most enchanting world ever imaginable. I would just love to switch lives with her. She doesn't even realize how grand her life is!! I would recommend this book to anybody, old or young.

this order was quick and painless

before i knew it i had the book and a vast knowledge of the stupid laws that still prevail in our country

I had this book for years and always got a laugh out of it. It highlights actual laws still on the books (as of date of print back in the 70's, but still humorous!) across the country. I can't recommend this book enough if you need a good laugh. If you have this book or are lucky enough to find one, hold onto it. My copy was stolen!