Paper

I thought it was a great book because it was funny when Spencer was asking for toilet paper. I think everyone should read this book because it is very funny how he tries to get the toilet paper

This reading level, 8 - 12, is hard for boys to find fiction that holds their attention. Good job!

This book is about how Grover asked his friends to provide him things, like sticks, newspaper, rags, paste and string to make a kite. Each friend passed by would say, "Come on over, Grover, let's play...." Then Grover replied, " Not yet. May I have your...." Step by step, Grover gathered all the parts to make a beautiful kite. It is a great story to arouse the curiosity of a little child and guide him how to give declines and make requests politely. My 2.75 years old falls in love with this book and can even tell the story himself.

We've probably read this book a zillion-million times and both my daughter and I still love it. Grover is asked to play,time and time again. Each friend is given a polite decline and asked to share their particular treasure. Grover takes each offering and builds a kite which is the delight of all his friends in the end. Such a wonderful lesson in sharing, politeness, and creating. A plus is that the text is easy to read for 4 - 6 year olds. A definate must have for your library.

In recent years Twayne Publishers has done a fine service for the study of social movements through a series of now twenty-five short studies. These have included such movements as the American Peace Movement, the Antinuclear Movement and the Creationist Movement. While varying in analytical content, they have provided an unusually valuable basis for describing and thinking about the variety of objects contained in the term "Social Movements." Gregg Lee Carter, Professor of Sociology at Bryant College, has added another highly useful volume to that series. Carter's emphasis is largely on two gun control organizations, Handgun Control, Inc. (HLC) and the counterorganization, the National Rifle Association (NRA). Carter also analyses some of the issues and thinking about guns in the U.S., such as their relation to violence, the impediment to gun control in the Second Amendment, and what he describes as the "myth of the frontier legacy." Carter opens with a chapter on the relation of violence to guns and finds the data research ambiguous. In concluding the chapter he poses what he calls the central question for the rest of the book: "why the gun control movement has seen so little success. Why does the United States lack strict national gun control laws?" Much of the remainder of the book attempts to answer this question by closer analysis of the two organizations: the HLC and the NRA. Carter's analysis of the Second Amendment and the alleged role of a frontier legacy convinces him that these often cited explanations have little factual basis; yet the limited victories of the gun control movement and the successful opposition of the NRA remains a problem. The question is deepened by his analysis of polls. Large majorities support control measures although their intensity and commitment may not be deep. The author emphasizes that while the public appears supportive of gun control, they did not approve of banning guns. This reluctance, as he describes it, has been a defining issue in the gun control movement. From its formation in 1974, the HLC has broken with prior organizations that had advocated banning guns. In 1977 a "palace coup" in the NRA transformed that organization from being a spokesman for hunters and rifle users. Prior to that it was unopposed to controls, a sharp contrast to its present fierce antipathy toward all such efforts. Since 1977, it has been highly successful in preventing national legislation for controls. While the HLC, on the other hand, has had some successes, such as the Brady bill, in the main it has not achieved most of its goals. Carter also reviews a number of polls concerned with the sources of gun control support and opposition. While he points to sources of financial support and lobbying activities of the NRA he has no clear analysis of why the organization has been so overwhelmingly opposed to any gun control measures, why its membership is so intense in their support and why legislators are so readily influenced by them. Perhaps there is no ready answer, but to attempt one is essential to more effective analysis. Other lobbying groups have not had intense support like that of the NRA. Perhaps the virtue of shortness is also the vice of limiting analysis. It is fate of studying ongoing movements to be overtaken by events after being written. Currently the movement is seeking its goals on local playing fields and in the courts. Nevertheless the author's historical and sociological data make it a necessary study for social movement analysis and for those concerned with the issues of guns and their control in America.

Joseph Gusfield, University of California, San Diego

Choice, February 1998, p. 1070

Carter, Gregg Lee. The Gun Control Movement. Twayne/Prentice Hall International, 1997. 166p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8057-3885-1

Carter's short book provides a useful introduction to issues related to gun control in the U.S. Among the critical questions he examines are American attitudes toward gun control and the degree to which these attitudes correspond to the agendas of key organizations such as Handgun Control Inc. and the National Rifle Association. In addition, this book explores conflicting interpretations of the Second amendment, the effect of the frontier legacy on American views of guns, and the connections among society, politics, and the gun control movement. In a very well balanced assessment, the author analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the pro- and anticontrol arguments and the organizational capacities of Handgun Control Inc. and the NRA. The introduction includes some valuable cross-national comparisons related to gun violence and gun control. The book also contains some important demographic profiles of typical pro- and anticontrol individuals, and examines the internal contradictionswithin each camp. In sum, this is a helpful overview situated in the broader context of social movement theory.

-Peter Seybold, Indiana University-Bloomington

I'm making flowers from silk cocoons and there remains tiny bits of trashes. I want to make silk papers from these cocoon trashes, searched the net and found this book. Wow, it's really interesting. This project widen the meaning of "paper." The method is like making felt with silk fiber.

I tried traditional way to make Japanese paper "Washi" with certain results. However Kath Russon's method is easier and more beautiful.

Also contains interesting projects such as making 3D objects and silk leaves. This method is applicable to other fibers such as cotton wool, jute and flax.

This is an inspiring and informative book which gives clear step by step instructions on making silk paper. On reading the book we discover the beauties of silk paper. The layout and photography of the book itself make it a beautiful book to own. The text is lucid and, at times, humerous and the reader really gets to know the personality of the author, Kath Russon whose work and business inspired the writing of this book. The book tells you everything you need to know to make your own silk paper and the final chapter provides ideas and inspirations of how to use the paper you have created. It deals with an unuaual but fascinating medium. This book makes an ideal Christmas gift. I can imagine that silk paper making will become the popular hobby of the new millennium.

The stated purpose of the authors in this book is to bring order to the variety of models that have appeared in the analysis of international trade policy in imperfectly competitive markets. Throughout the book they rely on partial equilibrium models. When there are cases in which general equilibrium effects alter conclusions, the authors point them out.

The three central issues that recur in this book are the effects of trade policy on market power, the strategic effect of trade policy on competition and the effect of trade policy on consumer choice.

The defining feature of imperfect competition is that firms do not take prices as given. As a result they do not regard the sole effect of selling another unit of output on their revenue as being the price of that unit; they have some conjecture about what effect selling more will have on the revenue they get from inframarginal sales. The end result is that price normally exceeds marginal cost.

The ratio of price to marginal cost is one measure of market power. A trade policy may alter the markup of price over marginal cost in ways that are benefitial or harmful to the country that initiates the policy.

This book shows that problems involving market power can be analyzed by focusing on perceived marginal revenue -- the increase in revenue that a firm expects to receive by producing one more unit, which is always less than the price (because of the effect on intramarginal sales) but may exceed the true marginal revenue that would prevail if the industry acted in concert.

An aspect of the new literature on trade policy under imperfect competition is the possibility that interventionist trade policies may have beneficial strategic effects. A strategic move is an action that is not profitable viewed in isolation but that alters the terms of subsequent competition to a firm's benefit. For instance, a firm may invest in excess capacity that it does nor intend to use, but whose presence deters potential competitors from entering the market. Government trade policies may serve the same kind of role.

Some questions that this book brings up in this regard are: How likely is it that a government will be able to have the information necessary to conduct a successful strategic policy? and Are there likely to be offsetting effects in the kind of industry to which the strategic trade argument might apply?

Making a commodity is costly, but if its price exceeds its marginal cost, then the resources used to produce it might not have an equally productive use elsewhere. In priciple, policies that induce consumers to purchase domestic goods whose price surpasses marginal cost may raise national income.

Protection can under some circumstances induce an increase in domestic production that actually lowers prices to consumers.

Arguments based on imperfect competition, external economies and factor market distortions have substantial empirical support and are the most powerful professionally respectable arguments against free trade.

In international trade policy analysis, distortions that could justify government intervention were superimposed on a theoretical structure whose logic was that of competitive equilibrium. In the new theory the imperfections are built into the structure from the get go.

The reasons for treating trade policy conclusions cautiously are: 1) Uncertainty, the effects of a given policy may depend crucially on the details of the market. 2) Domestic political economy, there are people eager to appropriate the result of new trade theories to support dubious causes. 3) International rivalry, a policy that benefits one country acting unilaterally may be harmful if everyone does it.

Since quantitative analyses seem to indicate that the gains from even optimal intervention are small, many economists have suggested that free trade remains a useful rule of thumb, even though it is rarely optimal in modern trade policies.

The book develops the arguments gradually, starting with market structures that exhibit one-sided market power and moving on to those that show two-sided market power. After providing background on trade policy in a competitive environment, the authors discuss import protection by a country with a domestic monopoly or oligopoly. Then they deal with import protection in an economy that faces a foreign monopoly or oligopoly, while domestic supply is nonexistant or competitive.

Later in the book strategic interactions come in to play beginning with an export-market scenario whereby domestic firms with monopoly power compete with foreign firms with monopoly power too. This is followed by an exploration of the role of strategic interactions in a domestic market in which domestic firms with market power compete with foreign firms with market power as well.

Trade policy in the presence of two-way trade, which may arise from monopolistic competition in differentiated products or for strategic reasons, is also examined in this volume. Finally, the authors review the recent literature that tries to quantify the effects of trade policy in noncompetitive environments. The new methodology and the numerical results are discussed.

There are four main areas in the analysis of trade policy under imperfect competition that deserve further investigation: 1) Models of market structure that make size distribution of firms endogenous. 2) Models of cooperative behavior to reflect some real-world activities of oligopolists. 3) Models with real dynamics in which trade policy can change the long-run rate of growth. 4) Quantification to confront the models with data so as to narrow down the possibilities.

In its time, this was a ground-breaking book. Hopefully, since its publication in 1989, economic researchers around the world could have taken note of the fields where deeper work was needed and made significant progress in constructing better models. By now, there should be already something in print that sums up the gains in the past decade, so it would be advisable to try to look up these updated books too.

This slim volume presents the normative theory of international trade under imperfect competition in a systematic manner. One cannot help but come away from it with a profound sense of caution about the advisablility of policies aimed at shifting rents. This ought to be required reading for all policymakers interested in "strategic trade theory." Unfortunately, it is not.

Massive Mudge is much more than a mere mutt. He is a tail-wagger, toenail-chewer, moth-eater, and breaker of grandmother's things. Most importantly however, he is Henry's best friend. Beginning readers will feel right at home amongst the words and illustrations of Rylant's tender story about a boy and his bog on a visit to grandmother's house. Unobtrusively, Stevenson's iluustrations harmonize with Rylant's words. Where Rylant describes grandmother's "strange house with a dark yard," Stevenson contributes a double-page illustration depicting the darkness of the yard where a racoon, owl, and assorted bats live. The images buttress the comprehension and readability of challenging words without suffocating them in a sea of lines and color. For example, as Henry voices his anxieties about a bear, bobcat, moth, and mouse, simplistic cartoon-like pictures of each animal are nearby, offering visual clues. Chapters punctuate the book's action-filled but will not intimidate young readers, for the five-word lines within do not exceed 10per page. Lengthy words like "fingernails" appear repeatedly and readers can dissect protracted sentences into more manageable chunks with assistance from commas and brief lines: "Henry bit his fingernails, (new line) Mudge bit his toenails, (new line)and the car drove on." Inexperienced readers, reassured by the resolution of Henry's realistic woes of sleeping in a strange new setting, will see this young dog-lover and comic-book-reader as a contemporary and as a source of comfort. With confidence in their reading, children will become lost in this Henry and Mudge adventure.

The characters of Henry, a little boy, and his big dog Mudge, a St. Bernard almost as big as Henry, appeal to my four-year-old. The easy-to-read, fun to listen to style that Cynthia Rylant brings to these stories is so welcoming that they invite you in like a warm and cozy home on a cold winter's night. These three short stories are just a few of the everyday adventures in the life of Henry and Mudge, told with catchy phrases and lots of character expressions to expose the loving friendship that they embrace. With bedtime a challenge for a pre-schooler (who has a wild immagination), we find this particular book a comforting and reassuring way to end a long day. We highly recommend this entire series, but expecially this selection. Our next favorite is "Puddle Trouble," but do read them all!

Our names are Luisa, Casey, Tom, Joshua, Tim, Megan, Alex, and Janae. We read Henry and Mudge and the Long Weekend. Here is our summary of the book: Henry and Mudge got up one Saturday Morning in February and looked outside. The weather was disgusting. They couldn't go outside and there was nothing to do. Everything was boring to Henry and Mudge. They were so bored that Henry and Mudge went to sleep on the couch with Dad. Henry's mother had the idea to make a castle out of the big refrigerator and stove boxes. Henry, Mom, and Dad started making the castle. Mom drew, Dad cut, Henry stapled, and Mudge chewed an old boot. The family woke up the next morning and started to work on the castle. Mom read the newspaper and drank coffee. Henry and his father finished the castle. They showed it to Mom. It looked nice. It looked like a real castle. Mom, Dad, Henry, and Mudge had a good weekend!

I love the story line. A family working together on a yukky weekend minus the TV to do something fun. I esp. loved the picture of mom sitting at the table reading the paper while dad and son were building the castle in the basement. My kindergartener loved it! We will definitely read more of these books!

This is a very fun book with wonderful pictures drawn in pen and ink and watercolor. After seeing a very obedient dog walk by his house, Henry and his mom decide it might be a good idea to take Mudge--their big, slightly wild and sloppy dog--to obedience school. Henry is worried: "He thought Mudge might drool on the teacher's foot. Or sit on a poodle by mistake. Or not even stay awake long enough to do anything."

The book is funny and teaches kids some fundamentals about training dogs. If Mudge can do it, maybe your dog can do it too!
The book is rated at "level 2--reading with help" by the publisher, and it has enough repetition and short sentences for the beginning reader. However, the humor and great picture make an interesting as well as readable book!

Henry takes his loveable, unruly dog to obedience school. Henry is terribly nervous. Will Mudge sit on a puddle? Will he drool on the teacher's foot? Mudge might flunk dog school! At the end of the eight weeks Mudge and Henry must take the "Big Test". Henry and Mudge are top choice for my 8 year old son who is a reluctant reader. Mudge has definitely found a place in his heart! Short chapters, adorable pictures and funny story make this book a hit!

The cultural and political landscape may never be the same again. The definitive work of Show Biz and Strange Betpartners in and out of the Oval Office. The book is amazingly prophetic in its look ahead from the Clinton first to the second term, with all the right characters.

St George's portrayal of today's social icons is both hilarious and truthfully thoughtprovoking. He leaves noone out it seems as dr hibachi tells you how he sees the world and although satyrical, most of it's not far from the truth.

"The House of Special Purpose" is compiled from the papers of Charles Sydney Gibbes (or Gibbs), English tutor to the children of Tsar Nicholas II. J. C. Trewin did an excellent job of going through Gibbs' papers and combining them with published sources to form a fascinating narrative. The photographs, too, are well-chosen. The Russian revolution happens a third of the way through the book; however, Gibbs was with the family in their captivity in Siberia, and has interesting anecdotes and dimensions to add. One complaint is the lack of a proper bibliography. While "House of Special Purpose" was mostly based on unpublished sources, it would be nice to know at a glance what other sources Trewin consulted. (Sometimes sources are given in footnotes at the bottom of the page; other times they are not.) Similarly, an index might have been nice. However, these are both stylistic complaints. This is an interesting book, highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the last tsar. It is, as other reviewers have said, a shame that it is out of print and hard to find.

This is a wonderful book that describes the last days of Czar Nicholas II and his family. The emphasis is on the children --- son Alexis and daughters Anastasia, Maria, Tatyana, and Olga.

The book is based on the recollections of the children's tutor, Pierre Gilliard, who accompanied them in exile for a time. It is filled with photographs, letters, and other memorobilia from Monsieur Gilliard's collection. These provide a delightful side to the tragic story of the last days of the Romanovs.

It is a pity that this wonderful book is out of print.