My One Hundred Adventures

Author : Polly Horvath Number of Pages : 272 Release Date : 2008-09-09 Publisher : Schwartz & Wade List Price : $16.99 Amazon Price : $9.48 Used Price : $6.78

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Customer reviews

Artsy adults would have you believe children would like this! by .. BkWyrm (Norman, OK)
I have been a librarian for many, many years, and I can assure you that not one of my students would like this book! It is the kind of book that cerebral intellectuals would have you believe is "wonderful." Yes, there are a few interesting descriptions, and Jane's voice does have some honesty, but the situations she runs into seem very contrived, and her voice is more like an adult recalling a childhood summer than a child's thoughts in "real time." The "quirky" characters are shallow, self-absorbed, and often mean-spirited. Jane lapses into bouts of poetic reverie in between wondering if the next male vagrant she sees is her daddy or the father of one of her siblings.(Jane is not sure whether her sister and two brothers have the same father or different ones.)Jane cannot help her mother with her younger siblings, because Jane is black-mailed into babysitting a hoard of greasy children, while the children's mother takes on a waitressing job. Jane has to take them to the beach and wander through the neighborhood, because it is summertime and the children's father, the school's janitor, is drunk and violent back at their trailer home. Jane's mother, a poet who once won a Pulitzer (right!), never asks where Jane is all day, and no one apparently gets sunburned. Their female pastor ropes Jane into helping hand out free Bibles on Sundays, but the pastor is too wrapped up in herself and drags Jane to a roadside fortune teller, and later a "channeler," trying to validate whether she has the power to heal and is destined for "great" things. All of this is told with somber sincerity, as Jane ponders LIFE. This book is like a movie that doesn't know whether it is a comedy or a drama, and the elements jar with one another. A few adults may think this is high art, but for kids, it will be a snoozer-rama!

Adventure is Where You Find It by .. Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento, CA)
Jane lives in a house by the sea with her mother and three younger siblings all year long, despite the fact that most people leave after the summer ends. She loves their house, and loves the life they have, but still she has grown restless. What she craves is adventure, and the summer of her twelfth year, adventure is what she gets. This is a fun book that is easy to read, comfortable, and engages the imagination. There are no themes that are too adult for young readers, so kids can enjoy going along for the ride and parents can be comfortable letting them. I recommend this book.

Reviewed by Kim Schults

Completely Delightful by .. Monica Edinger ()
What a lovely book. I became a Polly Horvath fan years ago with The Trolls and Everything on a Waffle. This new book has a similar Horvathian episodic style, exquisite prose, and her unique dry understated wit. Set in a Massachusetts coastal town, 12 year-old Jane lives with her poet mother and younger siblings on the beach. In true Horvath fashion, eccentric characters populate the novel as do eccentric experiences -- delivering Bibles by balloon, babysitting issues, and other intimate adventures. There are a number of connecting threads (family, fathers, friendship, and more) moving through the story, all nicely and satisfyingly resolved for our heroine Jane by the end.

Horvath always has a dry, deadpan humorous style that I've always loved. For example, in this book, Jane's poet-mother is evidently doing what she can to find and put food on the table and there is mention of a large bag of rice. Toward the end of the book Jane, her mother, and a friend are mourning the death of another character:

We don't feel much like having a barbecue now. We sit around and eat a little rice.

(And again a few paragraphs later when someone stops by to discuss the funeral.)

"Of course we will be there. We will all be there," says my mother and then offers Mrs. Merriweather a little rice, but she cannot stay. She has other arrangements to make.

A book that lingers long after you are done with it. Completely charming.

A Mystical, Lyrical Gem by .. Ami Hassler ()
My One Hundred Adventures is a cross between Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide and Joan Bauer's Hope Was Here. Surprises await in every chapter, making the reader want to quickly turn to the next page. By the same token, Horvath is so in-tune with her 12-year-old protagonist and the daily music of her summer days in a small Massachusetts beach town, that I found I also wanted to stop and read passages over and over again.

Jane is ready for adventure. She has spent all her years with her three younger siblings and her single mom in a wonderfully cozy house by the sea, but she is aching for something more. She's ready to leap into the "know-not-what" this summer. And leap she does with a first time solo ride in a hot-air balloon, a trip to the fair with her possible father, an almost road trip to California with an elderly neighbor, and a new friendship with Nellie, preacher and hopeful healer. Just by summoning a little positive energy and opening her front door, Jane's dreams for 100 adventures begin to come true.

For additional comments about this novel and other reviews, please visit my site.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Author : Gabriel Garcia Marquez Number of Pages : 448 Release Date : 2006-05-30 Publisher : Harper Perennial Modern Classics List Price : $16.95 Amazon Price : $9.28 Used Price : $6.64

Product Description

One of the most influential literary works of our time, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a dazzling and original achievement by the masterful Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

Customer reviews

Magical and All Encompassing by .. Suzanne (United States)
A few writers in each generation are gifted with such writing talent that they create books that make you catch your breath. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of those writers. His gift with prose, the way he uses language, his storytelling ability is staggering. This is an engrossing read from the very first sentence. You will be captivated by the magical world that has been created and the all too human characters that populate the story.

For reading pleasure, I would recommend the Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition of this book, which has those very convenient flaps on the front and back covers that make perfect bookmarks to save your page when you do manage to put the book down!

A House of Mirrors for Humanity by .. Drunk On The Wind (Out cycling- plz leave msg.)
If you understand "house of mirrors" is the name of the town, and you understand that each generation repeats the errors and mistakes of the past, and Melquiades, and the inventions, and the click-clocking of the bones in the wall, and the magical realism, and the cyclical pattern of the stories, and the corkscrew tail of a pig on a wailing child being carried off into the jungle by ants, you will get this story. There is a reason this book won the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is a book for lovers of literature, for those who search the world for meaning. Amazing. Blinding in its beauty and brilliance. A sheer joy to read.

A Masterwork by .. C. Wright (Santa Clara, CA)
I'm not sure I would classify this book as one of my favorites, and yet it is entirely profound. Written in a beautiful style that is amazingly complex at the same time it is beautifully simple, One Hundred Years of Solitude reveals a true mastery of composition. The themes are as grotesque as they are beautiful, realistic and at the same time fantastical, bright and full of hope and at the same time cast in a hopeless darkness. Definitely worth reading.

Amazing! by .. J. Pena (Santo Domingo, DR)
Marquez book's have always amazed me, the way he has to transport you through the pages of the book to a world full of imaginative, mystery, laughs, its a book to read more than one time. Highly recommended.

pointless by .. Lisa Kelly (LA, CA)
This is one of the hardest to read most pointless books I have ever had the misfortune of trying to read.

One Hundred Hungry Ants

Author : Elinor J Pinczes Number of Pages : 32 Publisher : Sandpiper Company : HOUGHTON MIFFLIN List Price : $6.95 Amazon Price : $2.99 Used Price : $0.46

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Customer reviews

My second grade class loved this book! by .. Laura (Midwest)
We are learning different ways to skip count and find patterns in ways to get to 100. I read this to the students in class. They loved the book, the processing, and pictures. They were able to process and discuss the different patterns of the lines the 100 ants formed. Then they were able to relate this to coins in a dollar. They book is ideal for guided reading and discussion. It has rhythm, which is important for young children to recall concepts. It also it is a lot of fun. They enjoyed me reading to them, and then they wanted to hold the book and read it again to themselves. I highly recommend this book, for learning and just for fun reading.

Awesome! by .. ElemTeacherFL (FL)
This is a fun book and an entertaining story. It's also a good way to teach multiple ways to add to a number and multiple ways to represent a number (2 groups of 25 are equal to 5 groups of 20, both represent 100.) Really awesome book for elementary math teachers.

Awesome and clever mathematics book!! by .. Christine M. Klein (Fort Lauderdale, FL USA)
I'm a college student working towards my Elementary Education degree, and a mom of two young children. I purchased this book while taking a mathematics course, so I could introduce some more advanced mathematics concepts to my four year old. He loves this book! It has a silly cute repetitive song, and teaches about division and multiplication. There is a list of other suggested reading material at the end of the book, and I'm going to get each one of them!

math through litiracy by .. JKRowling (Brooklyn, NY)
This book not only teaches math (division and multiplication) it is really fun to read.
from the catchy rhyming song, to the illustrations showing how even the turtles were already taking food by the time the ants arranged and re-arranged themselves.
points to discuss with your child or students: why were the ants so late for the picnic? the answer can be a practical one - they wasted too much time rearranging themselves - or a mathematical one - one long line of 100 ants would get there faster than 10 lines of 10.
why were the ants so angry at the littelest ant?
also it's a good time to explain the characteristic of ants: they go in a single file and share everything.
the other book "a remainder of one" was better, because it was a solution to a problem rather than a creation of a problem

Falls short, and a negative message about math by .. Tuppy (Colorado)
I bought this book after reading all of the positive reviews. I hate to be a grouch, but I am disappointed and will return the book for the following reasons: First, children need repetition to learn. Instead of merely showing the ants running around to rearrange themselves with each division and then going on to the next, the book should reiterate the new number of rows and how many are in each. More importantly, the message of the story is negative. It shows that the divisions were a waste of time, and the smart little ant who knew how to divide is scorned by all his ant-friends in the end. That is certainly not something I will read to my already math-apprehensive niece. Adults may be able to extract business lessons out of the story, as one reviewer wrote, but if the intent is to teach math concepts to young children, the message should be that math is useful, valuable, and fun. On a less important note, another reason I am disappointed in the book is that the rhyming meter is quite poor.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Author : Gabriel Garcia Marquez Number of Pages : 432 Release Date : 2003-06-24 Publisher : HarperCollins List Price : $24.95 Amazon Price : $14.77 Used Price : $10.99

Product Description

One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career.

The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.

Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility -- the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Gabriel García Márquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master.

Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an accounting of the history of the human race.

Customer reviews

Magical realism from the master of the genre by .. Nathan Beauchamp (Oak Park, IL USA)
I've read this book several times and it gets better with each reading. While I believe LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA is Marquez' best novel, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is probably his most mesmerizing. From the very first, beautifully constructed sentence (my favorite book beginning of all time) the reader is immersed in the world of the Buendía family and their town Macondo. Meandering, episodic, and always entertaining, this is a book to be consumed with childlike wonder as the narrative drifts through time, plot, and many confusingly named characters. There is an intentional blurring of character's names that can leave the reader confused. However, this is not a novel mainly about characters. It is about the passing of time, of the intractable mysteries of life, and about the tragedy of joy, and the joy that follows tragedy.

Groundhog Day in book form by .. Matthew Farina (Columbus, GA USA)
I would equate my experience reading 100 Years of Solitude to watching the movie Groundhog Day 5 times consecutively.

I mildly enjoyed the first 150 pages or so, though in my opinion it still is not spectacular writing, but merely competent. But still, if this book was only 200 pages, I would look on it favorably. Unfortunately.... it's twice that long. The foundation of the book is incessant reincarnations of the same family members over and over and over again. Brevity and succinctness is obviously not Marquez's strong suit. This, along with a very fable-like style makes the book strangely feel more antiquated than Beowulf (but not nearly as interesting).

I will admit that it is initially captivating, but unfortunately this is accomplished the same way soap operas and Lifetime movies do: ridiculous interpersonal dramas endlessly unfold in a cantilevered manner.

100 Years of Solitude painfully beats a dead horse in a manner which makes Atlas Shrugged seem like a pamphlet in comparison.

Finishing this book was like saying goodbye to an old friend by .. IanB ()
Like many that reviewed this book, it can be a struggle, the names are difficult to follow and it is not an easy read. I learned a very important lesson while reading this book... great literature is not always simple and straightforward. I believe you get as much out of this book as you put into it. This is probably one of the top five books I have ever read and after all of the "work" I put into it, I was rewarded many times over. All of my good friends are getting this for Christmas.

A Looking Glass Trip Through History by .. Patrick Shepherd (San Jose, CA USA)
This is not your typical novel. It's difficult, confusing, strongly metaphorical, and far more concerned with history and message than any deep look at its characters. At the same time, it is sometimes lyrical, beautiful, inventive, and given to unexpected trips to the magical, just when it seems bogged down in a very harsh reality.

It's the story of the town of Macondo and the family that help found the town, stretched over the hundred years of the title. It's clear, when you step back from the details of this work, that the entire work is a metaphor for what happened to Columbia, from its early run-in with the Spanish invaders through the exploitive actions of companies out to rip the riches from the country with no regard for the human cost of their endeavors, and on into to the modern day world of political corruption backed by barely sheathed threats of force.

The family that the book follows is unique in many ways, peopled by characters both incredibly strong and driven by obsessions, and yet insular, separated from the real world by their own internal fantasies. Here we find the rebel hero and the dominating matron side by side with ghosts, the Wandering Jew, and highly mysterious gypsies. However, all of these characters are seen from a distance, even though we are privy to their internal thoughts and ideas, and it is difficult to get emotionally involved with any of them. Not helping in this regard is the extreme similarity of names through various generations of the family, and frequent references to the genealogical chart at the beginning of the book are necessary to try and keep everything straight.

Stylistically, be prepared for page long sentences and sudden multi-page discourses not immediately connected to current happenings. Often this prose is quite beautiful, and at times very effective in painting pictures of some very horrible occurrences in ways that can sear into your brain. Also be fully prepared for the flights of magical realism, when you go from the mundane of everyday to things clearly impossible in ordinary life, items which often highlight by contrast the depth and trivialness of the ordinary.

If you are looking for a straightforward story with normal people, this is not the place to look. If instead you are looking for something very much out of the ordinary, and willing to work to find the core of what's happening, this work can be quite rewarding. It's doubtful if a single reading of this work will expose all of its potential, there is too much buried meaning, symbolism, and metaphor here that needs careful inspection to yield its full treasure. Its themes are not uplifting; futility, the constant of man's inhumanity to others is stark, the repetitiveness of the actions and character types from one generation to the next leads one down the path of asking what purpose does anything have, and the pervasiveness of each individual's necessary isolation from others keeps a dark cloud over the entire work. This is a somber work, with its gold carefully buried, and the reader must be a diligent prospector.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

The Greatest Ending by .. jpv (Minneapolis, MN, USA)
Like many others, I had quite a hard time "getting into" this book. However, once I'd traversed the first half, I understood that what I was reading was a story like no other I'd come across. There was also a feeling that something glorious was going to happen at the end. I think I was right: This is the greatest ending I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It is also the only time I've ever shed a tear while reading a novel. Pure genius.

One Hundred Details from the National Gallery

Author : Kenneth Clark Number of Pages : 160 Publisher : National Gallery London List Price : $35.00 Amazon Price : $21.94 Used Price : $31.06

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