Room One: A Mystery or Two

Book Description

Ted Hammond loves a good mystery, and in the spring of his fifth-grade year, he's working on a big one. How can his school in the little town of Plattsford stay open next year if there are going to be only five students? Out here on the Great Plains in western Nebraska, everyone understands that if you lose the school, you lose the town.

But the mystery that has Ted's full attention at the moment is about that face, the face he sees in the upper window of the Andersons' house as he rides past on his paper route. The Andersons moved away two years ago, and their old farmhouse is empty, boarded up tight. At least it's supposed to be.

A shrinking school in a dying town. A face in the window of an empty house. At first these facts don't seem to be related. But Ted Hammond learns that in a very small town, there's no such thing as an isolated event. And the solution of one mystery is often the beginning of another.

Customer Reviews:

Room One: A Mystery or Two.......2007-09-12

So it's time for silent reading in my fifth grade class and my students LOVE silent reading time. Most of them can't get enough of the books they're reading and can't wait to talk about them. But there's always the few who spend the entire silent reading time in the school library or at my personal library or trying to sneak away to the bathroom. They spend more time fidgeting than they do reading. How do you get those children to read? Well, one thing I have found that works is to put an Andrew Clements book in their hands.

Clements' books are simple and readable and according to most of my fifth graders, cool. Frindle, The Landry News, and Lunch Money are not filled with elementary student clichés. The characters aren't cheesy and my students don't find themselves saying "Come on, we're not like that" as is the case with many other books written for them. Clements' characters act and talk like real elementary students and are usually faced with real problems and this is an important part of his appeal. Room One is no exception.

One day while sixth grader Ted Hammond is delivering papers, he notices a mysterious face in an upstairs window of an old home, the Anderson's home. What spikes Ted's curiosity is that no one has lived in the Anderson house for two years. The house has sat empty and the windows have been boarded up. With nothing else going on in his small rural Nebraska town of Plattsford, Ted sets out to investigate.

I liked this book. I really did. It doesn't matter that I picked it up half-wanting, half-expecting a good mystery and didn't get one. Clements made me care about Ted, and April, and her family, and Mrs. Mitchell to the point where it didn't matter if the "mystery" to this story was solved for the reader less than halfway through the book. It's still a good story, and in the end, that's what children really want to read.

A few things I thoroughly enjoyed about the book . . . The Red Prairie Learning Center was fascinating to read about. The idea of a town, so against consolidating with surrounding communities that they've forced themselves to become what they have (a one room school with four 4th graders, one 6th grader, and four 8th graders) was an extremely interesting setting. I loved Mrs. Mitchell's character. She has many wonderful traits that only a teacher would be able to recognize. It didn't surprise me one bit to discover that Clements himself was a teacher at one point in time. No stereotypes here.

As long as you don't set your expectations too high, you'll find Room One a quick, easy, and entertaining read. The epilogue fills in the rest of the story nicely and provides adequate closure to the story surrounding April and her family. Having read most of Clements' other stories, seeing "A Mystery or Two" across this cover excited me some at the thought of a departure from his normal work, but please don't make the same mistake. This isn't so much a mystery as it is another fun (but somewhat serious), school story from Andrew Clements. And that's just fine by me.

An interesting mystery in a small town.......2007-07-22

Room One proved to me that I should never underestimate the power of Andrew Clements' writing. When I found out that this was a mystery in a small town and not a story set in a school, I thought that I might not enjoy it as much as Frindle or School Story before it. But I was wrong.

Room One is a wonderfully written, quasi-mystery. The main character is Ted Hammond. Ted is a likable, bright kid in an interesting small town in Nebraska. Ted is a Boy Scout, the town paper boy and a mystery lover to boot. When he sees a face in the window of the old Anderson house, he gets wrapped up in a real-life mystery of his own.

Clements' economy of words and clarity of description serve to keep this story suspenseful, believable and enjoyable all at the same time. I couldn't put the book down and was pleasingly satisfied with the outcome. The epilogue was also perfectly suited to the book.

I recommend this book to Clements fans and mystery fans alike. While not a skull and crossbones mystery, it is an interesting story about an average Joe taking on some detective work. If you are looking for a Nancy Drew, here-are-the-clues, figure-it-out type mystery then this book is not for you.

Another Great one from Andrew Clements.......2007-05-30

This is a great book for kids of all ages. From it's hooking beginning to the very end, this is a great book through and through. I certainly don't want to give the ending away or any of the other great parts to it, but I do want to say that it is very well-written and enjoyable book!

Katie's Review.......2007-05-22

I liked this book because it was a mystery and mysteries are my favorite books to read. I also liked it because it is by my favorite author, Andrew Clements. I think this book was one of his best because the boy tries to help people.

There's a boy named Ted and he delivers the newspaper to people. While he was delivering the papers he sees this girl in a window in a house that's been abandoned for about two years. So he goes to investigate the next day and he doesn't see any movement until he gets outside where the girl is waiting for him. What happens next? Read the book to find out.

I recommend this book to anyone because it's an outstanding book. I think anyone who likes Andrew Clements should read this book at least once.

Satisfying mystery.......2007-02-23

Ted Hammond is one of only nine students in his one room school and the only 6th grader in Plattsford, Nebraska. The farming community is shrinking and the school is going to close because of the small enrollment. The loss of the school will be the final blow to the town.

Ted loves to read mysteries and the town librarian Mrs. Coughlin has introduced him to interlibrary loan. He reads 2-3 mysteries a week and excels at solving them before the last chapter.

One morning while delivering newspapers he think he sees a face in the window of an abandoned farmhouse on his route. Using the detective skills he has learned, Ted sets out to solve the mystery. While assembling clues, he discovers a family camping in the old house. Alexa a girl about his age asks him to keep her family's presence in the house a secret. He reluctantly agrees then devotes himself to their welfare by bringing them food.

Clements always writes with amazing candor and feeling about the adults in children's lives. He is clear eyed about the sometimes edgy relationship between teachers and their students. Ted confides in his teacher, Mrs. Mitchell about the family which puts her into an ethical dilemma. She does not want to break a promise to a student but she knows she must report the family.

This low key 162 page story is rounded out by an epilogue that tells "the rest of the story" in a conclusion that is very satisfying for the family and Ted's town.

There is much about Andrew Clements that impresses me. His website quotes him, "It is a privilege to write for children."

Average customer rating:

Antitdote to Urban Babies Wear Black
AH-MAZING

Country Babies Wear Plaid
Michelle Sinclair Colman
Manufacturer: Tricycle Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book

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ASIN: 1582461724

Book Description

Grab a picnic basket and a checkered tablecloth and join these urban tykes for a jaunt in the country. A parade of pastoral delights awaits.

Customer Reviews:

Antitdote to Urban Babies Wear Black.......2007-01-22

Not as clever as Urban Babies Wear Black, but as a set, a good counterbalance.

AH-MAZING.......2006-09-02

This is probably the best gosh darn board book I've had the pleasure of reading to my five children. We enjoyed the urban babies book soooo much and couldn't wait for to get our hands on this one! So, for all of you with kids (or those of you are are simply board-book enthusiasts), go get this one now!

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids

Average customer rating:

Profoundly moving
AIDS in America, really
Full of fun, fear, folk and family stories
A compelling view of the onset of AIDS in rural Tennessee.
A compelling journey into the heart of the AIDS epidemic.

My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids
Abraham Verghese
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0671785141

Customer Reviews:

Profoundly moving.......2004-08-20

The child of Indian expatriates, himself an immigrant, Dr. Abraham Verghese found a home among the country people of Tennessee and an extended family among this Bible Belt's first AIDS victims.

Verghese, who began his residency in Johnson City, Tenn. in 1980, gives two reasons for specializing in infectious diseases (ID). One, his mentor convinced him it was the only specialty where cure was common. Two, as it was not a glamor field, a foreign ID doctor had a better shot at training at a top university hospital.

Simple, sensitive and scrupulously honest, Verghese's book is alive to the ironies, tragedies and heroism of the first days of the AIDS epidemic.

After training in Boston, where he saw his first AIDS patient, Verghese and his wife returned to idyllic Appalachia in 1985, expecting their first child. Aware of his outsider status, Verghese sets about finding, and making, his place. His rounds encompass two hospitals, the Mountain Home VA, a residence where he sees elderly vets and a lot of lung cancer, and the modern Johnson City Medical Center, the "Miracle Center." The contrast is vivid.

Although Johnson City has no AIDS patients and its single experience with a New Yorker who didn't quite make it home to die is "suppressed like a shameful memory," Verghese sets out to educate the population, to prevent AIDS here if he can.

His first visit to a gay bar to show an educational video is fraught with discomfort on numerous levels. The stiff self-consciousness of his early encounters with gay men in Boston is being consciously replaced with curiosity. "There was an obvious parallel: society considered them alien and much of their life was spent faking conformity." Still, it's a small town and Verghese is a foreigner with a reputation to build.

But his educational efforts bring in his first cases. He is excited, on the cutting edge of medicine. The HIV virus has been identified and a cure is surely just around the bend. He makes house calls, gives patients as much of his time as they need, and in a zealous spirit of medical documentation, friendship and plain human curiosity, elicits histories so personal it's difficult to imagine them spoken aloud.

As his AIDS practice grows, Verghese encounters bigotry and anger among his colleagues and community. But more profound is the bravery and generosity of spirit the disease arouses among the most unlikely people - the poor, the uneducated, the sick. He is touched, humbled, uplifted by the friends and relatives of his patients and often by the patients themselves.

But the hideousness of AIDS cuts a nasty swath. The bravest face a horrible, lingering and disfiguring death, usually in the prime of life. Verghese's descriptions of disease are unflinching.

As his case load grows to 80 and death becomes a commonplace, Verghese is beset by nightmares of infection and feelings of helplessness. His wife, frightened and resentful, withdraws from him. Similar attitudes in the medical community arouse furious bitterness. All around him, his new friends, his self-made family, are dying. After five years his endurance snaps. Plagued by guilt and relief, Verghese leaves Johnson City.

"My Own Country" is an important, passionate book which cannot be recommended highly enough. Verghese's prose draws the reader directly into the complex beauty and brutality of the human heart. It's a cry for our times.

AIDS in America, really.......2001-02-23

I read first this book shortly after its initial publication. The impact was enormous. I even went to a signing event an hour away from where I lived. What made this book great was that not only it talked about the real tragedy in rural, little educated America, that AIDS wrought there, but it was finely written, with feeling, and instructive. Such a rare blend in this type of litterture. This was not a report from the front, it was also the journey of a man whose whole life principles are challenged, and changed in front of other people's tragedy. Today, as I read it again, it has already that flavor of historical witnessing, but its emotion is still fresh. For those of us that are blase about too many tragedies in our lifes, we could read this book again to regain some of the compassion that we might have misplaced as our everyday life demanded our atention.

Full of fun, fear, folk and family stories.......1997-01-10

Dr. Verghese beautifully captures the Appalachian essence of innocence and trust, and the clash that happens when a feared viral intruder puts its mark on relatives and neighbors. The exposure and initiation of a foreigner to country ways and mindset makes for some comical moments. The text is very creative, expressive and easy to read

A compelling view of the onset of AIDS in rural Tennessee........1996-06-11

"My Own Country" combines medical fact with compelling personal history in a way that reveals the true nature of human understanding for what is "foreign" to us all. Dr. Abraham Verghese comes to rural Tennessee as the foreign graduate of a foreign medical school; rural Tennessee being one of the few areas that will allow him to practice in the United States. At the time of his arrival, the AIDS epidemic arrives as well. Dr. Verghese relates the stories of the victims and their families in the setting of his own acceptance among these bewildered people. Through careful detail, Dr. Verghese is accepted among the citizens of Johnson City, Tennessee, just as they slowly come to accept the reality of the AIDS virus and its consequences in their lives. Told in language easily understood by non-medically trained readers, this story becomes a history of our people and their ability to adapt to difficult and heart-rending life experiences. Dr. Verghese celebrates the ability of the human spirit to accept disease and its consequences while he uses his keen sense of observation to show his own acceptance among these "new people." Dr. Verghese's ability for insight into the pain and suffering of patients families and the ultimate triumph of our compasionate nature is beautifully rendered. This book cannot be recommended highly enough for the many areas in which it succeeds. Ultimately, the book becomes a history of AIDS, medicine and the way both interact with victims who little understand the disease itself.

A compelling journey into the heart of the AIDS epidemic........1996-06-09

Few books can transport the lay reader into the center of an epidemic with such honesty, compassion and intelligence as MY OWN COUNTRY. As a specialist in infectious diseases, Dr. Verghese describes the unexpected and insidious advance of the HIV virus into a small Tennessee town. By taking us into the hearts and homes of the victims and their families, he paints an unforgettable picture of the emotional and physical impact of this epidemic while helping us to understand the intricacies of the many ways in which AIDS attacks the body and mind of its victims. More than their physician, Dr. Verghese becomes friend, confidant and healer of both body and spirit to his patients and their loved ones. With painful candor, he also details the terrible personal price he and his family are forced to pay because of his dedication. While displaying both grace and compassion, Dr. Verghese surprises the reader with his gift for lyrical description and his ability to see beyond the techical perimet

Average customer rating:

sweet and simple

Little House, Little Town
Scott Beck
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 081094930X

Book Description

A charming picture book for preschoolers by a breakout talent

Simple, lyrical text and engaging illustrations take preschool children on a tour of life for a young family-mother, father, and baby-living in a cozy house in a lovely little town. Who do they meet? By envisioning a child's secure place in the world, Little House, Little Town soothes even as it invites readers to explore the world around them. AUTHOR BIO: Scott Beck creates wonderful worlds in his timeless picture books. His works "hark back to 1930s-1940s era children's books"(Publishers Weekly). Scott is a fabric designer, father of two, and the author-illustrator of two highly praised picture books for young children. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

Customer Reviews:

sweet and simple.......2005-05-03

Almost every child could relate to this book in some way as it depicts a variety of typical daily scenes within a community.

Average customer rating:

"ODD!"
Is something missing?
City Chicken

City Chicken
Arthur Dorros
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0060284838
Release Date: 2003-01-21

Book Description

Henry is so confused. She thinks a cow looks like this ... She thinks a horse looks like this ... But when Henry, the city chicken, flies the coop, she finds out that country life is not all it's cracked up to be.

Customer Reviews:

"ODD!".......2006-02-13

This book was a little interesting, but I also thought it was a bit odd, especially towards the end. I also think that there were some missing pages....I didn't get why his eggs were blue!?

Is something missing?.......2004-09-08

This book has a very imaginative story and is wonderfully illustrated, but I could not help but wonder if my book was missing pages. No missing pages, just very clipped story that prevents this book from truly engaging readers. The story reads as though Dorros produced a great tale, but an over-zealous editor got ahold of it and scratched out the magic that would make this story flow. There is so much more story that could have been included that could have made this an engaging story. Instead, the story is rather rough (over-edited?) and then comes to an abrupt halt at the last page. Even my 4 year old was left wondering, "What did I miss?" It is really too bad. There is so much potential in the story and illustrations. I will keep my eyes open for Dorros' books in the future, but I will check them out from the library before buying them. I just hope the author's editor allows more of a developed and fluid story to make it to the book shelves.

City Chicken.......2004-09-01

Overall, this is a very imaginative and quite "punny" book. The illustrations are vibrant and creative with a soft touch - visualize Curious George but a bit smoother around the edges. My only complaint is that the last page really doesn't fit with the rest of the book. Still, this is a lovely read-together picture book.

Average customer rating:

College student
Kudzu Chaos

Kudzu Chaos
Jennifer Holloway Lambe
Manufacturer: Pelican Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1589801571

Customer Reviews:

College student.......2004-12-02

A small sleepy little town called Red Mud Flats experienced heavy rains. This was believed to have caused the kudzu to grow at an amazing rate. Bobby Lee, a young boy from the town volunteered to find a woman named Kudzu Katie to help find a solution for their green foliage problem. Katie suggested the use of the plant to make furniture, baskets, rugs, and food. Mud Flats became famous for its crafts. Kudzu turned out to be a blessing to the little town.

I enjoyed this book. I am writing a research paper on kudzu, and I found this children's book from that research. The uses that the character Katie suggested are real world examples of the uses for today. A teacher could use this book to discuss the introduction of foreign plants into the United States. The illustrations were very green!

Kudzu Chaos.......2004-03-31

I thoroughly enjoyed Kudzu Chaos. The book deals with how to turn a negative situation into a positive one, which I think is something more children's books should address. My child and I found it to be very entertaining and inspiring. The book was very well written, creative, and beautifully illustrated. As a southerner, I found the story unique in that the author wrote a children's book about this plant that is such a large part of the south. We look forward to Ms. Lambe's future books!!

Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town (Oxford World's Classics)

Average customer rating:

This story will stay with you
Mixed feelings abound...
It leaves you with so much
Much like Emma's life...
The Woes of an Incurable Romantic

Madame Bovary: Life in a Country Town (Oxford World's Classics)
Gustave Flaubert , and Mark Overstall
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192833995

Book Description

Gustave Flaubert so scandalized readers with the publication of his first novel, Madame Bovary, he was put on trial for offending the public morality. This now-classic novel tells the story of a young country doctor's wife who seeks refuge from the boredom of her existence in love-affairs and romantic yearnings, ultimately finding herself doomed to disillusionment. Establishing the realistic novel in France, Madame Bovary remains a lasting fascination and a landmark in world literature.

Customer Reviews:

This story will stay with you.......2007-08-03

This book was a challenge initially, with many peaks and valleys to overcome. During the first half of the novel, Flaubert's overt word-painting on every trivial object nearly made me put it down. I marched on because there was a weird thread that kept telling me he was gathering for a big push. The second half of the novel was the most incredible description of this woman's self-destructive behavior in literature. I kept thinking, "God, how far is she blindly willing to go." Francis Steegmuller's translation captures the vernaculars and mood of Flaubert's intent. I compared three separate translations at the bookstore and read passages side by side to gauge the use of straightforward language. Steegmuller floored the rest; having sublimity the others did not posses. The book is on my shelf with pride.

Mixed feelings abound..........2007-07-31

I found myself incredibly annoyed by the character of Emma Bovary. Although, the story itself was written with flowery and descriptive flare, I think that Flaubert wrote Emma so well that by the time I was halfway into the book I was ready for her to just kill herself already. I trudged my way through the middle of this book only because I felt invested in it already. I didn't feel any empathy for her character. The story was very well written. A fan of Flaubert's, but I was definitely not a fan of Emma's.

It leaves you with so much.......2007-06-20

I really liked this book. Flaubert has such an interesting way of writing. His discriptions are pretty bizarre. For example the way he suggests the lusty acts that are occuring by describing the scenery or architecture.
The characters are so enigmatic and at the same time very simple. That's kind of how the whole book is, complexingly simple. Homais uses a line of (paraphrasing) mistaking arsenic for sugar when making vanilla custard. For me this was the theme of the book, but I'm sure it's different for others.
It's a book that leaves you thinking. There's just so much to take from it and you'd never get it all no matter how many times you read it.

Much like Emma's life..........2007-06-01

... a slog through the beginning and middle, really great toward the end, uninteresting at the end.

I was bored with both the story and the writing until about half way through the book. Suddenly the prose seemed to jump off of the page and the story swept me along. Like Anna Karenina, but not as good, this is a textbook example of fantasy and love addiction.

I can't see anything here that a young person could relate to. I hope high school students aren't still being tortured by being required to read it.

The Woes of an Incurable Romantic .......2007-05-27

This is a well written tale about an old story: a woman gets married and finds out that marriage is overrated. She turns to adultery and finds out that this does not satisfy either. It reminds me of the Kate Chopin tale, The Awakening, of a woman in similar circumstances with similar characteristics. Emma Bovary is a pre-cursor to the modern woman: bored, self-centered, and unrealistic. She is not interested in raising her child, helping her husband, or making friends with other women. She has servants to do the housework, so she has a lot of time to feel sorry for herself.

Emma Bovary pursues happiness but never quite catches up to it as she indulges in her passion for romance as an escape from the dullness of life in provincial towns. Even though she gets the romance she wants, she becomes dissatisfied with it later. Her pleasures are fleeting and she is ultimately dissatisfied whether she is bored or trying to escape boredom. She could not handle the mundane routines of life well. Bovary's romantic nature and her desire to live out her fantasies to relieve boredom leads to her downfall.

During her honeymoon days with Charles she imagines that she would be happier if she could travel to a far off place and live out some romantic fantasy: "Why couldn't she be leaning over a balcony in some Swiss chalet? Or nursing her melancholy in a cottage in Scotland, with a husband clad in a long black velvet coat and wearing soft leather shoes, a high crowned hat and fancy cuffs?" Charles is not the husband she dreams of. She finds out early on that he is rather dull and pragmatic. He has no interest in going to the theatre while he lives in the city of Rouen. His dress, learning, and personality cannot inspire any passions in her. He is a man with simple desires married to a woman with elaborate longings for romantic experiences, which is a classic rift in male/ female relationships: "He took it for granted that she was content; she resented his settled calm, his serene dullness, the very happiness that she herself brought him."

Her attempts to stir up passionate love from Charles do not work as she recites amorous verses and sings romantic songs to him. She takes strolls with her dog for "...the sake of a moment's solitude, a momentary relief from the everlasting sight of the back garden and the dusty road." She imagines what it might be like to be with another man who is unlike Charles had her life turned out differently. He would have a magnetic, witty, charming personality and they would live in the city where there would be opportunities to go to balls and theatres and to have "...opportunities for deep emotions and exciting sensations." Beyond this daydream, "...her life was as cold as an attic facing north and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving in the shadows, in every corner of her heart."

Looking at magazines about Paris, she imagines scenes of artists and writers who live life on a higher plane than the mundane level that she lives on. She longs to experience love with "elegant living" and "sensitive feeling" in a romantic place such as the Paris of her dreams. She tries to overcome her boredom this way, but it only leads to more desire for the finer things. Becoming despondent, she gives up playing music, embroidery, and reading. She quits music because she will never perform in front of an approving crowd in a beautiful dress: "There wasn't a chance of her giving a concert in a short sleeved velvet gown, skimming butterfly fingers over the ivory keys of the piano, feeling the public's ecstatic murmur flow around her like a breeze..."

Emma eventually sees through the illusions of her lovely dreams of finding the perfect husband and attributes it to art making things more beautiful than they are: "Ah! If only in the freshness of her beauty, before defiling herself in marriage, before the disillusionments of adultery, she could have some great and noble heart to be her life's foundation! Then virtue and affection, sensual joys and duty would all have been one; and she would have never fallen from her high felicity. But the happiness was doubtless a lie, invented to make one despair of any love. Now she well knew the true paltriness of the passions that art painted so large."

Soon after her night at the opera, she meets Leon and has an affair with him. She goes through the same pattern of disillusionment as the passion wears down as time goes on: "She continually promised herself that the next rendezvous would carry her to the peak of bliss; but when it was over she had to admit that she felt nothing extraordinary." Her passions were the sole concern of her life and she was not careful with money as she pursued her affair. As she spends more money to keep up her romantic illusions, she still does not have happiness and she remarks that adultery is as banal as marriage.

But for all her striving to fulfill romantic passions to relieve her boredom, there is moral condemnation of Emma as the priest does the final rites: "First he anointed her eyes, once so covetous of earthly luxury, then her nostrils, so gluttonous of caressing breezes and amorous scents; then her mouth, so prompt to lie, so defiant in pride, so loud in lust; then her hands, that had thrilled to voluptuous contacts, and finally the soles of her feet, once so swift when she had hastened to slake her desires, and now never to walk again."

Average customer rating:

A JOYFUL STORY FOR YOUNG READERS

Home on the Range

Manufacturer: Dial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0803729189

Book Description

Q: What can happen when a young boy follows the winds of his own curiosity?
A: He might just discover a land full of beauty, adventure, and new friends!
Evoking the thrill of discovery and exploration of new terrain, Brian Ajhar's fresh new interpretation of the classic campfire song will allow young readers to see the range in a whole new way--through a young boy's imagination.
Ajhar's affectionate characterization and vibrant palette are destined to make this a favorite for every aspiring cowboy and cowgirl . . . and the inclusion of the musical notation at the end might just inspire parents to take out the ole guitar and start strummin'.

Customer Reviews:

A JOYFUL STORY FOR YOUNG READERS.......2004-11-02

Young cowboys and cowgirls are sure to take a liking to this version of the classic song "Home On The Range" as seen through the eyes of a small boy who lives in a big city but dreams of being "Where the deer and the antelope play."

His favorite toys are Western - a covered wagon, a rocking horse, model cowboys and cattle. One night he sees a cowboy hat in the stars, and, in his imagination he follows the hat to the place he's always dreamed about.

A graduate of Parsons School of Design and the illustrator of several children's titles, Mr. Ajhar fills his pages with sunny and moonlit illustrations using acrylic paints and drawing pencils.

"Home on the Range" is a joyful story that will fire many young imaginations.

Adventure on the Water (A Town Mouse and Country Mouse Story)

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Adventure on the Water (A Town Mouse and Country Mouse Story)
Barbara Hayes , and Philip Mendoza
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0216920337

Milly and Tilly: The Story of a Town Mouse and a Country Mouse

Average customer rating:

Nice Book with a Nice Message
ILLUSTRATIONS ARE SUPERB
Review
Warm, inviting watercolors and lovingly detailed text

Milly and Tilly: The Story of a Town Mouse and a Country Mouse
Kate Summers , and Maggie Kneen
Manufacturer: Dutton Juvenile
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Picture Books | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Folklore & Mythology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Milly, country mouse, lives in the roots of a big, old tree. Tilly, a city mouse, lives in a huge dollhouse filled with modern conveniences. When Tilly visits the country, she longs for the city, and Milly visiting Tilly, misses the country life. "To each her own" is the message of this timeless and charming story.

"Imaginatively detailed, the soft-stroked illustrations invite youngsters into this charming retelling of a perennially favorite tale." --Booklist

Customer Reviews:

Nice Book with a Nice Message.......2005-11-17

This is a book my girls just loved when they were a few years younger. Maggie Kneen's illustrations are just simply wonderful and the story about how the town mouse is frightened by everything in the country and how the country mouse is frightened by everything in the city, especially by the cat is very nice, too. I used to use this book to tell my girls that people in other places (we travel a lot) would think their lives were as strange as she thought the childen's lives were in some of the places we vistied. In short this is a very good book for toddlers and it's got a nice message as well.

ILLUSTRATIONS ARE SUPERB.......2004-03-05

The popularity of mice in children's literature is underscored Again and again with each new season.

Milly And Tilly by Kate Summers, illustrated by Maggie Kneen introduces two friends, a country mouse and a city mouse, who eventually find that home is best.

Review.......2002-03-07

This is the tale of two mice, one if from the city, Milly, and the other from the country, Tilly. They go to visit each other in their houses. When the Milly goes to visit the Tilly at her country cottage and she is overwhelmed by the peacefulness. It actually starts to drive her a little crazy because she is used to the craziness of the city. They then go to the town where Milly lives. Now Tilly feels out of place. She likes the peacefulness of the country. The hectic city is just too much for her. They both realize that they are happy where they are and that they just like different things.
I like this book because it tells the tale of two mice that like different things but are still friends. When they go to visit each other at one another's houses they realize that they are happy where they are. They are both content with what they have and don't have to change. I think that is what the author is trying to get across in this story. You should be happy with you have and you don't have to change as long as your happy with yourself and where you are in life. Through this story the mice realize this and are all that more satisfied with themselves.

Warm, inviting watercolors and lovingly detailed text.......2000-05-18

This "fish out of water" story concludes with the timeless moral that each of us should be content with our lot in life. Country mouse Tilly invites her city friend to visit, and then town mouse Milly reciprocates. Though they both enjoy each other's company, they part with a new respect for their own place in life.

Kneen's warm, inviting watercolors of the English countryside perfectly set off the lovingly detailed text. Summers seems to have the knack for exposition without going overboard. From the description of Tilly doing her sweeping, cleaning and other "mousework" to the detailed tour of the rooms in Milly's well-furnished townhouse, this book keeps children engrossed from beginning to end.

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