House

I have loved this book for years! It is the sweetest story of Christmas seen through the eyes of the animals. It is my favorite children's Christmas book simply because it is so understated, and yet so powerful. This book is great for toddlers and early readers (my 2nd grader loves reading it to his siblings). A must have for your children's story collection.

A dear friend bought this book for my daughter last year at Christmas. Though she was barely 1 years old, this book instantly became her favorite and, even though it is now summer, we have to read this book at least once a day (sometimes 3 or 4 times). It's a wonderful way to introduce the Nativity story (and the true meaning of Christmas) to young kids. The illustrations are wonderful and the rhyme keeps their attention. I highly recommend this book!!!

Kids all know Santa is coming to their house. Do they know about Jesus coming? If you're looking for ways to give God a little equal time during the pre-Christmas crush, get this book for your kids. Little ones love to hear about animals, so the barnyard perspective of the first Christmas night is particularly effective. They will love the pictures, which depict the busy goings-on of each animal who has a job to prepare the barn for the special visitors. As the pages proceed, a subtle nighttime darkness grows, demonstrating the long wait children will associate with waiting for Christmas: "But it is dark," says Cat. "They will never come," says Rat. "Yes, they'll come, says Mouse. "Someone's coming to this house." The hypnotic cadence of the the spare text will keep them interested and turning pages to find out the answer to the all-important question: "Who is coming to our house?"

I bought this book for my under-two-year-old boys and my nearly five-year-old daughter never misses the nightly reading. It is a new Advent family tradition we all enjoy.

The World of Pooh is better read aloud. Milne's characters are charming and lovable. Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends are alive in this book every time I read it, and Shepard's illustrations are so pleasing. I've read these stories so many times and still each time I can hardly wait to find out what adventures Pooh and his friends will have.

I first read Pooh as a child, when my days were spent doing Nothing. It was a good book then, which I really enjoyed.

But I don't do Nothing anymore. Well, not so much. They don't let you. Now my life more often resembles going around and around the tree looking vainly for Woozles, or going bump, bump, bump down the stairs, thinking that there must be a better way, if only I could stop bumping long enough to think of it. Reading Pooh is how I stop bumping.

I need to be reminded that spelling isn't everything - that there are some days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.

Pooh and Piglet are wondering where you've been. Eeyore told them that you're not coming back. "They've forgotten," said Eeyore. "Typical," said Eeyore. "How Like Them," he said.

But you can come back, you know. You can find a Thoughtful Spot, or join an Expotition to find the North Pole, or drop stick off a bridge.

Because the Forest will always be there, and anyone who is Friendly with Bears can find it.

Winnie the Pooh,a bear, has different adventures with all his friends: Christopher Robin , Piget, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga, Roo, Tiger, and many more. I like this book because it is funny. Pooh and his friends are cute (from the pictures) and have great and different personalities. Please buy and read this great book. You will love the characters.

I have tried to get into Jamie's classes on a couple of occasions only to have them fill up before I could sign up...I was thrilled when he came out with this book. I also just purchased his videos to accompany the book. He has updated some of his techniques--but not drastically. You will not be disappointed in anything you learn from this book.

A clear, beautifully illustrated-(both photos and drawings) how-to-book on the fascinating subject of making character figures to people your doll-house,diorama,room setting,etc..Extremely well written by the charmingly wry and witty(as only the English can be) James Carrington

1/12 Scale Character Figures for the Dolls' House
by James Carrington exceeded my expectations. It has everything! I'm inspired to try Carrington's methods.
The illustrations are great and the photos are beautiful. I recommend this book to anyone interested in making their oun art dolls, or even those who are just curious as to how these beautiful dolls are created.

A wide variety of patterns. The afghans work up real quick and they are beautiful. There are patterns for all skill levels. My favorite one in this book is called Serene Ripples. Probably one of the easiest ripple afghans I have ever seen to make. A wonderful beginner pattern. Nothing but doubles and chains. I love it because you can use different colors, solids, variegated, and I have also done stripes. This particular afghan can be whipped up in a week or less. I have made four for gifts because they are so quick and inexpensive ($20 for the yarn) and the people who I gave them to absolutely loved them. Little did they know it was a quick and easy one for me to make!

After making my first pattern from the book, I don't care for one strand afghans. They seem too light and flimsy. These are thick and warm and still very flexible. Not stiff like I thought it would come out because of the multiple strands.

I have made four or five different patterns from the book. Like I said, it is my favorite one. Right now, I am hunting for it big time because I misplaced it during moving. If I don't find it soon, I will gladly buy another one so I can keep it in my collection.

A real winner of a book!

This book is a wonderful collection of afghans done with double strand of yarn that work up beautifully. If you need a quick gift or just in a hurry to see the beautiful results, this is the book for you. I have completed two of the patterns and was so pleased with the results that I have two more patterns started now. It will be hard to go back to using only one strand of yarn again. The patterns are easy and oh so quick!

I haven't made anything from this book yet, but I lan to! The patterns seem really simple and they look like they'll turn out beautifully!

Historical fact: On January 1, 1801, Elder John Leland, a Baptist minister, delivered a 1,235-pound wheel of Cheshire cheese to Thomas Jefferson as a gift of gratitude for Jefferson 's support of religious freedom.

Candace Fleming has taken this little-known detail and turned it into a deliciously delightful little "Tale of a Tremendous Cheddar."

In Fleming's story the villagers of Cheshire (makers of mouthwatering cheese) heard news "that threatened to sour their curds forever." President Thomas Jefferson was serving cheese made in Norton, Connecticut ! Not to be outdone, Elder John Leland convinced the residents of Cheshire to put their curds together, along with one day's milking from each of their cows and create a "whopping big cheddar."

Easier said than done the villagers soon realized. They had to resort of using a huge apple press to squeeze the whey from the curds. Then, the local blacksmith had to make a huge, custom-forged hoop to hold the cheese. Their efforts paid off however. Once finished, they had on their hands a 1,235 pound, four-foot tall round of cheddar.

After letting the cheese ripen, Elder John and the ever-doubting Phineas Dobbs set off to deliver the mammoth cheese to Jefferson. Sledding and sailing their way to Washington, the duo finally arrive at the nation's capital amid trumpets, banners, and gaggles of gawkers.

Jefferson, after cutting into cheddar and tasting it, declared it to be "The best you can serve at your table."

Fleming serves up a terrific treat. The tale is charmingly told and fun to read. Schindler's pen-and-ink and watercolor drawings are filled with period details and humorous touches.

Reviewed by the Education Oasis Staff

In this true tale of a tremendous cheddar, Candace Fleming asks: "What weighs 1,234 pounds, stands four feet high, and is made from the milk of nine hundred and thirty-four cows?"

"Why, a giant cheese of course!"

When President Thomas Jefferson was serving Norton cheese at the White House, Elder John Leland suggested that everyone could help make a whopping big cheddar, a cheese so large that President Jefferson would be serving Cheshire cheese at the White House for years and years!

After gathering all the milk and making the cheese curds, they had to press the curds in an apple press. Finally they haul the cheese in a wagon to ripen in Elder John's barn. To get the cheese to President Jefferson's New Year's Day party, they have to put it on a sleigh and take it to Hudson, New York. Finally it sails down the Hudson River and is then carted on a sleigh to Washington.

Apparently, the cheese was served for years and someone said it lasted until 1805.

Just by the way, cheddar curds can't be beat. Give me the curds
instead of the pressed cheese any day!

Cute story for young cheese lovers.

If you love cheese, look for Paula Lambert's Cheese Lover's Cookbook & Guide. She explains how cheese is made and even includes recipes.

I have read this book to my two grandsons (Brooks nearly 4 and Pierce nearly 3 yrs old) and their interest and response to this book has been fun and surprising. The story interests them and the art illustrates the story very well. They enjoy finding the characters from the story in the associated pictures. Phineas Dobbs' grumbling has become an inside family joke. The boys go around the house often repeating his comment, "I told you, it can't be done!" while placing their arms across their chest.

The book has provoked them to ask many questions which has proved to be a good teaching opportunity as well.

They read everytime before naptime and bedtime and they have insisted that this book be included each time for about three weeks now. I highly recommend this book for reading to children 3 years old and up.

After reading all the good reviews, I bought this book when I wanted to reupholster my couch. I had never reupholstered anything before, though I have intermediate sewing skills and very basic carpentry skills. I started by making new cushion covers, and moved on to the rest, and I was able to do an amazingly good job, I still sit across from it and admire how well it turned out! I even learned a few things about what I can get my clunky old sewing machine to do with special feet.

I don't think I have ever seen a better, more clearly written and organized instructional book. The photographs really support the text, step by step, I think it's as good as taking a really good class. I'm excited to try retying springs now, though who knows how that will turn out...

As a master upholsterer and teacher, I have searched though over 30 books to find one I could use to teach my students. This is the only one I found. Do what it tells you and you will learn how to upholster most furniture.

Thorough and helpful. Everything you need to know about reupholstering and nothing you don't. Project examples fill the last 1/8 of the book. If you want to learn how to reupholster for the first time, get this book. Filling, stuffing, springs...you can do all this yourself. All you need is a sturdy frame.

This is a fine entry in the category of Well-written, Wryly-humorous Books About the Trials of Ordinary Life That Also Contain a Suprising Amount of Useful Information. If that sounds like an excessive qualification, it isn't, since the book is about houses, a subject dear, or dire, to the hearts of very many middle-class married men.

David Owen definitely writes as a guy. It's conceivable that a woman could enjoy this book, in the same way that some men enjoy reading Erma Bombeck. It's also true that many a woman these days finds herself, willy-nilly, the sole proprietor of some "huge box filled with complicated things that want to break," and so will see that this book is essentially inspirational and non-gendered, and will read it anyway. It's for anyone who has a house and doesn't know how that house works. Because if you have a house and don't know something about how it works, you will regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

The author is a writer for, among other publications, "The New Yorker", and he has the easy, colloquial, accomplished style that we associate with that magazine. This is not a "humor" book that tries to milk laughs out of the trials of a hapless urbanite who buys a 200-year-old farmhouse and gets his comeuppance. However, he was indeed a Manhattan apartment dweller with a wife and two young children who decided to buy a 200-year-old farmhouse in Connecticut, and certain mishaps and learning experiences did follow from that action. Some are laugh-out-loud funny, but mostly you will find yourself reading along with a smile that is composed of one part sympathy and two parts relief ("at least my house isn't THAT screwed-up!").

Mainly, though, in the course of your reading you will learn a lot. David Owen is a professional writer, and he knows how to research a topic, be it wallboard or lumber or electricity. (Perhaps the finest part of the book is the section on wallboard and plaster.) But he's also just an ordinary guy and a home-owner, until fairly recently just as butt-ignorant as you about how a house works. He lives in a this-old-house sort of place, and most of us don't. (Although once-fine old houses do present an implicit challenge that some of us fantasize about taking on, when our skills are a bit more honed.) His discussions, though, are firmly rooted in what many of us brood about on an almost daily basis: ugly walls, bad wiring, roofing leaks and wet basements.

But courage! A house need not be a millstone. It can be that fort Mom never let you build. If you're a grownup you can actually go out and buy power tools and plywood and all sorts of other neat stuff, and then you can come back home and make your house better.

Or worse. One of the virtues of this volume is its cheerful attitude toward working on one's home: that it is essentially a pilgrimage. Nothing is ever final, and every failure, every flub, teaches you something. Perfection is not the object, but rather, engagement. After a number of years of living in it, and coping with it, your home will become, for better and/or worse, an extension of yourself. If you love yourself, eventually you will love your house, too, with all its endearing faults.

This book is the story of the author's renovations of his newly-purchased colonial-era house. In the process, Owen learns a great deal about how houses work and how they're built...and he makes a lot of mistakes.

Somehow do-it-yourself books always make me feel less than competent. It looks so easy in the book. Owen perfectly captures the learning process involved with getting to know an old house. In the process, he passes along much of what he's learned and frequently makes me laugh out loud.

Anyone who has lived in, or, especially, tried to improve, an old house should read this book.

Have you ever wondered why you couldn't just use the paint they use for nuclear power plants, for your house? Wouldn't it be a lot more durable? David Owen has wondered - and visited the manufacturer who makes nuke paint, to get the answers.

Also among the choicest bits in a book that is full of great moments: the description of a layer of ugly wallpaper over a layer of ugly paint over a layer of ugly wallpaper over a layer of ugly paint...

Read this book during that break from stripping paint; have a tall glass of iced tea with it. And rejoice in the fact that even though it's 100 degrees and you're working on your house, at least you are not on an aluminum ladder near electrical lines in the rain.

I give copies of this book to friends as housewarming gifts for their first house...; we had to buy two copies for ourselves, as we don't want to run the risk of losing our only copy if someone borrows it.

As a beginner woodworker, I was intrigued by the different techniques that I read in the magazines. For example, why was a box joint used on one of the projects while another project used a dado joint? This book did an excellent job of explaining the pros and cons of various joints, in addition to many other topics. It also has a good section on making several commonly used jigs. The writing and illustrations are all first rate.

After reading the book from cover to cover though, I had only wished that it would cover some additional topics critical to the success of a project, such as wood selection and finishing. Nonetheless, this is a must read for anyone who wants to know the why, not just the how, of woodworking techniques.

The author does a great job of describing in detail just about every aspect of woodworking, from cutting to glueing to sharpening to finishing. There is a lot to cover and he does it very succinctly and with enough detail and various methods that the reader is given a LOT of ideas on how to go about any given project.

The hardcover is a beautiful book. Even if the content wasn't as good as it is, it is still a beautiful book to look at.

In an entertaining and well constructed text, the author reviews basic layout techniques, shop geometry for laying out more advanced pieces, sharpening and glues. The text moves on to cover the preparation of stock including surfacing rough lumber, saws, resawing, crosscutting, ripping and gluing. Part 3 covers joinery. Part 4 picks up the shaping of legs, moldings, curves and panels. Part 5 discusses the construction of shop jigs and fixtures.

I learned a new way to do almost everything in the shop, often finding explanations for why some things failed in the past. The text acknowledges that most of us don't always have the optimal tool for the job and explains how to work around that issue with other tools we might have at hand. While not a design book, the text does encourage design. And, while not a safety book, the text explains why some techniques have problems and suggests ways to mitigate those.

Few instructional texts qualify as "page turners," but I found this one genuinely hard to put down. I hope to read more from this author in the future. Finally, this deserving text is hardbound.

i was speechless each picture was so beautiful , i love each and every house. a great book

Taller than any of the other books and nearly twice as thick as the thickest, this gorgeous 1992 volume (Ms. Pomada, isn't it time we got a fifth??), once again produced with the help of partner Larsen and photographer Keister, is, like "Daughters of Painted Ladies," a survey of Victorian homes from all over the country. From Searsport, ME, where the subtly detailed, white-bodied Mansard Carriage House Inn welcomes its guests, to a pink 1887 Steamboat Gothic in National City, near San Diego, here are dozens of Victorians, large and small, somber and vivid, plus an assortment of interiors, some fully period, others furnished in more contemporary style against the richly detailed background of the time. If you buy it to "get ideas" for your own Painted Lady, you'll find more than you can choose between. If you buy it just to look at, be prepared to spend hours drooling! A treasure trove for lovers of period detail, which is so admirably brought out by the creative combinations of color used in decorating these buildings.

My husband and I bought this book to get ideas about color schemes to paint our Italiante Victorian home. WOW! Are there ideas here! This book is page after page of gorgeous photos of Victorian homes all over the country. I'll be honest and say that I've read little to none of the text, but I have spent literally hours looking at the pictures. It is also one of the most frequently looked at books by guests in our house. People just love to look at the pictures and "ooh" and "ahh" at the beautiful homes.

We liked it so much we bought "Daughters of the Painted Ladies" too!

I bought this Bible because I was looking for a small Bible to carry with me everyday that related the scriptures in a truly easily understood way. I refer to it as my "bookbag Bible." The writing flows well, and it has a lot of reference tools packed in a compact, easy to use edition. My only beef is that I've noticed, as a student of Greek, that the translators don't always cling to the original text. So beware of using it for in-depth study. Overall, a good buy.

The New Living Translation is quickly becoming my favorite version of the Bible. I started out reading the King James many years ago, moved to the New King James over fifteen years ago, and have also used the New American Standard extensively. Every version of the Bible offers certain benefits, whether of accuracy or readability, but I feel this version offers the most well rounded of them all. While I am certainly no Greek or Hebrew scholar, I have found it's renderings, for the most part, very accurate and eminently readable. It should be remembered that Jesus himself is the Word of God, and no translation should be looked at as perfect. If a particular version draws you closer to him, and brings God's word closer to home, than I'd say it's the one for you. This one is becoming the one for me.

If you have struggled to try to understand scriptures and want a Bible that is an actual translation (not a paraphrase like the Living Bible), written in a way that makes you keep reading...THIS IS THE BIBLE FOR YOU!

I struggled with the King James Version for years. Now, I am able to finally enjoy the Bible for what it is...THE WORD OF GOD!

The slimline is compact enough to easily carry around. With its leather cover, it is an excellent value. I Highly recommend the NLT to the New Believer and to those who are looking to "freshen up" their Bible studies.