Nonfiction Books

This book teaches children how to tell the time in the most simplistic, yet effective way, that even a child who has trouble learning will get it! The graphics are very appealing yet do not distract from the subject matter being taught. When a child has completed this book, they will be able to tell any time on an analog clock. I would recommend completing all of the pages, even if the first few seem a bit easy. These pages help to reinforce the concept of telling time and lets the child build confidence for the lessons that come later.

We liked it. Dd age 6 at the time thought the beginning exercises were too easy so we skipped those. I appreciated the concentrated study of time concepts and my dd liked the colorful format.

This book teaches how to tell time with minutes in an easy to understand, visual way. I bought this for my 6 year old son and he is learning with ease. The book is very high quality. I also bought several of their other books for gifts and have been very pleased with every one. I highly recommend the Kumon products!

Maybe it's just me, but I found this book to be interesting and ultimately disappointing. The book is a collection of stories/articles about Venice and people related to Venice. The stories are are interesting in themselves, however when strung together in book form they don't add up to something greater than the sum of the parts. In fact, several leave the reader waiting for a satisfying conclusion. On the positive side, the research is meticulous and the book is well written.

I know what I expected from a new book by Berendt. I expected something better than the last. I realize now that it was a lot to expect.
The City of Falling Angels does not come up to the standard set by his previous novel. It's not that Venice does not compare to Savannah (I am in no position to tell not having visited the latter), it is just that The City doesn't have a decent story to keep the book together.
Similarities are quite striking - in both books the narrator arrives within days of a crime being commited. In The City it is the fire of the Fenice, Venice's opera. You're not thrilled? Well, it isn't exactly a crime in which the finding of the guilty would keep you reading through the night. The book traces the opera's reconstruction to the re-opening but again that also wasn't anything most people would need to hear about.
The narrator spends years in Venice (the book isn't too specific about it - my guess is he drops by every now and then rather than waits for the Fenice to be reconstructed) talking to people. By the way - it is quite striking how almost everyone in Venice has nothing better to do but to talk to him at length... We get a number of (allegedly) true stories, none of which, however, is thrilling. Actually, after a while they get mildly disgusting - petty rivalries in Save Venice, quarrels over the will of a suicidal local poet, fight over Ezra Pound's letters... There is usually some money involved (actually, there is usually big money involved) and it is the money that most often becomes (I would say against the author's wishes - he is quite desperate to present a cultural and literary context) the real issue.
In short - a long and nicely written book without a decent plot and/or conflict. If you haven't read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - buy it immediately. If you have - wait for another Berendt. You may well skip this one.

I originally wanted to read The City of Falling Angels because I am going to Italy on my honeymoon in a few weeks and was eager to get my hands on as many books about the country as possible. Unfortunately, that hasn't worked out quite like I planned - the only books I've read on Italy lately are this book and The Monster of Florence.

While I did enjoy The City of Falling Angels, the book surprised me. Rather than being about the Fenice fire, or even about Venice, the book is about the characters that make up the cityscape of Venice. Berendt delves deeply into many stories about Venetians (or, more common, Americans who have made Venice their home), altogether abandoning the plotline of the Fenice fire. Of course, he comes back to it frequently throughout the book, but it is more of a backdrop to the story of Venice's people, rather than the story itself.

The book also ambles in many places. It's not that it necessarily becomes uninteresting, but there are a few dry spots. There is no urgency to finish it - a reader could easily put this book down for a week and come back to it later because the storyline digresses to such a varying degree.

However, the stories that Berendt shares are interesting. It is clear that he spent a great deal of time getting to know the people of Venice, to the point where he begins to become accepted as one of them. He portrays Venice as a beautiful and enchanting city. Yes, it has its problems, but one of the overarching themes that runs through the book is a deep love of Venice. He illustrates the city well through his descriptions; it is obvious that he has a strong affection for the city.

Overall, The City of Falling Angels is a well crafted book that is a fun read. While the Fenice fire was tragic, Berendt manages to keep the story light. Since I just read The Monster of Florence, inevitably, I have to compare them. Both are "true crime" stories (serial killer vs. opera house fire), but I have to say that Berendt's novel is much more compelling. If Berendt had focused simply on the fire (as Preston focused on the murder case), they might have been equally weighted. But Berendt's story really comes alive through his character digressions. It is a book that I definitely recommend if you want to read about some of the characters that make up Venice.

I am almost done with this book, and have not been able to put it down. Berendt has a talent for finding interesting, unique people who make up the fabric of a society. This book gives you a real view of what Venice is like behind all the tourist attraction edifices. If you are interested in Venice, this is the book to read if you want the rest of the story that lies beyond all of the guidebook discriptions. And even if you don't know Venice, this book is an excellent testimonial of a unique place and it's unique people.

I got this book because I liked Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. This book should have been titled "What I did on my vacation in Venice". I have a rule to give up on a book after 100 pages but I broke my own rule because I kept thinking the book was going somewhere. It wasn't. It was like Midnight in that it gave you lots of side events in Venice but in Midnight there was an overarching crime. There was an attempt in this book to make the burning of the Fenice Opera House a similar overarching theme but it really wasn't nearly as interesting. I should have given up after 100 pages............

Book was in good condition as discribed by the seller. My son loves the book

"ANARANJADO" is the word I learned for the COLOR orange. "NARANJA" means the fruit, not the color. Confusing, since in English the color and the fruit are the same word! Other than that, a very cute early Spanish book!

My 16 month old LOVES this book. She has been bringing it to me for months asking me to read it 'with' her. she points at all the different things on each page and I tell her what it is and what colour it is. ex "that's a green grasshopper" or "he's painting the fence purple". It's a very colourful book for us to share together. And as a bonus we get to learn spanish colours too!

Me encanta este libro. Mi hija de apenas 10 semanas se lo disfruta muchisimo. Las imagenes y las diferentes tonalidades de colores en cada pagina son perfectos para el aprendizaje por asociacion ya que te da la oportunidad de poderles inventar historias. Ademas es buenisimo para los pequeñitos pq pueden ejercitar los musculos de la vista, ademas que es una manera muy bonita de comenzar a introducirle los colores y de una vez ampliar su vocabulario de manera bilingüe.

Great book, my toddler loves it. And there are no mistakes.

For clarification: the color orange is "naranja" in Spanish from Spain. We call the fruit and the color the same in Spain (just as they do in English!). I know in Latin American countries they say "anaranjado". But that does not make "naranja" a mistake in the book. It is correct Spanish, found in the dictionary.It was just probably translated by a Spaniard.

I was shocked by the review by a teacher saying that she tells her students that the word "naranja" is wrong. I would never tell my toddler that "anaranjado" is incorrect, even though we don't say it that way! It's just a proof of the diversity of the Spanish language. Shame on this teacher who says she uses "naranja" as an example of bad translation - and complains of seeing the mistake frequently. No wonder, since it is not a mistake. She should instead explain how different Spanish-speaking countries use different words, and all are correct.

Bought this for my children as their bedtime book and they love it. They love listening to the stories of the bible before going to bed.

I am learning the Bible stories once again through the bedtime oportunites that I enjoy with my daughter using this book. Thanks!!! I gave this book a rating of "5" however, only a "4". can't figure out how to change this back.

My daughter is 6x years old and looks forward to us reading a story to her every night. She really enjoys it. Each story takes just a couple of minutes to read, but they are interesting and my wife and I are learning a lot as well. Highly recommended

I bought this to have short Biblical stories to read to my grand daughter at bedtime. This book is great and fits my purpose exactly.

As a previous reviewer stated, there are two books that have very similar cover pictures, but very different text. I own the version that was authored by Jesse Hurlbut. It does not have a red outlining the cover, and author's name appears on the front cover. I was looking for it to purchase for a friend and discovered that there are two versions. When you click to "see inside" for either version, you see the text from the non-Hurlbut version.

The Hurlbut version is appropriate for elementary age and above. It does not limit the daily reading to one page. Most are about a page and a half. It has a very readable, warm tone. It is interesting and gives some historical perspective and understanding that I appreciate. One particularly difficult-to-understand story is the story of Jephthah's Promise. I was impressed with the insight the author gave for this story. I haven't read the whole book, but what I have read does show God as compassionate.

I would very highly recommend the Hurlbut version(*****). From what I read of the other version, I would not buy it. It seems to lack the warmth, and story-telling flavor of the Hurlbut version. If you are looking for a Bible for a preschool child, I think there are many other storybooks with much more appealing color illustrations. I personally like the two by Kenneth Taylor: Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes (for the very young) and Family Time Bible (for 4-5 year olds).

If you decide to buy this, be sure you know exactly which version you are purchasing.

I have a 6 year old son who has decided that he is too scared to sleep in his own bed. I tried all the typical things that worked when he was younger (Blankie, night light, monster repellent spray bottle, barracade of stuffies around his bed and finally, logic. Nothing worked.
This book has some great tips and helped me understand some of the possible root issues.
The kid focused activities--I know i"ll never do. He's too young I think. But for an older kid, I think the process is a good one--puts control of the fear in their hands....a good thing for any "scary" situation.

I purchased this book to work with my 8 year old daughter. She was having problems falling asleep at night and was experiencing a lot of anxiety getting ready for bedtime. I read the book with my daughter and used the workbook pages. It was easy for my daughter to read and helped me create a plan for her bedtime routine. It has made a huge difference for her. The magic tricks that are offered in the book are a great touch and she actually looked forward to reading the book.

Dawn Huebner has written a wonderful book about helping children deal with nighttime fears. I am child psychologist who specializes in anxious children and I have been recommending this book to the parents of my patients. I use the book as an adjunt to my therapy. However, parents and children can easily benefit from this book on their own. I What I like about this book is that it creates a sense of fun about dealing with anxieties at night. It has some great suggestions about playful games that have a purpose as in her"The Famous Fear-Melting Super Hiding Game". I always value books that give me ideas and a vocabulary about how to talk with children. Dr. Huebner book has many suggestions about how to use child friendly language to deal with nighttime fears. My child clients have liked doing the drawing and other assignments contain in the book. This book will be my standard recommendation for children who struggle with those anxious feelings at bedtime.

Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson is about fast food and how bad it is for you. There are a lot of different stories in the book. One was about schools taking out soda machines and putting in water and healthier drinks, but still having McDonald's and Burger King which is even less healthy.

Chew on This was not my favorite book. I am a vegetarian so the meat part made me gag. The book takes a long time to read; it feels like forever. The things that I don't like are when they explain how they kill a chicken and that pink lemonade is really made from bugs. I know that the facts are disgusting, but it is awesome how bugs can turn lemonade pink. The purpose of writing the book is to convince the customers not to eat at fast food restaurants. I suggest that you only read this book if you like reading about disgusting things.

Adrienne F.
Grade 6
Ms. Kawatachi

I read Fast Food Nation a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed this. When I saw this book, by the same author, I assumed it was a sequel to Fast Food Nation with updated information and targeted to the same audience. Unfortunately, my assumptions were incorrect. This book is primarily targeted toward young readers. Where Fast Food Nation is jammed pack with great information, this book is slimmer, has larger type, and many more pictures. It's breezy style and layout reminded me of a middle school textbook.

That's not to say that this book is bad. It has a lot of interesting information (much of which is already covered by Fast Food Nation), but if you are expecting a follow up to the terrific Fast Food Nation, this is not it. Save your money!

This book is clearly aimed at the middle school and high school markets. It's written at a reading level well below the 10th-grade level at which most adult books aim. As a result, I sometimes found the style a bit annoying, and the authors repeat and explain things that I didn't need repeated or explained. Nonetheless, it was easy to forgive the authors some minor annoyance - - overall, this is an interesting and lively book.

Schlosser and Wilson tell us the story of fast food. It would be easy to take the position of muckraker and just expose dirty secrets of the industry. They do a little of that, but mostly they put the industry in historical perspective. How did fast food restaurants evolve? How did they knock off the local diner? Why do they rely on high-turnover teenage labor? How have they restructured the meatpacking and potato industries? How have they restructured urban geography?

In short, those middle school and high school readers will learn something about America by reading a book about McDonald's and its ilk. Adults will likely learn something too.

This book is very informative about the fast food industry. It discusses everything from its beginnings to its methods of "brainwashing" its customers to the ingredients of some of the menu items. After reading it you will never look at fast food the same.

I purchased a set of five of these books for my seventh grade class to read in book groups. This has been one of the biggest hits of the class! EVERYONE wants to read it. (In junior high, this is rare.) Every day, a student approaches me to enthusiastically share a fact from the book. Science teachers have been asking me about it because the kids are telling them about it. I have only read parts of the book, but it is fascinating and the sources are well-documented. I would highly recommend this book for all ages.

We first learned of this product as a birthday gift for my 3 yr old. We have had so much fun with it. We took it on a group week long camping with us over the summer, and the kids of all ages 2 1/2 - 17 had so much fun choosing a new design every day and it was the first thing they wanted to do when they woke up. The mom's had fun being creative and painting the designs. The step by step instructions in the book make it so easy to paint some very cute and intricate designs. We have since use the book at PTA fun raisers, Birthday parties, Baseball games, backyard BBQ's, it is always the hit of any party.

Exactly what I ordered. Easy to use, great quality product, would recommend to a friend.

I bought this book for my daughter's 3rd birthday party. She has lots of older cousins ranging from 3-12 (mostly boys) and everyone was excited to get their face, arm, hand or leg painted. There are wide variety of ideas with set-by-step instructions. They were all very easy to do. If you make a little mistake the kids didn't seem to even notice, and if you make a big mistake the paint wipes off easily. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of paint that comes with it. I'm sure I will be using this set for years to come.

I bought this book for my daughter's 4th birthday. We have used this book over and over. The pictures are easy to duplicate on the whole. There are some that are a little more difficult but it was easier than I imagined.The paints that are supplied are also great. I bought some others but they were not as easy to work with. This is all you need for face painting.I have also gifted this book since then.It costs more in the stores than shipped from amazon.No negative aspects to this book.

My husband could not believe that I painted my daughters face! She also loves it. I would highly recommend this for parents planning a birthday party.

I purchased the book for my 9 year old daughter and she loved it. She learned so many interesting facts about their lives prior to being the megastars they are today, etc. It was written well, easy to read and very informative.

I read this book before I gave it to my Granddaughter. I am truly impressed by all the Jonas Brothers. Nick Jonas sounds like a wonderful, spiritual and gifted, young man. The entire Jonas family sound like a great support group for these boys, as they climb the ladder of success.
The book is a very fast read. Most of it is taken from interviews. I will give you a good insight into the boys. If you like the Jonas Brothers, you will love them more, after you read this. If you don't know how you feel about Jonas Brothers, after you read this book, I think you will be a fan. I know I am.

My 2 yr old loves this book, she knows all the characters, but Dora is her favorite of course! Great fun coloring time for my daughter and I............

This is not a "JUMBO" as in large its just thick.
I thought it was one of those poster sized coloring books.
Nice coloring book just not what I thought it was.

i lice to reead this bok,-- it is to be good,,, i engoy it. i kulor variy mushh!! i hart it=you culoer it 3!! <3
Mush love
KUDERKADURKASTAN

My kids love all these characters and so this is a great deal for the price, plus it gives them a variety of coloring pages to choose from.

I ordered this book because it is a text required by my Professor (ODU). It is exactly what I wanted and is in great (new) condition.

Style manuals are written either for editors or for authors, rarely for both. The AMA manual is a text only editors could love, it serves the interests of authors mostly as an afterthought. The "Instructions for Authors" on JAMA's website presents the essential requirements of the style in a more concise format for journal articles, the vehicles of research reporting. This is also two texts in one, a text on style and a text on medical terminology and ethics, a dubious combination. Style, by its very nature, is well served by a ten-year publication cycle. It should change only very slowly. Medical terminology, on the other hand, is in a constant state of flux. Authors working in a field are well aware of the accepted nomenclature without the need to be reminded by an inevitably dated style manual. This text is written for editors at some remove from medical practice and research. This review, on the other hand, is from an author's point of view.

The last edition of the AMA manual (1997) sought to impose the metric system on clinical measures. This initiative failed. It was simply ignored in preference to the conventional measures used in clinical practice. The new AMA style requires a conventional measure to be followed by a metric conversion factor. For example, the new AMA manual is a heavy tome, the one-thousand-plus page text weighs 4.2 pounds (to convert to kilograms multiply by 0.45). This is a sensible and useful requirement. However, you need not buy the manual to get the exhaustive conversion table, it's available on the JAMA website.

The new manual also accepts the "versioning" of online documents as research references. In effect, an online clinical or research report can be changed once published, without the change being documented, and still be considered a credible reference. I find this practice wholly unacceptable, and I'm a mere anthropologist, not an MD. Corrections, retractions, revisions, errata, and so forth to print articles are documented in print. The same standard must apply to electronic documents. Those who argue that the practice of medicine is more an art or craft than a science may be right, but it is not a whimsical craft.

The text is a curmudgeon's delight. For example, the table of contents lists a section on "Measurement and Quantitation." Do they mean to say "quantification," not "quantitation?" Alas, my dictionary has no such word. Abbreviations are used for the names of journals when composing references to articles. On at least three instances, the AMA manual refers readers to different sources where the standard abbreviations can be found. None get it right. The standard reference used to be the "Index Medicus" published by the National Library of Medicine. The name has changed to the "List of Journals Index by Medline" and it is available free online.

If you are sufficiently knowledgable to write authoritatively on a subject, then you are familiar with how the research community talks about it, and they have litttle regard for style guides. For example, a highly lethal virus was first identified in the American Southwest in the early 1990s. A new virus is typically named for the locale where it is discovered. This was a problem for this new hantvirus strain. It was found in the Canyon del Muerto in northeast Arizona, so named for a massacre in the 1800s. Imagine the public reaction to a new, lethal, "Canyon of Death" virus loose in their neighborhood. Thought turned to naming it the "Four Corners" virus, but the local Chamber of Commerce muttered something about tarring and feathering those responsible. It was finally christened the "sin nombre virus," Spanish for "no name." This should have been written lowercase since "sin nombre" is not a proper noun, just a phrase. But the literature soon came to capitalize it as if it were a place name, the Sin Nombre Virus (SNV). The story continues. When in the process of publishing a review paper on the hantavirus my editor changed the capitalization to lowercase in the galley proofs. This was absolutely correct according to the style guides. I sent her portions of six articles from research journals to illustrate the practice of capitalization that had taken hold in the literature. To lowercase the virus name would have been stylistically correct, but it would have discredited the paper, suggesting the author was not in touch with the literature. It was capitalized in the published article. The moral? Use style guides warily when it comes to nomenclature.

The AMA's lead editor makes this charming observation in her preface: "I never cease to be amazed by the general inability of physicians, other health professionals, and scientists to communicate through the written word. Their scholarly and creative ideas and insightful data interpretation of them seem to get lost in the translation from brain to page" (p. v). The quality of medical writing has dramatically improved since a young Dr. Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, tv's ER) wrote in the pages of the New England Journal that "medical writing is bad, but its functions are perfectly understandable as a display of scientific [editorial?] profundity, not as an attempt to communicate experience" (December 11, 1975;293:1257-1259). Apparently this malaise, and foot-in-mouth disease to boot, now afflicts the AMA's editors.

Curmudgeoning aside, is the 1000-page text usable? AMA style generally dispenses with periods after abbreviations, but if the abbreviation for "saint" is used in a name, as in William St. James, a period is required. If the abbreviation is used with a city in a reference, as in St Louis, no period is needed. Is this the answer to a question you would ever think to ask? What other pitfalls and traps lurk in this massive text? Instructions for the general use of abbreviations are found near pages 450 and 500; those for the use of colons are on pages 34 and 241; and those for numbers are on pages 795 or 850. The text may be well organized for editors, but if you are looking for guidance on the most common problems confronted by a writer, you have a monumental task before you. While there is some useful information for authors in the first 60-80 pages, especially on references, this a tedious volume to work through. It is a reference, not a guide. A reference demands that you know what questions to ask. A guide answers the questions you didn't think to ask. As an author, I need a style guide.

As a copy editor and proofreader in the medical and pharmaceutical advertising and communications industries, this text is necessary for my work, as most of my clients use AMA style as THEIR style. However, I have found that this series of texts changes every few years simply as a money maker for the AMA. Only minute changes seem to be made from edition to edition. (I will say, however, that this edition seems to cover many more topics and issues.) In addition, it never seems to fail that what I am looking for, I can't find. The Index could use quite a bit of work. In addition, this text is quite expensive, in my humble opinion. But, as I said in the title for this brief review, this text is "A Necessary Evil."

A must for any science writer. This book is concise and has helpful information.

This is a great resource for editors/proofreaders/medical writers, especially since the style varies so much from the usual MLA and AP styles. Mine is tagged up and sits on my desk, at the ready, as I proofread and edit.