march

People of the Book
$32.95
The idea of the book is wonderful. I love the idea of tracing the history of an item, and particularly a book, through its past owners and their personal journeys.

The actual work however lacks characters that you care about. Hanna is not someone to identify with. I agree with other reviewers that the Harvard thing gets really old, as does her relationship with her unfeeling mother. The short stories are not good enough to make you really care about any one of the people that you meet throughout the book.

The ending is terrible - You don't get enough character development to truly understand the end climax so that it all has to be explained in the last chapter. It makes it contrived and ridiculous.

Added on to that - there is not one good Christian in this book. In the afterward, she says that the only thing known about the priest, Vistorini, is his signature that is on books that were spared during the Inquisition, including the haggadah. So of course, he should be made into a smelly alcoholic who signs the haggadah partly because of a trick and a game that he plays with the rabbi who is begging that it be spared, and partly because of a drunken nightmare that he has. I wonder how his signature came to be on the other books that he did sign without games and nightmares?

I would not recommend this book. The lack of depth and character make the short histories tedious and the end ridiculous.

When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball
$26.00
I didn't see the game - heard about it of course. This book lets you in on so much more than just the one game at the end of the season. It tells you how Magic ended up at MSU and how Bird came to be at Indiana State - it wasn't where he started college. It also gives you details about all of the teammates - some of whom, while mostly forgotten by history, were also pretty darned good basketball players. Neither Michigan State nor Indiana State, it turns out, were one man teams. This book takes you through all the important events leading up to the 1978-79 season and it takes you through the entire season. Some of the events and some of the games that occured before the final were as interesting, or more so, than the final game, so that information isn't just filler - not just stuff to take up space until you get to the main event - it's riveting reading. This book isn't a literary masterpiece, but it's a great read about a not-so-long-ago time when things were... different (I'd say better) in college basketball. These days, Bird and Magic would never meet in the championship because they both would already be in the NBA by this point in their careers - and that's a shame.

Talking Back to OCD: The Program That Helps Kids and Teens Say "No Way" -- and Parents Say "Way to Go"
$15.95
Talking Back to OCD is an excellent book and resource for families. You can't always access a counselor but it is critical for parents and children to work together to overcome and learn to handle OCD. This book allows you to do just that. There is no easy solution to OCD, the more you know about it, the more you will be able to help the person who has it and yourself. OCD is not easy to overcome, you have to work at it and this book helps you do that.

Therapy helps, so do medications but this book will help you feel as if you are not in it alone. When you can't find encouragement this book will help. It eases the mind of the child who suffers from OCD to know that someone else understands how they feel and think and helps take away the negative aspects by helping to focus on what is working. I am glad we found and bought the book.

Sousa's Greatest Hits
$16.98
We purchased this music to use as part of a Fourth of July celebration. It was just exactly what we needed to set the tone for the party.