The People in a Girl's Life: How to Find Them, Better Understand Them and Keep Them (Dear Daughter)

Book Description

The population of women with special needs face unique challenges. Vulnerability, abuse and social isolation are common - leading to a much higher incidence of psychological problems, molestation and abuse. The Dear Daughter series guides challenged young women towards being better informed for safer, happier, more independent lives.

Dear Daughter Book 1, The People in A Girl's Life, presents social problems faced by adolescent girls and the additional problems that can surface if the young woman has special needs. Presented in a series of question and answer letters, this book tackles interfamily relations, friendship, relationships, and personal social skills. The issues raised are made easily accessible by the inclusion of boxes that summarize the letters and the highlighting of key issues within the letters. The author offers honest and sensible advice drawn from personal experience that she has gained from raising her daughter and years of teaching.

Not only useful for young women, this book provides an insight into problems that many adolescent girls face today and can serve as a starting point for discussion between parents and daughters about the sensitive issues of growing up.

Customer Reviews:

The People in a girl's Life.......2003-03-25

I THOUGHT THIS BOOK WAS NEAT BECAUSE IT TALKED ABOUT FEELINGS AND QUESTIONS THAT I HAD AS A SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD. THIS BOOK WOULD BE GOOD FOR FAMILIES WHO HAVE KIDS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS BECAUSE IT WILL HELP PARENTS UNDERSTAND THEIR KIDS FEELINGS AND FRUSTRATIONS.
A SPECIAL OLYMPIAN

Book Description

In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves.

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships.
But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment.
No identifying marks were visible on the submarine or the few artifacts brought to the surface. No historian, expert, or government had a clue as to which U-boat the men had found. In fact, the official records all agreed that there simply could not be a sunken U-boat and crew at that location.

Over the next six years, an elite team of divers embarked on a quest to solve the mystery. Some of them would not live to see its end. Chatterton and Kohler, at first bitter rivals, would be drawn into a friendship that deepened to an almost mystical sense of brotherhood with each other and with the drowned U-boat sailors–former enemies of their country. As the men’s marriages frayed under the pressure of a shared obsession, their dives grew more daring, and each realized that he was hunting more than the identities of a lost U-boat and its nameless crew.

Author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is at once thrilling and emotionally complex, and it is written with a vivid sense of what divers actually experience when they meet the dangers of the ocean’s underworld. The story of Shadow Divers often seems too amazing to be true, but it all happened, two hundred thirty feet down, in the deep blue sea.

From the Hardcover edition.

Download Description

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

Brielle, New Jersey, September 1991

Bill Nagle's life changed the day a fisherman sat beside him in a ramshackle bar and told him about a mystery he had found lying at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Against his better judgment, that fisherman promised to tell Nagle how to find it. The men agreed to meet the next day on the rickety wooden pier that led to Nagle's boat, the Seeker, a vessel Nagle had built to chase possibility. But when the appointed time came, the fisherman was not there. Nagle paced back and forth, careful not to plunge through the pier where its wooden planks had rotted away. He had lived much of his life on the Atlantic, and he knew when worlds were about to shift. Usually, that happened before a storm or when a man's boat broke. Today, however, he knew it was going to happen when the fisherman handed him a scrap of paper, a hand-scrawled set of numbers that would lead to the sunken mystery. Nagle looked into the distance for the fisherman. He saw no one. The salt air blew against the small seashore town of Brielle, tilting the dockside boats and spraying the Atlantic into Nagle's eyes. When the mist died down he looked again. This time, he saw the fisherman approaching, a small square of paper crumpled in his hands. The fisherman looked worried. Like Nagle, he had lived on the ocean, and he also knew when a man's life was about to change.

In the whispers of approaching autumn, Brielle's rouge is blown away and what remains is the real Brielle, the locals' Brielle. This small seashore town on the central New Jersey coast is the place where the boat captains and fishermen live, where convenience store owners stay open to serve neighbors, where fifth graders can repair scallop dredges. This is where the hangers-on and wannabes and also-rans and once-greats keep believing in the sea. In Brielle, when the customers leave, the town's lines show, and they are the kind grooved by the thin dif

Customer Reviews:

You Feel Like You Are There.......2007-10-05

Others have gone into detail about this book, and it is true. This book combines a mystery worthy of a Sherlock Holmes novel with the details of technical diving and written in such a gripping manner that it could be a work of pop fiction (not in a negative way, just that it flows so well and put together so well that it could have been made up, if that makes sense.)

And the author does a great job of not leaving you "hanging" with an abrupt ending.

Highly recommended and has set the bar for other books in this genre.

J ohn Sutphen MD, ex navy diver /submarine medical officer .......2007-09-21

Tantallizing and heart pounding tale based on incredibly researched information about u boats and diving with an accurate, simple description of practical diving, diving medicine and physiology.

Compulsion to know the answer........2007-09-13

A fascinating saga about 2 deep sea divers and their 6 year odyssey to uncover the identity of a sunken German U boat. A captivating story, and you'll learn a lot about deep sea diving.

Deep Thrills.......2007-09-05

An absorbing account of the discovery and identification by veteran divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler of a sunken Nazi U-boat 100 miles off the coast of New Jersey. Kurson skillfully weaves together several threads into a very readable narrative, including the evolution of Chatterton and Kohler's rivalry-turned-friendship, the technical hazards of exploring a mangled wreck in 230 feet of water, and the duo's maddening, seven-year long ordeal to obtain positive evidence -- both on the wreck and in official but flawed US and German naval records -- of the boat's identity. As the tale draws to a close, Kurson also draws a moving portrait of the U-boat's crew, who went to sea in the final days of the war and knew that they likely would not return alive.

I started diving when the final pieces of this mystery were falling into place, and can remember following the story of New Jersey's mystery U-boat in the papers. However, none of those articles was anywhere as involving as Kurson's account, which I devoured in four days. Sure, there's some overheated prose here and there ("in a shipwreck, where every danger is first cousin to every other, a diver's desparation makes an open house of his bad situation."), but that's a minor strike against this otherwise excellent and comprehensive work.

Rare Intimate Journey To The Shadows.......2007-08-28

Sometimes the flaws make a thing so much more than perfection could ever achieve. The imperfections in this literary account of the exploration of a WWII submarine discovered in 1991 off the Coast of New Jersey are well documented. Those imperfections didn't bother me.

I was facinated by the detailed account of the personalities of the divers in "Shadow." Its easy to identify a future SCUBA diver - someone who is comfortable putting their face under water. Even better, because it will sometimes trump the 'face' test, is whether a person's curiosity is so intense that they are able to project their consciousness entirely onto something outside of themselves to the virtual exclusion of other thoughts. Divers want to investigate, explore, see something extraordinary, find out whats under that rock, go someplace very few people have been, find something unique, etc. The experience is so strong, you may forget to be worried about all the risks.

My enjoyment of "Shadow" was absolutely enhanced by my experience as a diver who is both Nitrox and advanced open water certified. I have never gone deeper than 110 ft - The U-boat 85, off of Nags Head, North Carolina, which is 20ft shallower than the recreational diving limit of 130 ft. So far, I've never wanted to see anything deeper, but I suspect I'll pass. Surface light begins to diminish rapidly. It usually gets alot colder.

At the depths routinely visitied by the divers in this book, 230 ft., nitrogen narcosis is an inevitability, and helium mixes carry their own risks. Water pressure increases to seven times what it is at the surface. Just when you need all your mental faculties and judgement, you can be assured they will be impared to an extent that cannot be anticipated from dive to dive. Even more frightening is that getting to the surface to resolve any problems that may arise (my mask came off once at 80 ft), must now include a life-saving decompression stop. When you head for the surface with less than 30 minutes of air for your stop, you're in trouble.

Diving can put you face to face with three realities that I don't sense as readily on land: 1.) the incredible spiritual beauty of the natural world, 2.) how alone we really are (I've never felt more alone than those very few times I've dived without a buddy), 3.) Death is always hiding within convenient reach.

The insatiable curiosity of the two lead characters, Chatterton and Kohler, also drives them above the water, as they travel to Europe to learn as much as they can about the submarine and its crew. There was no 'gold' involved, just an incredible mystery to solve.

"Shadow" was one of those books I read in one sitting (I missed dinner). I would compare it to Krakauer's works in power and drama, if not as well written. But again, in a way the rough nature of the text enhanced the story, as if I was sitting across the table from the author.

NOTE TO FELLOW DIVERS: After reading this book I have found my goal for my diving trips next summer - get my "Rescue Diver" certification.

NOTE TO THOSE PEOPLE trying to get young men (ages 9-15) into reading - I know of two young men who hated to read until they picked up this book. Not that they love reading now, but the 'no trespassing' sign is now down in front of the library.

Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two: German, Italian, and Japanese Submarine Successes, 1939-1945

Average customer rating:

Japanese WWII Submarine Captain
Bursting with data

Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two: German, Italian, and Japanese Submarine Successes, 1939-1945
Jurgen Rohwer
Manufacturer: US Naval Institute Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Naval | Military | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1557500290

Book Description

The most extensive and reliable data available on Axis submarine victories are presented in this comprehensive reference. First published in 1983 and now revised to reflect information recently uncovered, the book is the product of years of research. Taken from widely dispersed sources, the information offers a detailed compilation of submarine successes and claims against Allied and neutral ships in every theater of the war at sea.

Customer Reviews:

Japanese WWII Submarine Captain.......2004-01-14

Captain Zenji Orita was one of the most active Japanese submarine commanders to have survived WWII. In his book, I-BOAT CAPTAIN (Major Books, 1976), he details his experiences in hunting U.S. and British ships throughout the Pacific Ocean. He discusses how other Japanese submariners sank the Yorktown carrier and the Indianaplis cruiser. He details the different classifications of Hirohito's submarines. He notes how and which various Japanese submarines were sunk on their missions. He describes how his submarines attacked Sydney Harbor and shelled Santa Barbara, CA. He discusses how Japanese submarines conducted resupply missions throughout New Guinea and Guadalcanal, and the difficulties that they experienced. He is able to put a very human face on the stoic pilots of the Kaiten "one way" suicide submarines, and how their one- and two-man crews trained, and sometimes failed in horrible drowning accidents. He seems to be a little vexed in that he believes that the Japanese submarines sank a lot more Allied ships that what the Allied navies are willing to admit. Not an "exciting" battlefield suspenseful reading book, but a nice, well written view from a true seafarer who survived the worst that Davy Jones' sea locker had to offer.

Bursting with data.......2000-07-15

This is a data-book, pure and simple. It contains details of each successful attack made by Axis submarines during the Second World War (as the title suggests). A successful attack in this context is one that is reported as causing damage.

Information on each attack is: Date and time of first attack and of first hit (reported by submarine); Nationality of attacking submarine; Number or name of attacking submarine; Name of commanding officer of submarine; target type (as reported by the submarine, and actual); Convoy designation; Tonnage of target (reported and actual); Result of the attack (reported and actual); Weapon used in attack; Position of attack (as reported by submarine and as determined by the Allies); Nationality of attacked ship; Name of attacked ship.

There are also short notes on many of the attacks, expanding on the raw data.

The chapters are divided in to region (Atlantic, Pacific etc), and an index is provided of all submarines, commanding officers, convoys and attacked ships.

Customer Reviews:

The Good with the Bad.......2001-11-11

I decided against giving the book 4 stars because, while it represents a worthy achievement, it also has its warts.
Consisting entirely of tabular data, the book lists every attack claim and places it alongside the actual results--plenty of ore you'll be mining for a long time.
On the downside, a half-hearted translation leaves a platoon of opaque abbreviations--"le" for Latvian, "-DP" for passenger liner, etc--so be prepared to memorize the German shorthand.
A book of this nature should be more eager to stay open when you lay it flat on your desk to compare with your notes.
The author at times is overly dogmatic in cases of conflicting claims. On the flip side, the sparse textual content occasionally leaves matters unclear.
I am glad I made the purchase, but I suggest you do as I did--wait for a sale.

RAW DATA.......2001-09-11

I passed up this book in a 75% off bin in Ottawa recently.
At first I was very enthused,but when I saw the contents I passed. The book reads like a computer data printout.
The book may be for you if its your 25th WW2 sub book.

Bursting with data.......2000-07-15

This is a data-book, pure and simple. It contains details of each attack made by Allied submarines in the ETO (as the title suggests).

Information on each attack is: Date and time of attack (reported by submarine and target); Nationality of attacking submarine; Number or name of attacking submarine; Name of commanding officer of submarine; target type (as reported by the submarine, and actual); Tonnage of target (reported and actual); Result of the attack (reported and actual); Weapon used in attack; Position of attack (as reported by submarine and target); Nationality of attacked ship; Name of attacked ship.

There are also short notes on many of the attacks, expanding on the raw data.

The chapters are divided in to region (Arctic, Black Sea etc), and an index is provided of all submarines, commanding officers and attacked ships.

This book is a must-have for those interested in the raw data. If you're after a narrative then this book is certainly not for you.

apolitical point of rferement.......2000-04-09

This book, writed by a famous historian, is indicated at the people that are interested in date and number historical referement If you are a researcher of world war 2, this book is for you

Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan: Volume I

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Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan: Volume I
Clay Blair
Manufacturer: J. B. Lippincott Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: B000B6A6BQ

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Allied Submarines of World War Two
Kenneth Poolman
Manufacturer: Arms & Armour
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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British Submarines in World War Two - Warships Illustrated No. 11

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British Submarines in World War Two - Warships Illustrated No. 11
Paul Kemp
Manufacturer: Arms & Armour Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Grey Wolf Grey Sea Aboard the German Submarine U 124 in World War Two

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Grey Wolf Grey Sea Aboard the German Submarine U 124 in World War Two
E.B. GASAWAY
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MZTJ3M

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The ship with two captains
Terence Robertson
Manufacturer: Dutton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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A fairly comprehensive account.
technical gem
Cost Effective Overvue

Submarines of World War Two
Erminio Bagnasco
Manufacturer: Naval Inst Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Naval | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0870219626

Book Description

Over 2,500 submarines saw action during WWII from all combatant nations, and for the first time all classes and types of submarines are covered in a single book. From midgets to large U-cruisers, along with projected and experimental designs, a mass of detail records technical characteristics for each class of submarine. Exhaustive charts and hundreds of valuable photos tell the facts and figures about construction, displacement, dimensions, speed, range, operational depth, fuel load, armament, and complement. Each submarine's performance is chronicled, including the fate of each member of the class. An outline of the evolution of the submarine and the development of submarine warfare offers a rare view of the role of design improvement in the outcome of the war.

Customer Reviews:

A fairly comprehensive account........2007-08-08

There is a certain fascination for the submarine. When it first appeared it was thought to be so "un-British" it should be banned internationally - just like, say, poisonous gas warfare is banned today. Nevertheless, the submarine, in all it's many forms, went on to be a most potent weapon and was last used in a combat situation during the Falklands War of 1982.

The countries; France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, USA and USSR are set out in alphabetical order and are then followed by a chapter headed "The lesser powers." Within each of these main headings all the submarines used by that country are fully described with many being illustrated both by photograph and diagram.

The vast majority of the photographs are simply excellent. Why the author should include the occasional out-of-focus image is, as always, beyond me, especially when such an image is used as a double-page spread.

That, however, is my only criticism of what is an otherwise excellent product. This book is now becoming hard to find and, may I suggest, you grab one while you still can. You will not be disappointed and, like me, you might just learn a great deal from the content.

NM

technical gem.......2001-10-05

This book covers the technical side of the WW2 submarine story.
There are no adventure stories, just a country by country breakdown of the models of sumarines and their series within groups. Specs on history, physical size, range, armament,numbers
fielded, etc are generous. Diagrams and pictures are in good balance and there is a section on sub developement up to WW2.
This review is on the y2000 printing which I purchased sight unseen. The value of the book was 5 stars without doubt.

Cost Effective Overvue.......2001-01-01

Submarines of World War Two is excellent overvue of pretty much every submarine type of the war. There is a large amount of information crammed into this medium sized soft bound book. Be prepared to read in good lighting however; as the print is quite small and some of the section plans will have you looking for a magnifying glass.

Mr. Bagnasco covers Eighteen different navies as well as some neutral forces. Each section includes a wealth of statistics and production data on each class of submarine (and its variants), as well as line drawings and photographs (all B&W). Major types are given additional space and many extras such as wartime conning tower modifications and section drawings are covered.

If you need to know about every WWII sub ever built; and don't have room in your shelf (or budget) for a four volume set, this is the book for you.

Average customer rating:

A fairly comprehensive account.

SUBMARINES OF WORLD WAR TWO
ERMINIO BAGNASCO
Manufacturer: ARMS AND ARMOUR
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000S9O5LI

Customer Reviews:

A fairly comprehensive account........2007-08-08

Book Description

"Let's be realists, let's dream the impossible." Che Guevara's words summarize the radical vision of the four famous rebels presented in this book: Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution and Che Guevara's Socialism and Humanity. Far from being lifeless historical documents, these manifestos for revolution will resonate with a new generation also seeking a better world.

"The world described by Marx and Engels . . . is recognizably the world we live in 150 years later."-Eric Hobsbawm

"Rosa Luxemburg was a brilliant, brave and independent woman, passionately internationalist and antiwar, a believer in the people's 'spontaneity' in the cause of freedom; a woman who saw herself as Marx's philosophical heir."-Adrienne Rich

Customer Reviews:

All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark.......2005-08-11

Manifesto: Three Classic Essays On How To Change The World collects "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Reform or Revolution" by Rosa Luxemburg, and "Socialism and Man in Cuba" by Ernesto Che Guevara. All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark; here are ideas that transformed the world, with repercussions resonating to the modern day and beyond. A preface, introduction, and brief notes on the contributors round out this vital collection concerning political power, social consciousness, and the need for societal transformation, especially recommended for library and educational reference shelves.

All three writings share in common a revolutionary spark.......2005-08-11

Powerful Insight Into Marxist Views & Political History.......2005-07-29

Three very insightful essays. You can certainly learn and gain valuable insight to the ideals that literally have changed the world in many ways. Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto; Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution and Che Guevara's Socialism and Man in Cuba.

I really think this book is very enlightening and is a highly valuable read. And with that, I would like to comment on the second essay, the essay by the Polish Jew and political activist who attended Zurich University, Rosa Luxemburg. This essay was published in 1898, nineteen years before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

Rosa Luxemburg's essay consists of an attack on Eduard Bernstein's book entitled "Problems of Socialism," Seen from today's lenses reveals her erroneous absolute and dogmatic views, lacking in comparison to the logic of Bernstein. It's so obvious from the scientific Marxist views. Marx's and Engels views were based on rational science, Hegelian dialectics and like science, an exact blueprint of rational analysis. Today they call this "vulgar Marxism" and few follow it.(You can find a good analysis in Allan Bloom's, Closing the American Mind). Marxism today is not based on an exact science. That is the old view, the original view. And the obvious result of her attack on Bernstein is that everything she has attacked has come true, her defense for Absolutism, for exact science in economic history through Hegelian dialectics has proven false and inaccurate. Bernstein, on the other hand, has proven the greater prophet. And the answer lies in Luxemburg's very words of attack. In this she attacks him for his integral approach of aperspectivism in integrating multiple paradigms which allow the relative nature and uncertainty of the various shades and levels of both Liberal Democracy and Socialism. Bernstein's sees the differing aspects and refutes absolutism in Marxist science and dogmatism in its Hegelian nature. History, nor economic history, is not an exact science. And If I may take this a step further there are levels of subjectivity, objectivity, cultural and social aspects or the I, We and It (&Its) (the big three or the 4 Quadrants of Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology).

Bernstein sees the problems of socialism and the need for liberal democracy to reform slowly, even rejecting both (vulgar or original scientific, Hegelian) Marxism and Socialism and choosing to remain a liberal democracy but with socialist-liberal facets of nature (Roosevelt's domestic policies for instance), while Luxemburg seeing Marxism as an exact science sees revolution the only real way to bring forth Socialism. And although both thinkers are basically reduction in inter-objective social systems or political system theories, there still exists a major difference between both and that 150 years of time has vindicated (relativlty speaking: the low wages, poor and homeless in the U.S. are in large numbers) Bernstein's flexible and integral insight with greater value than Luxemburg's "flatland," which in Integral Psychology means interpreting realty or in this case, economic political history, as only in objective terms, failing to understand its relativity in dealing with the individual and collective human subjective nature.

AND now I will contradict myself: Luxemburg was right, Bernstein was not. After reading Howard Zinn's Peoples History of the United States, it is evident; the only reforms come from revolution. Socialism is always adamantly fought by the wealthy, compromises are extremely rare.

Now the essay by Che Geverra is the only without such a materialistic, Hegelian science and Marxist exactitude of empirical societal observation on economic meaning. It is much less dogmatic and in that sense less scientific, being much more utilitarian in practical means to achieve a socialist revolution and common sharing good of the Cuban society.

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Like holding real live birds in your hand!

Wonderful Field Guide!

The Easy Bird Guide: Eastern Region: A Quick Identification Guide for All Birders (Falcon Guide)
John Bull , Edith Hellman Bull , Gerald Gold , and Pieter D. Prall
Manufacturer: Falcon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Birds | Field Guides | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
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Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region (Stokes Field Guides)

ASIN: 0762737417

Book Description

The Easy Bird Guide: Eastern Region is the perfect identification guide for beginner and casual birdwatchers of all ages. The authors, all renowned experts, have carefully chosen 253 of the most common birds seen in backyards, in the woods, and near water in eastern North America. Detailed illustrations of each species are organized by color, pattern, behavior, and habitat, making bird identification fun, easy, and rewarding. The guide also includes practical tips for attracting and feeding birds, information about using binoculars, a glossary of field marks, and a complete species index.

Customer Reviews:

Like holding real live birds in your hand! .......2006-12-14

Someone gave me this book (THANK YOU FOREVER!). I have always wanted to hold a bird in my hands, and now it seems I truly can, since the illustrations are so beautul and detailed, they seem so real! And because the book is so cleverly organized, I can get to the information quickly before the birds hop or fly out of sight. For instance, Cardinals are listed under "Red Birds" duh, how simple can you get? "Beginner's Luck" has me willing to try and identify more. And when the sun goes down, it makes great bedside reading because the information is so well-edited, it's packed with details but not overwhelming. I recently ordered 16 as holiday gifts after testing my book out on both my 10-year-old-niece (who wants to be a veterinarian but she's allergic to animals. Now she'll be able to safely get up close and personal. One book is going to my 95-year-old neighbor whose wife just died and winter's coming up. He's got a bird feeder outside the window where he always sits, and he never had a bird guide, so this book can help him solve bird mysteries. The price value is just right for gift-giving, especially considering the ADDED VALUE of introducing bird-watching as a pastime for a lifetime - one that will connect people to the greater outdoors, which is so wonderful! Each book will go a long, long way. Mine already has a lot of miles on it, as it now goes everywhere with me. It's my constant companion, just like the birds will now always be!

Wonderful Field Guide!.......2006-12-14

I recently got this book for my 16 year old who had expressed an interested
in bird watching. This is a wonderful beginning field guide. It's very easy to use. But what impressed me most were the stunningly beautiful color illustrations by artist Pieter Prall. The pictures are just amazing and inspirational; we keep the book on the sill of our window that overlooks our wooded backyard. Now we actually look for birds to identify. I would highly recommend this book to young and old. It makes a great gift and is a real bargain for the price.

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