November 2007, Issue #103
SirReadaLot.org

SirReadaLot.org


We Review the Best of the Latest Books

ISSN 1934-6557

November 2007, Issue # 103

Arts & Photography / Crafts & Hobbies / Computers & Internet / Digital Photography

Digital Family Album Special Occasions: Tools for Making Digital Memories by Janine Warner (Watson-Guptill Publications)

From Christmas to Mother's Day to the Fourth of July, there is no better way to remember the fun, laughs, and good times, than by having a photograph to look back on, and digital cameras have made it easier to record these special occasions. However, even several years after the popularity of digital photogra­phy has captured the imagination of the public, many photographers remain perplexed as to how to put these images to good use.

Digital Family Album Special Occasions shows readers how to turn digital photos, prints, and other keepsakes into dynamic crafts and gifts for special occasions and holidays. Janine Warner provides the direction and ideas photographers need to do something fun, creative, and use­ful with their bounty of pictures. With step-by-step directions, Warner, herself a technology expert, helps ‘laypeople’ become comfortable with using technology creatively, whether they are scanning and downloading on a Mac or a PC, editing images in Adobe Photoshop Elements, or designing layouts in Microsoft Word. Warner shows readers how to turn digital photos, prints, and other keepsakes into:

  • A scrapbook, combining text and photos, for Father's Day.
  • A calendar with photos of loved ones to mark the highlights of each month.
  • Custom-made websites with digital slideshows of family and friends.
  • Specialized greeting cards and gifts for everyone on the holiday list.
  • Fun party invitations.
  • Online photo galleries and digital slideshows that won't put the audience to sleep.

Digital Family Album Special Occasions packs in a year's worth of ideas for celebrating all the major holidays and special occasions. With Warner’s instructions, readers can choose the right equipment and software, know what to look for when buying a digital camera, take better pictures and edit them, create personalized cards, holiday letters, and other gift items, share projects via e-mail and the Web, and edit, repair, and enhance photos. Instructions show readers how to design dozens of digital photo projects, many of which use templates they can download free from DigitalFamily.com.

Digital Family Album Special Occasions combines digital photography, crafting, and special occasions to make it easy to share good times with friends and family, whether they live around the corner or around the globe. In this easy-to-use book, readers will find everything they need to turn their family photos into festive cards, scrapbook pages, cookbooks, web-sites, and whatnot.

She helps scrapbookers cross the bridge from paper and glue to a more digitized world.

Arts & Photography / Entertainment / Music / Biographies & Memoirs

Jimi Hendrix: An Illustrated Experience (with 70 minute CD) by Janie Hendrix & John McDermott (Atria Books)

Over the course of just four years, Jimi Hendrix left an indelible stamp on the world, shaping popular music and culture with his creativity. He remains the most innovative guitarist of his era, literally creating the vocabulary of the guitar while redrafting the param­eters of electric blues. Jimi Hendrix celebrates the life of Jimi Hendrix as told through text, rare photographs, removable documents, reproductions of memorabilia featuring drawings from Hendrix's childhood, his rare handwritten song lyrics, and never-before-seen archival photographs, and a 70-minute audio CD.

With exclusive access to the private family archives, co-authors Janie Hendrix and John McDermott tell the story of Jimi's life, from his formative years in hardscrabble Seattle through his short-lived days in the eye of a fanatic and dedicated public, to the aftermath of his sudden death and his legacy.

In addition to 30 interactive features, the book includes a 70-minute audio CD with interviews and commercially unreleased recordings of live concert music and a Record Plant jam session. Listening to Hendrix work out musical riffs, holding pieces of the ephemera that chronicle his life, readers experience Hendrix the way they were meant to.

Assembled by Janie L. Hendrix, Jimi's sister, head of the family companies of Experience Hendrix and Authentic Hendrix and John McDermott, catalog manager for Experience Hendrix, and authorized by the Hendrix Estate, Jimi Hendrix is a package that illuminates the life Hendrix.

According to Jimi Hendrix, rooted in the Delta blues of Muddy Waters, Hendrix had an intense curiosity that propelled him to cast a wide net, discovering the stylistic elements that informed early rock 'n' roll. Hendrix drew encouragement from greats like Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and later, the Beatles and Bob Dylan. This blurring of musical and cultural styles composed an essential element of Hendrix's appeal, both explaining and making it hard to fathom how long the guitarist languished in impoverished obscurity before finally achieving success in the United Kingdom. Given the scope of his achievements, it is still difficult to believe that established music impresarios passed on Hendrix time and again, until Animals bassist Chas Chandler changed Hendrix's fortune, plucking him from the depths of Greenwich Village in 1966. It was Chandler's passion and belief in Hendrix's abilities that provided the guitarist with the opportunity he had sought since, as a child in Seattle, he had strummed a broom as his first guitar.

Hendrix came to prominence in a fast-changing world. While Carnaby Street and Swinging London embraced him quickly, America took longer. Hendrix worked diligently, carrying his message and music to a burgeoning youth culture struggling for racial equality and agonizing over Vietnam. Hendrix spoke to them through his music, challenging his listeners to ‘learn instead of burn,’ and to hear his ‘Message to Love.’ In ‘Machine Gun,’ Hendrix invoked the power of the Delta blues as he challenged man's inhumanity to man; ‘I Don't Live Today’ was dedicated to the plight of the American Indian and other repressed minority groups; and in his uncon­ventional and controversial rendering of the national anthem, he spoke to a youth culture that felt increasingly alienated from its country. In time, the interracial, intercontinental Jimi Hendrix Experience emerged as the biggest grossing concert act of the era.

As his popularity blossomed, Hendrix stood as a figure of rebellion, a counterculture outlaw focused on his music and altogether disinterested in the machinery of pop stardom. Throughout his career, Hendrix would refuse to be classified – by the fans, the press, his labels – and both his life and music exuded a sense of freedom. An artist committed to innovation, he bristled at labels others applied to him and to his music. "What I hate is society these days trying to put everything and everybody into little tight cellophane compartments," Hendrix complained. "I hate to be in any type of compartment unless I choose it myself. They don't get me in any cellophane cage. Nobody cages me."

Jimi Hendrix details the rich life and remarkable career of one of the world's most important and influential musicians. Despite his early death, Hendrix was not a tragic figure, but he remains an enigma, an inno­vator frozen in time at the age of twenty-seven. An indispensable addition to any music lover's library, the hands-on, boxed book set is a truly interac­tive experience.

Arts & Photography / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Popular Culture / Comics

Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes by Chris Knowles, illustrated by Joseph Michael Linsner (Weiser Books)

  • Was Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor based on Aleister Crowley?
  • Can Captain Marvel be linked to the Sun gods on antiquity?
  • What role did the pulps play linking the occult and comic books?
  • What involvement did famous writers like Bram Stoker and Arthur Conan Doyle have in Occultism?

With the popularity of occult comics writers like Invisibles creator Grant Morrison and V for Vendetta creator Alan Moore, the vast ComiCon audience is poised for someone to seriously introduce them to the esoteric mysteries. Christopher Knowles is doing just that in this book. Knowles, presently associate editor and contributing writer for the award-winning magazine Comic Book Artist and a contributing writer to Classic Rock Magazine, has worked in the comics industry for over 20 years, as both an artist and writer. Joseph Michael Linsner is creator of popular comic book goddess Dawn and has painted covers for many of the major comic book companies.

In Our Gods Wear Spandex, Knowles answers these questions and brings to light other links between superheroes and the world of esoterica. Occult students and comic-book fans alike will discover connections, from little known facts such as that DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz started his career as H.P. Lovecraft's agent, to the extensive influence of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy on the birth of comics, to the mystic roots of Superman. Our Gods Wear Spandex also traces the rise of the comic superheroes and how they relate to several cultural trends in the late 19th century, specifically the occult explosion in Western Europe and America. Knowles reveals the four basic superhero archetypes – the Messiah, the Golem, the Amazon, and the Brotherhood – and shows how the occult Bohemian underground of the early 20th century provided the inspiration for the modern comic book hero. Chapters include: Ancient of Days, Ascended Masters, God and Gangsters, Mad Scientists and Modern Sorcerers, and more.

Our Gods Wear Spandex explains how superheroes have come to fill the role in our modern society that the gods and demi-gods provided to the ancients. It catalogs the movements and magicians who played a crucial part in the development of social phenomena like the Batman or X-Men films, or of TV shows like Heroes or Smallville.

Knowles traces the histories of both American comic books and the superheroes who came to define them. It reveals the deep and abiding religious, occult and magical roots of legendary characters like Superman, Spiderman, and Wolverine. Ultimately, this work argues that these fantastic characters are not mere entertainment, but also serve as de facto deities for our modern technological society.

You think superheroes are something new? Wait'll you read the exciting spin that Knowles and Linsner put on them! – Stan Lee

Anyone who wants to investigate the archetypal and esoteric roots of comics – the secret history – could hardly do better than to read this encyclopedic and up-to-the-minute study. – Greg Garrett, Professor of English, Baylor University, and author of Holy Superheroes! and The Gospel According to Hollywood.

I didn't realize just how much of an effect my pretending to be Doctor Strange when I was six (with, yes, cape, fake mustache and talcum-powered hair) really had on me as an adult until I read Christopher Knowles' Our Gods Wear Spandex, the definitive history of the comics and mysticism crossover. Finally something new for both comics fans and occult readers alike. – Richard Metzger, author of Disinformation

Knowles very entertainingly brings fresh insights to the enduring appeal and mysterious power of superheroes. – Gerard Jones, author of Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book

A lively and compelling history of mankind's eternal need for heroes and gods and the superhuman figures who answer the call. – Clint Marsh, Wonderella.org

Our Gods Wear Spandex has convinced me that magic, mysticism and esoteric knowledge shaped superhero comics from the beginning. As much as any interpreter of the comics, Knowles helps us understand superhero tales as theologies for today's young people. – John Shelton Lawrence, author of The Myth of the American Superhero

Our Gods Wear Spandex belongs on every college student's bookshelf, right next to the copy of the Joseph Campbell book he or she bought and pretended to read. The comic book protagonist has long been overlooked as the contemporary American hero figure. Knowles has written the anthropological companion to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. – Bucky Sinister, author of All Blacked Out and Nowhere to Go and King of the Roadkills

From the ghettos of Prague to the halls of Valhalla to the Fortress of Solitude and the aisles of Book Expo and ComiCon, Our Gods Wear Spandex is the first book to show the inextricable link between superheroes and the enchanted world of esoterica; readers will discover countless fascinating connections.

Arts & Photography / Museums & Collections / Reference

Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art edited by Gary Tinterow, Lisa Mintz Messinger & Nan Rosenthal (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with Yale University Press)

Yale University Press, in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art announces the publication of Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works. The book features the Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, comprising sixty-three modern paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by fifty artists, which was given to the Metropolitan Museum in 2006. These additions greatly augment the Metropolitan's holdings of modem art, particularly the works of the Abstract Expressionists.

The Newman collection includes the only extant grouping of Abstract Expressionist art collected at the time of their creation. Long recognized for its preeminent Abstract Expressionist works, the collection includes major canvases by the great painters of the movement, among them De Kooning, Pollock, and Rothko, and sculptures by David Smith. Also featured are Americans of the succeeding generation as well as a selection of works by early European modernists. Among the outstanding works in that genre are four pieces by Arshile Gorky; Franz Kline's first painting in his mature style, Nijinsky of 1950; Attic of 1949, a Willem de Kooning masterpiece; Number 28, 1950, a major example of Jackson Pollock's revolutionary work; and an early signature painting by Clyfford Still. In addition, the collection includes works by such other well-known American artists as Joseph Cornell, Arthur Dove, Anne Ryan, the abstract painters Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, and the Pop artist Claes Oldenburg. A number of fine examples of earlier twentieth-century European modernism include paintings by Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, and Joan Miró, a mixed media collage by Kurt Schwitters, and a 1930 relief by Jean Arp.

Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works opens with an interview by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge of the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modem, and Contemporary Art, with Muriel Kallis Newman. Comprehensive entries on all sixty-three pieces in the collection follow. Each work of art is reproduced in a color illustration, and the entries have been written by prominent art historians who are experts in their fields. The catalog features texts by 22 leading scholars, including David Anfam, Diane Kelder, and Richard Shiff. Forty-five additional illustrations further enhance the texts.

The Abstract Expressionist paintings that form the heart of this collection were nearly all created in New York City. The Museum's director, Philippe de Montebello, states in his Foreword: "Her [Muriel Kallis Newman's] intelligence and her unwavering enthusiasm sparked a deep awareness and a dedicated involvement with the art and artists of her generation. Mrs. Newman is a Chicagoan, but she has always loved New York, a city she has visited often.... Mrs. Newman's gift represents a New York homecoming for a group of remarkable works of art by many of the outstanding New York artists of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s."

Newman started collecting during the years just after World War II, a fortuitous time when American art was reaching new heights of accom­plishment and was on the verge of worldwide prominence. Her intelligence and her enthusiasm sparked a deep awareness and a dedi­cated involvement with the art and artists of her generation. Beginning in 1949 Newman began meeting with the Abstract Expressionist artists at The Club, a favored hangout, and as she was also an artist, she was readily accepted. Between 1951 and 1954 she assembled the core of her collection. The depth and breadth of the collection are formidable.

As explained in the foreword, Newman is one of the rare collectors who grasped the importance of a radical new development in the visual arts and acted on that understanding immediately and with almost pitch-perfect accuracy. Affluent but neither wealthy nor particularly well connected, through a fortu­itous introduction in 1948 she and her husband dis­covered the work of a few New York artists – Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, among others – who, though already represented by galleries, were still seeking recognition and collectors. Yet, she avows, "I wasn't aware of such a thing. . . . I knew that they were poor. They were. But I had no idea that they were really struggling. Now I know, of course:" As far as she was concerned, she met the artists, befriended some of them, and bought their work.

Upon learning that Newman wished to transfer the collection to the Metropolitan, Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge of the Museum's Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, immediately planned this catalogue to celebrate its arrival; assisted by Lisa Mintz Messinger, Associate Curator; Nan Rosenthal, Special Consultant; and Christel Hollevoet-Force, Research Associate.

Newman herself has said: "This is a collection of New York art, and I had always felt it belonged in New York." The fact that she has held firm to her 1980 promise to the Museum, despite the astronomical rise in the monetary value of her collection, indicates once again her commitment to the art she loves and her disdain for the financial speculation that has noth­ing to do with the aesthetic values she prizes.

This outstanding collection greatly enhances the Metropolitan's permanent collection. Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works is a handsome and scholarly large format book with color illustrations throughout. The opening interview with Newman by Tinterow captures the donor’s intelligence, commitment, and charm. The publication also benefits greatly from the contri­butions of the many prominent art historians who have contributed texts.

Business & Investing

The Point of the Deal: How to Negotiate When Yes Is Not Enough by Danny Ertel & Mark Gordon (Harvard Business School Press)

Why do so many business deals that look good on paper end up in tatters once they’re put into action? Because deal makers often treat the signed contract as the final destination in their bargaining journey – instead of the start of a cooperative venture.

Traditional wisdom treats negotiation as separate from implementation. Deal makers see their job as getting the deal done and assume that someone else will worry about implementation. This ignores the reality that usually the deal is just a means to something else. Negotiating for implementation means that the value of the deal is not achieved when the parties say ‘yes’, but when they actually implement their agreement. Separating the negotiation from implementation leads negotiators to do things during the negotiation – some deliberately and some inadvertently – that actually hurt them during implementation and even produces deals not worth doing.

In The Point of the Deal, Danny Ertel and Mark Gordon show what negotiation looks like when the players involved strive to make the deal work in practice – not just on paper. Authors Vantage Partner cofounders Ertel and Gordon have advised thousands of negotiators – diplomats, entrepreneurs, labor leaders, lawyers, salespeople, consultants, and Fortune 500 CEOs – and discovered that most underestimate the importance of implementation in the success of their deal. In this book, readers discover how to make the transition from concentrating on getting the deal done to focusing on what it takes to achieve value after the ink has dried.

The Point of the Deal goes beyond advice to individual negotiators on how to negotiate more effectively – it contains chapters on how to manage negotiators as though they are engaged in a real business process and on what organizations must do to ensure that they do deals worth doing. Ertel and Gordon explain how to transition from a deal-maker mentality focusing on making the agreement to an implementation mind-set. The authors show readers how to:

  • Treat the deal as a means, not an end, by asking what the negotiators need from their counterparts over and above a ‘yes.’
  • Consult stakeholders, determining whom they will need to get to ‘yes’ and beyond.
  • Set precedents that will help guide joint behavior after they have signed the deal.
  • Air their concerns – in ways that still get to ‘yes’ and beyond.
  • Help their counterparts avoid over-committing – maximizing the likelihood they'll be able to deliver on their part of the bargain.
  • Run past the finish line – by articulating how they will get from ‘yes’ to the final destination.

With a wealth of examples from multiple industries, countries, and functions, the authors illustrate how their approach to instilling an implementation mind-set works in a variety of familiar contexts for business deals.

Ertel and Gordon are right: it's not only the deal that matters, but what happens afterward. The Point of the Deal provides practical advice on how to negotiate when implementation matters. – Douglas L. Braunstein, head of Americas Investment Banking, J.P. Morgan Securities Inc.

In this important and refreshing book, Ertel and Gordon remind us all: in every negotiation, know your purpose and don't forget it. – Roger Fisher, coauthor of Getting to Yes

Ertel and Gordon are real-world practitioners, passing on invaluable insight gained from around the negotiation table. They show how to achieve real success in your negotiations and, more importantly, how to build long-term, sustainable relationships in which the deal is only the first of many steps. – Darren Childs, Managing Director, Global Channels, BBC Worldwide

Negotiation today requires new skills and approaches beyond the 'yes' to create value. The Point of the Deal provides excellent insights on the importance of – and ways to instill – an `implementation mind-set' for successful business negotiation. – Ulf Weinberg, President, Wyeth Europe

If implementation of the deals you negotiate is important – and it almost always is - this book is for you. It overflows with practical advice on how to really get what you want. – John S. Hammond, coauthor of Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions

The Point of the Deal, shows that negotiation is not the end, but the beginning of a process of realizing value for both parties.

Through a wealth of scenarios – including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, alliances, outsourcing arrangements, and customer and supplier relationships – The Point of the Deal shows what negotiations look like when the players involved strive to make the deal work in practice – not just on paper.

Business & Investing / Marketing & Sales / Popular Culture

Generation Ageless: How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Live Today . . . and They're Just Getting Started by J. Walker Smith & Ann Clurman (Collins)

"The essential thing to know about Boomers is simple yet profoundly important: Do not count them out because they are aging. They are going to continue to matter," write J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, both of Yankelovich, Inc, in their new book Generation Ageless. "Baby Boomers, more than any other demographic group, will shape the future of the marketplace."

Boomers, Yankelovich, born between 1946 and 1964, are all of one generation, but they don't speak in the same voice. Their shared experiences created a common set of new values: an emphasis on self, an acceptance of less structured lifestyles, and a desire for more enriching personal experiences. But as Smith and Clurman show, those values are expressed in a variety of ways.

Boomers are the dominant generation in America. Their values and aspirations set the tone for everyone. Advances in medicine and health mean that this youth-obsessed generation is now focused on an everlasting prime of life. In the book, Yankelovich president Smith, and senior partner Clurman, Boomers themselves, dig into what makes this generation tick. According to Generation Ageless Yankelovich Inc. actually coined the term ‘Baby Boomer’ back in the late 1960s, when they first started collecting data on this influential generation. Now, more than thirty years later, they have the most complete information on Boomers yet assembled. To better understand the implications for society and the marketplace, Yankelovich conducted a new study of that generation's hopes, dreams, and aspirations. The results of this ‘Boomer Dreams’ study are presented in Generation Ageless, and they transform and expand our understanding of the Boomer generation.

According to Smith and Clurman, this study of Boomers covered three broad areas. First, Boomers were asked to score various aspects of their current situation. Second, they were asked to rate their worries and concerns about the future. Finally, they were asked to gauge their commitment to different values and aspirations for the future. Generation Ageless reveals what Boomers believe and how those beliefs have changed over time. The book emphasizes three main ideas that motivate them – Youthfulness, Impact, and Empowerment – and the primary dynamics of Spirituality, Self, and Society. They dissect Boomers into six major segments to provide new insights into the world's most talked about generation:

  • Straight Arrows: This is the one group of Boomers for whom spiritual priorities are foremost. They make up one-third of Boomers. They are driven by traditional values and religion. They look forward to sharing their beliefs with others.
  • Due Diligents: This is one of the three groups for which personal priorities are most important. They represent 10 percent of Boomers. They think ahead and plan for the worst. They are willing to take risks, though, as long as they feel protected.
  • Maximizers: Personal priorities are at the top for this group. They account for 15 percent of Boomers. They want to do as much as possible and get the most from life. They seek fulfillment by immersing themselves in everything possible.
  • Sideliners: Personal priorities matter most for this group, too. They make up 20 percent of Boomers. They are less involved in all activities and amusements. They are very private, self-contained, and undemanding.
  • Diss/Contenteds: This is one of two groups for which societal priorities are highest. They account for only 8 percent of Boomers. They see social problems they would like to fix, and their sympathies are with protestors. However, they shy away from getting involved to the point of compromising their own comfort.
  • Re-Activists: Societal priorities are highest for this group as well. They represent 15 percent of Boomers. They are ready to join campaigns in support of social causes. They want to get involved while they still can, before age makes it difficult for them to have an impact.

As told in Generation Ageless, this generation is nearing the traditional age of retirement, but is in no mood to slow down. They are literally middle age-less: holding onto their position at the top of the pyramid for as long as possible, and not fading away into their golden years. Today's fifty- and sixty-year-old Boomers are not eagerly anticipating lives of disengaged retirement. Instead, middle age-less Boomers expect another twenty or thirty years of impact and influence – albeit in a variety of ways reflective of a surfeit of agendas and ambitions they have yet to fulfill.

If you want to know what Boomers are thinking and doing, read this book. Boomers aren't slowing down; they're speeding up. Read this book if you don't want to be left in the dust. – Richard Florida, bestselling author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class

As a creaky-kneed Boomer and longtime political reporter, I saw myself reflected on every page and marveled at the stunning, against-­the-grain insights about my generation. In 2017 and 2027, as the Boomers refuse to fade into the twilight, Generation Ageless will be hailed as the book that first predicted the social implications of this we-shall-not-be-moved defiance. – Walter Shapiro, Washington bureau chief, Salon.com

Decision makers have forever underestimated the impact of seventy-eight million Boomers. And they are about to do so again. Save yourself from that mistake. Pay attention and read this book. You will never think of aging Boomers in the same way again. – Carol Coletta, president & CEO, CEOs for Cities

After this book, there is nothing else a marketer will ever need to know about Baby Boomers. My mind was racing with ideas before I even got past the Introduction, and there were nonstop insights from that point forward! – Jody Bilney, CMO, Outback Steakhouse

Once again, generational gurus J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman have tapped deeply and brilliantly into another significant cultural and economic mega-trend. The real Echo Boom is not the children of Baby Boomers but ageless Boomers themselves! – Ed Winter, chairman, Tracy Locke

Generation Ageless is an authoritative and eye-opening look at the past, present, and future of Baby Boomers. For anyone who hopes to sell to, do business with, or just understand this powerful demographic group, Generation Ageless is essential reading.

Children’s / Ages 4-8 / Issues

Times Tables Cheat (Library Binding) by Anastasia Suen, illustrated by Jeff Ebbeler (Main Street School Series: ABDO Publishing Group)

At the Main Street School, a series focusing on common issues, all the kids have character! Latasha, Sophia, and Isaiah are a few of Miss K's students. Their stories offer standard situations and examples of good character, such as patriotism, caring, and respect.

The books ask kids: What would you do in their shoes?

In Times Tables Cheat, Isaiah's first-person narratives teach about cheating through Jeff Ebbeler’s illustrations and Anastasia Suen’s text.

The story in Times Tables Cheat starts out with the kids on the school bus:

Alex sat behind Isaiah on the bus.
I know all my threes,” said Alex.
“Do not,” said Isaiah.
“Do so,” said Alex. “3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 20, 33, 36!”
"Okay," said Isaiah. "But do you know your fours?"
"Sure," said Alex. "4, 8, 12 ..."
"What is it with you two?" asked Dalton. Click! Click! Click! He didn't look up from his handheld game.
Alex turned to look at Dalton. "We're practicing our times tables."
"I know that," said Dalton. "But we're not in school yet.”
"What if we have a pop quiz?" asked Alex.
"Miss K doesn't give one every day;" said Dalton. His thumbs kept moving on the game.
"That's just it;" said Isaiah. "You never know when it's coming."
Click! Click! "Yes!" said Dalton. "I've reached Level 14!"

At the end of the story, after Dalton tries to cheat, Times Tables Cheat shows the kids helping each other:

"The sevens are just football scores;" said Alex. "7, 14, 21 ..."
"I got those three," said Dalton. "It's the other ones I didn't know."
"You can practice with us;" said Alex.
Dalton looked at his paper. "Okay, okay, but not on the way home. I have to play my game, too."
"Can you help me get to Level 4?" asked Alex.
"Sure;" said Dalton "It just takes practice."

Times Tables Cheat closes by asking kids what they think about what has just happened:

  1. Why didn't Dalton want to practice his times tables on the bus?
  2. How did Dalton get to Level 14 in his game?
  3. Why did Dalton try to cheat?
  4. Do you think Alex should have told Dalton the answer?

And finally, there are Miss K's Classroom Rules:

  1. Ask for help if you don't understand what the teacher is saying.
  2. Make time to study.
  3. Do your own work. Putting your name on someone else's work is cheating, too.
  4. Don't give your work to someone else.

Other books in the Main Street School Series include

    • Cutting in Line Isn't Fair!
    • Scissors, Paper, and Sharing
    • Helping Sophia
    • Show Some Respect
    • Raising the Flag

The books in this series, including Times Tables Cheat, through common classroom situations, help kids think about acceptable and expected behavior in school. The illustrations in the book are brilliant and the text is humorous.

Children’s / Ages 6-10 / Education / Anatomy & Physiology

The Body Box: See How Your Body Works by Anita Gareri (Barron’s Educational Series)

The Body Box , developed by Anita Gareri, creator of more than 100 children’s books including Little Box of Princess Treasures, is an interactive kit packaged in a box the shape of a book aimed at older children, which includes an information book and specially created anatomical models.

A human kidney, a brain, a heart, an eyeball, and a plastic skeleton with removable parts are assembled in this instructive kit for budding junior biologists. The shapes of all organs are rendered in plastic and packaged in a box. The Body Box includes a booklet describing the human body in a series of 14 two-page spreads filled with full-color illustrations, which explain the human body’s organs and functions. The booklet slips into a pocket on the box’s inside cover, and a see-through window shows all model body parts when the imitation book cover is lifted.

The body parts and functions described include the senses, brain, lungs, heart, blood, muscles, bones, stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, and cells. This interactive pack actually contains replicas of:

  • skin
  • brain
  • intestine
  • lung
  • muscle
  • eyeball
  • skeleton
  • heart
  • liver
  • kidney

Illustrated overlays show the human body’s skeletal and muscle systems.

Using The Body Box young readers will begin to understand how the body works from the inside out. Models of organs are attractively packaged. Fact filled, the kit is unusual and educational, hands-on, and facilitates active learning through manipulation. The shapes of all organs are accurately rendered, and the accompanying book contains full-color illustrations and descriptions, written at a level that is easily understandable by older children.

Children’s / Ages 9-12 / Literature & Fiction / World Mythologies

Lost Cities (Library Binding) by Sue Hamilton (Unsolved Mysteries Series: ABDO Publishers)

Children love mystery and adventure, and the books in the Unsolved Mysteries Series offer them a unique opportunity to study some of the world's most interesting, unsolved puzzles. From bizarre creatures on the land and sea to unsolved disappearances of ships, planes, and even cities, this series will appeal to readers of many ages. Quotes and perspectives from scientists, researchers, and historians, as well as everyday people thrown into the midst of these perplexing mysteries, provides an overall viewpoint from which children can draw their own conclusions.

Lost Cities starts out by asking: How do you lose a city? With today's technology – tracking devices, heat-sensitive locators, and global positioning systems – it seems impossible to lose something so big. But hundreds of years ago, cities did indeed disappear. Some were mysteriously abandoned. Many cities were destroyed because of violent wars. Others were deserted because of famine or disease.

Whatever the reason, complete cities disappeared, abandoned by all who once lived there. Some were lost to the swirling yellow sands of the desert, others vanished into the cold blue depths of the oceans, and still others disappeared behind green walls of thick-growing jungle plants. According to author Sue Hamilton, stories and rumors are all that remain of these once-thriving places.

Some lost cities have been rediscovered. Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, was found in 1911. Perched high on a mountain ridge in Peru, its buildings and streets are now filled with archaeologists, researchers, and historians, all trying to find out exactly what happened to this city and its people. Other places remain out of reach. Even today, researchers and treasure hunters seek the legendary underwater city of Atlantis. From the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean Sea, they continue searching for this sunken city. Lost Cities asks: But did Atlantis ever really exist? Is El Dorado out there – a city of gold waiting to be found? Or is it only a legend? Lost Cities discusses these lost cities:          

  • Atlantis: The City Under the Sea      
  • Camelot: King Arthur's Castle-City  
  • El Dorado: The City of Gold
  • Shangri-La: Where Life is Perfect     
  • Ubar: Atlantis of the Sands   
  • Yonaguni: Real or Myth?      

Lost Cities also contains a glossary and index.

Other books in the Unsolved Mysteries series include:

  • Air & Sea Mysteries
  • Creatures of the Abyss
  • Ancient Astronauts
  • The Bermuda Triangle
  • Monsters of Mystery

These little 32 page books, aimed at children ages 9-12, feature full-color photographs, full-color maps, quotations, and an index. This unique series with interesting unsolved mysteries, as in Lost Cities, will fascinate readers of all ages. With adult themes, they would also work for adult literacy classes.

Children’s (Grades 7-9) / Biography / Political

Nancy Pelosi (Political Profiles) (Library Binding) by Sandra Shichtman (Morgan Reynolds Publishing)

As told by Sandra H. Shichtman, former teacher and editor, in Nancy Pelosi, a book aimed at the middle-school audience, Pelosi grew up surrounded by politics. Her father, Thomas D'Alesandro, served five terms in Congress, and three as the mayor of Baltimore. As a child, Nancy helped him campaign.

Pelosi seemed destined for a political career herself, but instead chose the path of marriage and family. However, she never strayed far from her interest in politics: even as she raised five children, Pelosi worked tirelessly as a volunteer for the Democratic Party, raising money and spreading awareness about Democratic candidates.

It wasn't until all of her children were grown and she was in her late forties that Pelosi accepted a dying friend's request to take over her seat as a representative for California in the United States House of Representatives. Though she was an inexperienced and unseasoned politician, Pelosi drew from her life in the political world and won the election. Soon, she rose to become one of the most powerful people in the House of Representatives and made history when she became the first woman elected to serve as the Speaker of the House. All the while, she held onto values and family and never strayed far from the lessons taught to her as a child growing up in Baltimore.

Shichtman sets Nancy Pelosi in the near present: January 4, 2007, which fell on a Thursday, was hardly an ordinary Thursday in the Congress of the United States. The Democratic Party had taken control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives as a result of the elections the previous November. On January 4th, the 110th Congress gathered in Washington, D.C. to swear in their leaders. The floor was filled with the members of both houses. The galleries were packed with their families and friends as well as invited members of the public. Representative Pelosi of California was sworn in as Speaker of the House, the most important position in American government follow­ing the president and the vice-president. For Representative Pelosi it was the culmination of a long political career.

In accepting the position, Pelosi told the Congress and the American people, "This is an historic moment. It's an his­toric moment for the Congress. It's an historic moment for the women of America. It is a moment for which we have waited for over 200 years."

Author Shichtman in Nancy Pelosi says that Pelosi had come a long way from her beginnings in Baltimore, Maryland, but she still retained the values she had learned as a child living at home.

Nancy’s father Tommy D'Alesandro served five terms as a U.S. congressman. In 1947, he was elected mayor of Baltimore and served three terms. By that time he was married and the father of six children. Seven-year-old Nancy stood beside her father as he took the oath of office. She recalled an incident that took place when her parents took her to a voting place for the first time. A worker for the Republican Party saw little Nancy and gave her a toy elephant (the elephant is the symbol of the Republican Party). Nancy quickly gave it back. "He thinks I don't know what this is. I was offended. In our family, it was about whose side are you on; the whole idea of work­ing for families and the opportunity they had," she explained later.

Nancy Pelosi tells how during their father's reelection campaigns, the D'Alesandro children stuffed envelopes with letters appealing for votes. The letters included reminders of what favors the mayor had done for them in the past and suggested that they could return the favor by voting for the mayor. It was here that young Nancy learned how the game of politics was played.

Nancy Pelosi tells the story from a point of view emphasizing family values, the female point of view, Pelosi’s Italian and Catholic heritage, growing up in the midst of politics and rooted in the New Deal values of service to others. It shows how Pelosi was able to achieve her position through the support of family and community. It should be an inspiration to many, boys and girls alike.

Computers & Internet / Education / Research / Reference

Beyond the Internet: Successful Research Strategies by Barbara A. Chernow (Bernan Press)

Whatever their interests, researchers need to diver­sify their resources and go Beyond the Internet. Author Barbara Chernow, historian, encyclopedist, and reference book editor, challenges the perception that the Internet is a complete research tool. Although the Internet offers a seemingly limitless array of information, cyberspace does not provide all the resources one needs to learn about all subjects. Beyond the Internet reminds researchers, librarians, teachers, parents, and students that the vast majority of material in libraries and archives is not digitized nor will it be in the foreseeable future. This includes documents, and government records that provide the thread that links our past to our present, allowing us to reach back into history, studying memoirs and correspondence.

Beyond the Internet also explores the difference be­tween acquiring facts that answer a specific question and the process of analytical think­ing that goes into accessing and assessing nonelectronic documents. The issue is not what readers cannot find on the Internet, which is a wonderful resource, but what they miss if they only consult the Internet. Serendipitous finds and new interpretations based on pre­viously unknown sources require research in original materials.

Chernow, adjunct assistant professor of publishing at New York University, uses research challenges culled from her own work in American history and as a reference book editor to illustrate the different research resources described. These real-world anecdotes lend a personal element to the practical advice contained in the chapters. These challenges cover such diverse subjects as the Reynolds Affair, America’s first scandal involving charges of insider information and sexual misconduct, the Whiskey Rebellion, the creation of the fifth edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia, a personal search for family history, and interviews with librarians and scholars.

According to Beyond the Internet, if readers want to understand the origins of ter­rorism, study war tactics, or appreciate the culture of the Middle East, they need to con­sult original correspondence and documents. If they want to reverse an educational policy that is ‘dumbing down’ America, teachers and parents need to provide the next gen­eration with knowledge of all the sources available to them. Students must also learn the skills necessary to access these sources, so they can make informed decisions about everything from their personal health to selecting a presidential candidate to forming opinions on the war in Iraq to social security and educational policy.

The skills taught in Beyond the Internet have broad application in better evaluating events in our world today. Chernow shows how to access sources that broaden our understanding of issues; for example, the failure to understand the people of Iraq – their culture, history, and geography – has significantly contributed to the failure of U.S. policy. Another example is understanding the arguments surrounding changes to the Electoral College.

What a delight young researchers are missing if they don’t take their fill from the granaries of libraries – books, manuscripts, journals, archives, collections, correspondence, photographs. By comparison the Internet is as intellectually scant as People magazine. Read Beyond the Internet and learn how to make the knowledge of the ages yours! – Charles J. Shields, best-selling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee

Beyond the Internet presents an informative and entertaining read with useful tips and techniques on how to utilize a wide range of available resources to enrich the research experience and expand and enhance research findings. Real world anecdotes culled from the author's years researching American history add a personal element to complement the practical advice. Chernow`s insider tips and techniques for developing research skills apply to anyone searching for infor­mation, including professionals, teachers, researchers, scholars, students, and general readers.

Computers & the Internet / Programming / Business & Investing / Entertainment / Education / Design & Development / Training

Game Development Essentials: Game Simulation Development (with DVD) by William Muehl & Jeannie Novak (Thomson Delmar Learning)

As an increasing number of Fortune 500 companies, as well as educational and governmental heavyweights take notice of the potential usefulness of game simulations for training, the demand for developers who can skillfully integrate educational tasks with gaming features is increasing dramatically.

Game Simulation Development provides an in-depth look at how games are using a variety of different simulations to incorporate educational and training-based elements. By investigating a wide range of successful games, the book offers critical knowledge regarding why certain game simulations are effective in each genre. Game Simulation Development also explores the ways expert developers consider how players respond to visual, aural, and tactile feedback to make the simulation as convincing and immersive as possible. Additional coverage includes intrinsic and extrinsic knowledge, constructivist theory, social interaction and lateral learning, and how these principles apply to game simulation development.
Authors are William Muehl and Jeannie Novak. Muehl, formerly Development Director for the central animation, cinema, audio, character, environment, concept, and user interface departments, is Senior Producer at Midway’s headquarters in Chicago, where he facilitates the development of globally shared technology, art, and design initiatives across six studios and multiple game teams. Novak, with extensive experience as a game instructor and course developer, is Lead Author and Series Editor of Thomson's Game Development Essentials series and Academic Program Director of the Game Art & Design and Media Arts & Animation programs at the Art Institute Online. Through Indiespace Novak consults with creative professionals in the music, film, and television industries to help them migrate to the game industry.

The book’s coverage of simulations extends to multiple industries, demonstrating the full range of game simulations beyond entertainment. It features full-color screenshots and detailed illustrations. Real-world development challenges and strategies give aspiring game developers an opportunity to apply what they learn. Interviews with industry experts and informative case studies enhance the learning experience. The companion DVD includes game engines, 3D modeling and animation software, documentation, game demos, and articles.

Game Simulation Development is loaded with content and follows a meaningful line of recent publications by Novak in this field. The book includes highly appropriate contributions by industry professionals. Each chapter is well organized and concludes with excellent chapter summaries that promote critical thinking. – Brad Anderson, Chair, Department of Art & Division of Fine Arts, Kansas Wesleyan University

Game Simulation Development is a timely book providing a well-rounded resource for aspiring game developers. For the first time, professional and aspiring game developers have a comprehensive, in-depth resource, complete with hands-on experience, that goes beyond the entertainment-focused aspects of game simulation to delve into its escalating impact on the outside worlds of business, education, and training.

Cooking, Food & Wine

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food (How to Cook Everything) by Mark Bittman (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)

Hailed as ‘a more hip Joy of Cooking’ by the Washington Post, Mark Bittman's award-winning book How to Cook Everything has become the bible for a new generation of home cooks, and the series has more than 1 million copies in print. Known for simple recipes, great-tasting food, and straight-shooting advice, Bittman has inspired a new generation of cooks. Now Bittman has written a guide to meatless meals – a book that for everyone who wants to cook simple but delicious meatless dishes, from health-conscious omnivores to passionate vegetarians.
Everyone knows a diet that includes a lot of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes is healthier than one that doesn't. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is the cookbook with the potential to make vegetarian cooking accessible to everyone. The book includes more than 2,000 recipes and variations – far more than any other vegetarian cookbook. As always, Bittman's recipes are straightforward and unfussy – producing dishes that home cooks can prepare with ease and serve with confidence. The book covers the whole spectrum of meatless cooking – including salads, soups, eggs and dairy, vegetables and fruit, pasta, grains, legumes, tofu and other meat substitutes, breads, condiments, desserts, and beverages. Special icons identify recipes that can be made in 30 minutes or less and in advance, as well as those that are vegan. The book is illustrated throughout with line drawings and brimming with Bittman's opinionated advice on everything from selecting vegetables to preparing pad Thai. And throughout the book, charts, sidebars, and lists give readers ideas and tips for everything from spicing up tomato sauce to grilling vegetables.
Bittman says, "I wrote this book to convince everyone (and to be sure, me) to increase the proportion of plant-based foods in our diets." How to Cook Everything Vegetarian shows cooks how vegetarian meals can be delicious, simple to make, easy to vary, and enjoyable to explore. To name just a few of the dishes readers will find inside: Cherry Tomato Salad with Soy Sauce, Rich Zucchini Soup, Pan-Grilled Corn with Chile, Eggplant-Tofu Stir-Fry, Pasta with Caramelized Onions, Lentils and Potatoes with Curry, and Breakfast Polenta ‘Pizza.’ The variety of options with many of the recipes is remarkable. For example, with the Essential Bean Salad recipe, there are seven variations including Italian, Japanese, or Indian flavorings. With Butternut Squash, Braised and Glazed, there are six variations, including with Coconut Milk and Curry or with Saffron and Almonds. With Vegetable Lasagna there are White, Pesto, and Vegan variations.

… a wealth of recipes that don't scream vegetarian and plentiful guidelines to make cooking vegetarian as intuitive as cooking with meat. Like his now classic How to Cook Everything, this book opens with terrifically useful, straightforward discussions of essential ingredients, appliances and techniques, which Bittman builds on throughout in to-the-point sidebars and illustrated boxes. The recipes flow thick and fast in his theme-and-variations style: … New vegetarians and vegetarians cooking for omnivores will appreciate Bittman's avoidance of faux meat products in favor of flavorful high-protein dishes like Braised Tofu in Caramel Sauce and Béchamel Burgers with Nuts. Even owners of the original book will find much new to savor while benefiting from Bittman's remarkable ability to teach foundational skills and encourage innovation with them, which will help even longtime vegetarians freshen their repertory. – Publishers Weekly (starred review)

An essential purchase for all cookery collections. – Library Journal, starred review

Mark Bittman's category lock on definitive, massive food tomes continues with this well-thought-out ode to the garden and beyond. Combining deep research, tasty information, and delicious easy-to-cook recipes is Mark's forte and everything I want to cook is in here, from chickpea fries to cheese soufflés. – Mario Batali, chef, author, and entrepreneur

How do you make an avid meat eater (like me) fall in love with vegetarian cooking? Make Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian part of your culinary library. – Bobby Flay, chef/owner of Mesa Grill and Bar Americain and author of the Mesa Grill Cookbook

Recipes that taste this good aren't supposed to be so healthy. Mark Bittman makes being a vegetarian fun. – Dr. Mehmet Oz, Professor of Surgery, New York Presbyterian/Columbia Medical Center and coauthor of You: The Owner's Manual

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is packed with an unprecedented number of ways for readers to enjoy satisfying meals without missing the meat. Bittman delivers the ultimate guide to meatless meals – this masterwork is comprehensive, authoritative, contemporary, and approachable – a book that sets a new standard and finally makes vegetarian food accessible to every home cook. Written not only for vegetarians but for those who – like Bittman himself – are omnivores striving for a more health-conscious, planet-friendly diet, it provides everything readers need to build meals around delicious meatless recipes. And because he is a self-taught home cook, not a restaurant chef, his recipes are straightforward, resolutely unfussy, and unfailingly delicious – dishes that readers can prepare with ease and serve with confidence. Like all of Bittman's work, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is thorough and particularly accessible; much work has gone into making the wealth of information, ideas, and recipes as easy to use as possible. This is a book that cooks will use often, rave to friends about, and buy as a gift.

Education / Creativity

A Handbook of Creative Learning Activities (Spiral-bound) by Steve Bowkett (Network Continuum)

A Handbook of Creative Learning Activities is a hands-on manual for stimulating creative thinking, talking and writing in the classroom. It combines recent ideas of educational importance – such as multiple intelligence theory, emotional intelligence and preferential learning styles – with strategies for implementing these concepts via a range of practical activities. These can be used throughout the curriculum and across a wide age-range with children of all abilities.

The book outlines a model of the mind that incorporates recent findings in brain research with activities to promote learning and creativity. It explores the nature of creative thinking and how it can be effectively driven through an ethos of positive encouragement, mutual support and celebration of success and achievement. It links content and process within the learning environment and addresses the emotional components of the educational experience, and how these can be optimized to enhance self-esteem and confidence in the learner.

Author Stephen Bowkett, who taught English for 18 years in Leicestershire High Schools is now a full-time writer and trainer. Bowkett has arranged A Handbook of Creative Learning Activities into a number of broad sections. Each section contains activities which teachers can use on a stand alone basis. Some activities take just a few minutes, providing stimulus games or warm up sessions. Others are more elaborate: they need preparation and could last for a number of lessons or time slots. The main value of the activities, however, is in using them in combination and in a wide range of subject areas. This will help teachers to develop their pupils' creative thinking across the curriculum.

The activities, designed for use in the British educational system, link strongly with English language study. A Handbook of Creative Learning Activities provides pupils with a wide range of opportunities to develop their English reading skills. The book is also compatible with the speaking and listening programs of study and provides opportunities for different modes of writing. The activities also have clear links with drama and personal and social education. In addition, they are relevant to the curriculum requirements of other subjects – they can develop the use and application of mathematics, help learners investigate scientific knowledge, and help them discover the characteristics of materials in design and technology. The activities can develop pupils' awareness of chronology and change in history; provide motivating techniques to investigate places and themes in geography; and enhance visual literacy in art.

The Activities/National Curriculum matrix provides examples of how the activities can be used when teaching the National Curriculum (British). Of course, teachers will develop their own repertoire of favorite techniques to use with their learners and apply these across the curriculum. For example, a dice journey can be used to explore a medieval village, trace the life cycle of flowering plants, track the course of a river from source to estuary, and create a narrative story.

The following will help teachers make the most of A Handbook of Creative Learning Activities:

  • Equipment and Techniques. The introduction contains a section outlining some of the equipment teachers will need and some of the basic teaching and classroom organization techniques which underpin the book.
  • The Sections. Bowkett divides A Handbook of Creative Learning Activities into sections, each one containing activities which relate to the overall theme of the section. He has also provided an introduction for each section, which considers the benefits and potential uses of the activities.
  • The Activities. Each activity consists of a basic/core activity plus suggestions for extension and variation. Links with other activities in the book are also listed.
  • Practicalities Box. Each activity has a Practicalities Box which provides at-a-glance information about organizing the activity: grouping the students; how much time teachers will need; equipment required; and any other important points they need to know before they begin.

At the back of the book is a section aimed at teachers. The section gives them a chance to develop their own creative thinking skills through a series of tasks and activities.

According to Bowkett, ideas happen because we want them to. Ideas seem to come from some place other than the intellectual conscious part of the mind; and they are accompanied by powerful emotions that have a lot to do with the motivation required to see that idea through to completion. He says he spent many years relying on the Muse before he came across a simple, effective and verifiable model of the mind that accounted for all the characteristics of what he calls the Ping Process – wanting ideas, having lots of them, and turning the most useful ones into finished projects: stories, poems, pieces of non-fiction, or the best way to use up the scraps of food left in the fridge.

For Bowkett, creative thinking boils down to ways of opening up the channels of communication between the conscious and subconscious parts of the mind. The Ping Process involves a large and vital emotional component – creative thinking necessarily needs to be fun. Once that link is established, creativity and enjoyment will feed each other beneficially, leading in the end to the more valuable emotional rewards of increased confidence and self-esteem, satisfaction, pride-in-achievement, and a deep sense of fulfillment based on individual endeavor.

The point also needs to be made that the content of any subject or area of knowledge is of little use unless it is fuel to feed the fire of creative thought. That creative thought, in an ideal world, would be independent and energetic, the property of the individual: it would be judged by the individual, partly on its ‘fun factor’, but more lastingly on its usefulness in furthering the understanding of the thinker. It would not be manipulated or otherwise controlled by outside 'authorities' unless such input respected the principles of the Ping Process and the uniqueness of the individual.

Bowkett asserts that children will do their best (in all senses of the word) if the facts they are fed mean something to them personally, and if the process of meaning-making is an enjoyable one. Those aims are not beyond the scope or abilities of any teacher or parent reading A Handbook of Creative Learning Activities, and the activities in the book go a long way towards achieving them. The book is an imaginative and creative handbook, a user friendly manual providing a straightforward and workable model for teaching creativity using a variety of powerful activities. Teachers will find that by using the book regularly, the techniques will become second nature and the ability to think creatively will develop rapidly. What teachers will especially value is the degree of pupil engagement which the activities generate. This leads to the pupils remaining on task, and when pupils are on task, the quality of their learning is enhanced.

Education / Early Childhood

Easy Daily Plans: Over 250 Plans for Preschool Teachers (Early Childhood Education) by Sue Fleischmann (Gryphon House)

Learning takes place throughout the day in preschool – from the time the children hang up their coats in the morning to the end of the day when they reconnect with their families.

Children are active learners who learn by doing, and active learning allows children to explore and solve problems in their own way.

Aimed at teachers, Easy Daily Plans contains daily plans with developmentally appropriate activities for young children. The book is written by Sue Fleishmann, who taught for 15 years in a Birth to Three Program and was a Child and Family Specialist in a National Center of Excellence Head Start.

Organized by month, this grab-and-use curriculum has over 250 daily plans that teachers can use to plan enriching activities for young children. The book is organized by month, beginning in September. Listed at the front of each chapter are month-long celebrations (such as National Strawberry Month), week-long celebrations (such as National Pet Week), special days (Thomas Edison's birthday, for example), holidays (such as Cinco de Mayo), and general daily plans.

Each lesson plan in Easy Daily Plans is complete with:

  • An opening group time activity.
  • Story time book suggestions.
  • Center activities for a variety of centers, including art, blocks, dramatic play, music, fine motor skills, science, math and literacy skills.
  • Extension activities, such as small group activities, games, outdoor activities, snack suggestions, and additional center activities.

Each daily plan includes a Story Time book list, Group Time activity, and Learning Center Ideas. Additional activities for rhythm and rhyme, small group, projects, outdoor experiences, movement, and games are included throughout the book. Transition and snack ideas are also included in many plans. All of the activities encourage children to improve listening skills, increase vocabulary, follow directions, develop oral and written language skills, cooperate in a group setting, work on fine and gross motor skills, and develop new skills in the content areas. It is simple for teachers to choose the plans that they wish to do that month, read them, collect the necessary supplies, and get started.

The activities are open ended so it is possible to adjust them to suit the range of ages and abilities of the children in the classroom. The daily plans are appropriate for many types of programs, including preschools, Head Start programs, cooperatives, home school programs, and family day care programs.

New or experienced teachers can add energy and excitement to the classroom using the unique ideas in Easy Daily Plans. Supplying a complete year’s worth of daily plans, the book is perfect for busy teachers and caregivers to grab and use. The ideas are creative, fun, and easy to implement.

Education / Test Guides / Statistics / Advanced Placement

Barron's AP Statistics 2008 with CD-ROM, 4th Edition by Martin Sternstein (Barron’s)

FACT: The number of students who take a statistics course in college will soon surpass the number who take a calculus course.

Barron's AP Statistics 2008, written by Martin Sternstein, Professor of Mathematics, Ithaca College, is a test guide to help students prepare for the advanced placement statistics examination.

Six full-length Advanced Placement (AP) practice statistics exams are presented in this manual. Barron's AP Statistics 2008 provides Sternstein’s 15-chapter topic review, which covers everything students will encounter on the actual exam. Topics for review are divided into four general themes: Exploratory Analysis, Planning a Study, Probability, and Statistical Inference. Additional multiple-choice and free-response questions with answers are presented at the end of all 15 chapters. Detailed appendices include exam-taking advice, an AP scoring guide, and a guide to basic uses of TI-83/TI-84 calculators. This version of the manual comes with an enclosed CD-ROM containing two additional full-length practice exams, thus giving students a total of eight practice exams.

The contents of Barron's AP Statistics 2008 cover the topics recommended by the AP Stati­stics Development Committee. Detailed explanations are provided for all answers. Some of the topic questions are not typical AP exam questions but rather are intended to help review the topic. The six full-length practice exams are made up of 276 questions, all with instruc­tive, complete answers. The two new, fell-length exams (with 92 more questions) on the CD-ROM come with answers, full explanations, and automatic scoring of the multiple-choice questions.

Barron's AP Statistics 2008 includes plentiful guidance on test taking. For example, students taking the AP Statistics Examination will be furnished with a list of for­mulas (from descriptive statistics, probability, and inferential statistics) and tables (including standard normal probabilities, t-distribution critical values, χ2 critical val­ues, and random digits). While students will be expected to bring a graphing calcu­lator with statistics capabilities to the examination, answers should not be in terms of calculator syntax. Many students have commented that calculator usage was less than they had anticipated. However, even though the calculator is sim­ply a tool, to be used sparingly, as needed, students should be proficient with this technology.

The official examination consists of two parts: a 90-minute section with 40 multiple-choice problems and a 90-minute free-response section with five open-ended questions and an investigative task to complete. In grading, the two sections of the exam are given equal weight. Students have remarked that the first section involves ‘lots of reading,’ while the second section involves ‘lots of writing.’ The percentage of questions from each content area is approximately 25% data analysis, 15% experi­mental design, 25% probability, and 35% inference. Questions in both sections may involve reading generic computer output.

Sternstein advises students that a correction factor compensates for random guessing in the multiple-choice sec­tion; however, students should guess if they can eliminate even one incorrect choice.

As explained in Barron's AP Statistics 2008, multiple-choice questions are scored as the number of correct answers minus one-quarter the number of incorrect answers. Blank answers are ignored. Free-response questions are scored on a 0 to 4 scale, with each open-ended question counting 15% of the total free-response score and the investigative task counting 25% of the free-response score. The first open-ended question is typically the most straightforward, and after doing this one to build confidence, students might consider looking at the investigative task since it counts more. Each completed AP examination paper will receive a grade based on a 5-point scale, with 5 the highest score and 1 the lowest score. Most colleges and universities accept a grade of 3 or better for credit or advanced placement or both.

A good piece of advice according to Sternstein is for students from day one to develop critical practices (like checking assumptions and conditions), to acquire strong technical skills, and to always write clear and thorough, yet to the point, interpretations in context. Final answers to most problems should not be numbers, but rather sentences explaining and analyzing numerical results. To help develop skills and insights to tackle AP free response questions (which often choose contexts students haven't seen before), the book advises students to pick up newspapers and magazines and figure out how to apply what you are learning to better understand articles in print that reference numbers, graphs, and statistical studies.

Students who use Barron's AP Statistics 2008 should study the text and illustra­tive examples carefully and try to complete the practice problems before referring to the solution keys. Simply reading the detailed explanations to the answers without first striving to work through the problems on one's own is not the best approach. Teachers clearly may use this book with a class in many profitable ways. Ideally, each individual topic review, together with practice problems, should be assigned after the topic has been covered in class. The full-length practice exams should be reserved for final review shortly before the AP examination.

Barron's AP Statistics 2008 fully prepares students for the exam – there’s no other way to say it – with eight, count them, eight, practice exams. Multiple full-length practice exams are complete with all questions answered and fully explained. Equally valuable to prospective test takers is Sternstein’s topic review, covering virtually everything they will encounter on the actual exam. Practice, practice and more practice. The book is especially strong in the area of free response questions.

While a review book such as Barron's AP Statistics 2008 can be extremely useful in helping prepare stu­dents for the AP exam, nothing can substitute for a good high school teacher and a good textbook.

Health, Mind & Body / Psychology & Counseling

Attachment and Sexuality edited by Diana Diamond, Sidney J. Blatt, & Joseph D. Lichtenberg (Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series, Volume 21: The Analytic Press)

The papers featured in Attachment and Sexuality create a dense tapestry, each forming a separate narrative strand that elucidates different configurations of the relationship between attachment and sexuality.

As a whole, the book explores the areas of convergence and divergence, opposition, and integration between these two systems. Attachment and Sexuality suggests that there is a bi-directional web of influences that weaves the attachment and sexual systems together in increasingly complex ways from infancy to adulthood. Editors are Diana Diamond, associate professor in the doctoral program in clinical psychology, City University of New York and adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry, Department of Psy­chiatry, Weill Medical Center, Cornell University; Sidney J. Blatt, professor of psychiatry and psychology, Yale University and chief of the psychology section, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine; and Joseph Lichtenberg, practicing psychoanalyst in Wash­ington and editor-in-chief of Psychoanalytic Inquiry.

Contributors include Massimo Ammaniti, Anna Buchheim, Morris Eagle, Carol George, Jeremy Holmes, Horst Kachele, Alicia Lieberman, Mario Mikulincer, Giampaolo Nicolais, Phillip Shaver, Robin Silverman, Anna Maria Speranza, Maria St. John, Lissa Weinstein, and Frank Yeomans.

The papers in Attachment and Sexuality investigate the myriad ways in which sexuality may consolidate, converge, or conflict with attachment relationships and may foster or curtail attachment security at different developmental points. Each contributor in his or her own way attempts to locate sexual and attachment processes and their corresponding internal repre­sentations ‘in one history they both express, which is that of the social existence of a developing self’.

The unifying thread of Attachment and Sexuality is the idea that the attachment system, and particularly the degree of felt security, or lack thereof, in relation to early attachment figures provides a paradigm of relatedness that forms a scaffold for the developmental unfolding of sexuality in all its manifestations. Such manifestations include infantile and adult, masturbatory and mutual, and normative and perverse. Also central to the papers is the idea that the development of secure attachment is predicated, in part, on the development of the capacity for mentalization, or the ability to envision and interpret the behavior of oneself and others in terms of intentional mental states, including desires, feelings, beliefs, and motivations.

In his paper, "Attachment and Sexuality," Eagle stipulates that the integration of attachment and sexuality is a developmental challenge, most likely to be successfully negotiated by those with secure attach­ment organization. Those with insecure attachment organization are more likely to rigidly segregate passion and attachment (in the case of those with avoidant attachment), or to confuse the two (in the case of those with ambivalent attachment). In these formulations, Eagle introduces conflict back into attachment theory in that he sees attachment and sexuality as not only functionally separate behavioral systems, but also as mutually antagonistic, particularly in men. He reinterprets the split between love and desire observed by Freud to the split between attachment and sexuality, which he hypothesizes has an evolutionary root. Drawing on studies in anthropology, neurobi­ology, and ethology, Eagle traces the process by which romantic love is divided into adult pair bonding on the one hand and erotic passion on the other. Eagle explores how the consolidation of secure versus insecure attachment not only allows for the integration of passion and attach­ment over time, but also establishes specific pathways for oedipal resolution or lack of it.

Mikulincer and Shaver, in their paper "A Behavioral Systems Perspective on the Psychodynamics of Attachment and Sexuality," as did Eagle, apply an attachment theoretical framework to their investigations of sexual and romantic relationships in adults. They view the attachment behavioral system, and specifically the anchoring of attachment security, as the foundation for the development of mutually satisfying intimate relationships. The authors present an impressive number of empirical stud­ies, in which show that individuals with secure attachment status are more likely to experience pleasurable positive feelings and to take a more playful and exploratory attitude toward sex. By contrast, those with insecure ambivalent attachment status tend to subordinate their sexual needs and desires to the quest for attachment security. Mikulincer and Shaver also take on the thorny issue of how oedipal conflict and resolution may vary in individuals with different attach­ment organization with a set of ground-breaking studies.

In Ammaniti, Nicolais, and Speranza's paper, "Attachment and Sexuality During Adolescence: Interaction, Integration, or Inter­ference," the authors apply both research and clinical investiga­tions to explore the linkages between attachment organization and sexual maturation and development in adolescence. Ammaniti and colleagues observe that there is often an initial period of sexual experimentation in adolescence, after which sexual behavior seems to be patterned after attachment status. Those with secure attachment have the internal solidity and freedom to seek out and maintain committed sexual relationships that integrate affec­tion and sexuality. Avoidant adolescents, on the other hand, either shun sexual encounters altogether or seek out casual exploitative sex, while ambivalent adolescents have trouble maintaining rela­tionships, although they perpetually seek them out. Ammaniti and colleagues observe that the mores of the peer group may override the state of mind with respect to attachment in motivating adolescents' behavior, "especially when in the peer group, adolescents engage in risky behaviors that impact on the pleasure and reward brain related systems". Ammaniti and colleagues' clinical analyses of interviews yielded some similarities in mother-daughter dynamics across the genera­tions, including unresolved issues around mourning and separation in the mothers vis-à-vis their own family of origin, that were not evident in the research classification. This disjunction between the clinical and research analysis of the interview illustrates that sometimes overall attachment classification provides delimitation for a more dynamic clinical exploration of the interview.

Weinstein's paper, "When Sexuality Reaches Beyond the Pleasure Principle: Attachment, Repetition, and Infantile Sexuality," like Ammaniti and colleagues' paper, investigates how both infan­tile sexuality and attachment serve the function of regulating and channeling bodily needs and excitement. Although the attachment system patterns bodily imperatives through the responsiveness of the other, the sexual system, particularly in its infantile version, does so through idiosyncratic fantasies that are by-products of the psychic awakening of endogenous excitement, experienced as part of the self. Most important in Weinstein's view, attachment relationships may determine the set point for the child's tolerance for intimacy, dependency, and mutuality in intimate relationships. In Weinstein's view, theory and research on the attachment systems do not in the end explicate the arena of fantasy, bodily experience, and shifting identifications between self and other that contribute to the enduring mystery and creativity of sexuality.

Holmes, in his paper, "Sense and Sensuality: Hedonic Intersub­jectivity and the Erotic Imagination," emphasizes less the creative tensions between attachment and sexuality, than the areas of creative overlap between the two. At the intersec­tion of attachment and sexuality is an arena that he terms ‘hedonic intersubjectivity’ that encompasses the pleasurable, playful, sensual aspects of attachment bonds and their rootedness in both mutually gratifying physical exchanges between child and caregiver and in flights of erotic imagining. Holmes makes the point that not only does bodily pleasure cement secure attachment, but secure attachment renders such physical transactions gratifying. Further, Holmes stipulates that such a secure base, based on gratifying physical exchanges, provides the platform not only for the emergence of infantile sexuality with its associated wishes and fantasies, but also of adult intersubjective sexuality, which enables the individual to give free rein to creative exploration with the partner, to share in the plea-sure of one's attachment figure, and to integrate erotic imagining into the ongoing sexual relationship.

Most compelling is Holmes's portrayal of the ways in which the transference in three cases becomes the arena in which both psychosexual and attachment histories converge. In the paper by Buchheim, George, and Kaechele, "’My Dog Is Dying Today’: Attachment Narratives and Psychoanalytic Interpre­tation of an Initial Interview," the authors investigate the areas of overlap and divergence between attachment and sexuality as it plays out in the transference-countertransference relationship in one particular case of a severely disturbed female, with a history of depressive breakdown, somatization, and conflictual, broken relationships with men. Certain ambiguous features of her presentation led the analyst to do a more formal research evaluation with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). The data obtained from the AAI, which revealed a classification of ‘unresolved’ with respect to loss of the father, provided a route to understanding some of the patient's enigmatic verbalizations and behaviors in the sessions. The authors found that the formal AAI classification in fact contradicted both the initial clinical reading of the interview and the initial assessment of the patients' attachment state of mind based on her presentation in sessions and the ther­apist's countertransference responses to it – the AAI revealed the existence of ‘segregated systems’ in the patient characterized by her inability to integrate multiple, disparate rep­resentations of her father as alternately seductive, threatening, and rejecting.

In the paper by Lieberman, St. John, and Silverman, "Passionate Attachments and Parental Exploitations of Dependency in Infancy and Early Childhood," the authors find in the infant's dependency, a concept that bridges the attach­ment and sexual systems. They insist that sexuality and aggression are inextricably intertwined with the attachment system, and that failure to theo­rize the relationships among these aspects of the infant experience has limited the extent to which attachment theory can be consid­ered a comprehensive personality theory. They state that certain manifestations of perversion can best be understood as "sequelae of dependency expe­riences that are repudiated within the attachment relationship.... The pervert cannot act on his own; he needs another person, someone he can use for his own purposes, exploit and destroy".

In the paper by Diamond and Yeomans, "Oedipal Love and Con­flict in the Transference/Countertransference Matrix: Its Impact on Attachment Security and Mentalization," the authors illustrate how attachment and oedipal/sexual themes are often condensed and intermixed in borderline patients. They present data from the AAI, which assesses attachment state of mind with respect to parental figures and is given to borderline patients at the beginning of a psychodynamic treatment. They provide empirical evidence for the idea that psychic representations of preoedipal conflicts are condensed with sexual/oedipal phase representations in patients with severe personality disorders. This condensation predisposes borderline patients to either severe inhibition in their access to erotic fantasy and sexual expression, or overt and persistent erot­icization in the transference and the lingering of oedipal illusions. The authors stipulate that the waning emphasis on the centrality of oedipal conflicts, particularly in the case of the treatment of severely disturbed patients, has been accompanied by a renewed focus on the cognitive and symbolic processes that attend oedipal stage conflicts and their resolution.

In his discussion of the eight essays in Attachment and Sexuality, Lichtenberg in the final essay provides a coherent, and comprehensive metanarrative of how attachment and sexuality are conceptualized theoretically and explored empirically and in compelling clinical narratives in these papers. Lichtenberg's discussion incorporates the long tradition of psychoanalytic knowledge gleaned from the unfold­ing of data about sexuality in the clinical situation and integrates it with attachment concepts. His discussion not only provides a more comprehensive view of the integration of the attachment and sexual systems, but also raises questions about the limitations of such integration. Although playfulness, explo­ration, curiosity, and sharing are expressions of secure attachment, in Lichtenberg's view, the papers in Attachment and Sexuality may tend to underestimate their role in the development of sexuality in adolescence and beyond.

Historically, attachment theory and research have been weakest in their consideration of the role of sexuality in the formation and disruption of attachment bonds, hence this volume fills a significant theoretical gap. Unique in its integration of detailed clinical material and empirical studies.... Attachment and Sexuality is destined to take its place as a classic in the widening literature on the intersection of psychoanalytic thought and attachment research. – Otto F. Kernberg, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College, Cornell University

Until this book, attachment perspectives have not so clearly addressed romantic love and those sexual passions and drives that are equally core to human need across the lifespan. Each of the authors brings a clinically and scholarly rich integration of how passionate love and en-during love are necessarily woven together in all human relationships. This volume will soon be essential reading for all who work clinically with attachment perspectives and it sets a very clear clinical research agenda for all attachment scholars wishing to move the field forward. – Linda C. Mayes, M.D., Arnold Gesell Professor, Yale Child Study Center

Diamond, Blatt and Lichtenberg have assembled a radical set of original chapters explor­ing the many links, and interdependencies, between sexuality and attachment. Emerging from this indispensable volume are important implications for theory and research in developmental, evolutionary and social psychology, as well as for clinical practice. This groundbreaking book is essential reading both for advanced students and scholars in the social sciences, as well as for clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts. – Howard Steele, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology, New School for Social Research

The papers in Attachment and Sexuality show that a multifaceted research effort that combines clinical and empirical approaches to the investigations of the intersection between attachment and sexu­ality is well under way. Further, the compelling case material in this volume, and particularly the depiction of the transference and countertransference dynamics, reveals the subjective experiences and psychic mechanisms associated with the integration of attach­ment and sexual systems that might otherwise remain obscure and unintelligible.

Although the papers pres­ent much research and clinical evidence for the ubiquitous influence of early attachment bonds on sexual relationships throughout the life cycle, they also suggest that in and out of the consulting room one sees that human sexuality cannot be reduced to that which is singularly influenced by attachment. The papers leave hanging the ques­tion about whether certain aspects of erotic experience (e.g., the excessive, irrational, enigmatic, transgressive, and subversive aspects of sexuality) are comprehensible within the attachment framework. These topics will no doubt form the basis for future explorations, and the papers in Attachment and Sexuality will help shape the direction and tenor of further dia­logues in the arena of attachment and sexuality.

Health, Mind & Body / Self-Help

The Elder Wisdom Circle Guide for a Meaningful Life: Seniors Across America Offer Advice to the Next Generations by Doug Meckelson & Diane Haithman (Plume)

  • How do I know my fiancé is ‘The One’?
  • How can I improve my relationship with my stepchild?
  • When should I talk to my child about sex?
  • How do I make time for spirituality in my overloaded schedule?
  • Should I accept a secure job even if it isn't my passion?

American seniors today seek to live more uniquely fulfilling lives than previous generations – whether by volunteering for political causes, sightseeing around the globe, or doling out advice in cyberspace. The Elder Wisdom Circle, via its popular website ElderWisdomCircle.org, embodies the adage, ‘age is wisdom’, putting advice seekers in touch with a network of ‘Cyber-Grandparents’, aged sixty to 105, who offer assistance on everything from love and relationships to family and work. The Elder Wisdom Circle is a group of volunteer senior citizens nationwide who offer sage advice for life's big and small moments.

In The Elder Wisdom Circle Guide for a Meaningful Life founder Doug Meckelson and Diane Haithman share a new collection of sage wisdom on an array of life's most universal and provocative questions. Meckelson, who climbed the corporate ladder for seventeen years within the financial services industry before he founded the Elder Wisdom Circle, and Haithman, a veteran staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, covering fine arts have compiled the material. The book is the result of a six-month project, where over sixty individual members, and nine groups across the country, answered letters from advice seekers on e