Learning is an adventure with Peril in the Palace
592339
I was fortunate enough to receive book three of the series titled "The Imagination Station: Peril in the Palace"&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Peril-in-the-Palace-AIO-Imagination-Station-Books/dp/1589976290/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Peril in the Palace (AIO Imagination Station Books)</a>. In this book the pair finds themselves in 1271 China on a quest to retrieve the golden tablet of Kublai Khan. In this well written adventure novel the cousins are faced with war, imprisonment and other challenges. Armed with a few trusted friends they set about their quest.
I really enjoyed reading this book, I read some out loud to my three year old and she was totally into it. The illustrations, which add life to the book, are beautifully drawn. The Imagination Station series of books makes learning history and bravery tons of fun

Note:No funds where exchanged, I recieved a complimentary copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers.
4118244
Quite a rollercoaster of events that shows what hidden turmoil can occur between people of vast power and greedy expectations.  A great and teaching book
2447941
Basically, this is a history book on the evolvement of worldwide knowledge. It is written from an academic perspective, which made for deeper reading than I typically prefer. However, that is not a bad thing. The book is aimed at an intellectual audience and I learned a lot while reading it. The authors explain the transference of scholastic knowledge throughout history in depth and in such a way that the shifts and cyclic patterns are exposed. This read is a testament of the ingenuity and perseverance of the human race to transport acquired knowledge to others separated by distance and time.
2443950
The opening of the book starts off about a wealthy parent, Mrs. Callahan seeking a new sitter, but oddly doesn't have to interact with the kids. The new sitter has state-of-the-art technology to monitor with video footage and speak to the children on a microphone. Reading this bothered me dearly since I used to be a caregiver, no interaction, touch, but only directing and seeing children on technological equipment and expecting them to behave practically on their own.

A chapter later, the adventure begins...what's behind the door to explore. This takes me back to when I first read C.S. Lewis' children novel "Chronicles of Narnia." Although the adventure starts with precious jewels, gold, and meeting Leprechauns and hearing about the horrid stories of the trolls who kept requiring their gold even though the Vikings are no more, this former teacher (M.J. Evans) finds a way to not only make this novel adventurous but a tool for showcasing historical events around 1062AD where the Vikings were destroyed by the King of England. It also teaches independence, to fight for what you believe in and hold so dearly, and strategically as well as collectively unite as a unit to win the battle that lies ahead. Each person uses their talents, intellect, or former learning skills to stand against their worst enemy with speaking up for their rights or simply will have to physically fight. This adventure finds a way for young people to see and utilize their talents collectively and freely to do what is right for the common good.

Dream 4 More Reviews has received North Mystic by the author for a book review.

Dream 4 More Reviews,
What a Dream!
Adrienna Turner
4090451
More than any other book Ive read, Hopkirks The Great Game shows the problems and dangers of looking at international relations as a game.  A game assumes a pre-defined objective that a set of pre-defined players are trying to achieve, and that only one can win.  From the point of view of the British forward school, the Great Game was a contest between Russia and Britain for the control of India.  By 1904, after a hundred years of political and military maneuvering, Russian advances in Central Asia had stalled and Britain still ruled India.  So Britain won the game, right?

 But this game-centered viewpoint blurs some embarrassing realities.  Britain, the winner, lost India within a lifetime of the end of the Great Game.  And it lost India not to Russia but to national exhaustion from two devastating wars against Germany  wars in which Russia, Britains supposed opponent in the Great Game, was in fact a vital ally.  In other words, to retain India, Britain needed not to defeat Imperial Russia but to strengthen it, into a position where it could either deter war with Germany, or end such a war quickly before Britain could be prostrated.

 Well, better to lose India to Germany in 1945 than to Russia in 1845, the forward school might answer.  But this too shows the fallacy of the game assumption; the Russians were not playing the Game, because capturing India was not their objective  at least, not after 1801 and the failure of Tsar Pauls mad lunge at Khiva.  Certainly, local Russian military commanders still dreamed of marching triumphantly into Bombay at the head of a fantasy army of mountain-jumping Cossacks aided by conveniently pliable native rebels.  But nobody in the Kremlin had such delusions.  The imperial court had long ago reached the same conclusion as the more intelligent British officers had: a Russian occupation of India was impossible.  The utter futility of the task was finally proven by Russias 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, which failed disastrously even with far more advanced technology than the Tsars troops had available a hundred years earlier.

Russias aggression in Central Asia might be useful to scare the British and force them to divert resources to defend India.  And it also ended the Turkmens constant raids, kidnappings and enslavement of Russian subjects.  But the main point of Russias Central Asian empire was to build a captive market for Russias expanding economy.  In short, Central Asia was Russias India, to be dominated and exploited in the same way that Britain did her own empire.  So from the Russian viewpoint, Russia won the game; it achieved its own objective of annexing Central Asian resources, which had nothing to do with the objective the forward school imagined Russia to have.  And it retained that empire long after Britain lost India.

So the Great Games importance in history is ultimately the distraction it provided to the British Foreign Office.  While the Queens ministers pored over the reports from Khiva and Samarkand, sent agents to map the passes of the Himalayas and Pamirs, and dispatched armies to strengthen friendly local kings and punish hostile ones in the high mountains, Prussian-led Germany was growing stronger and stronger, beating Austria, humiliating France, and ultimately becoming so mighty that the balance of power in Europe could not be maintained, and the disaster of 1914 became inevitable.
2038818
A great story for kids 8-10. For those children of the 90's lucky enough to remember the episode itself (or those who have bought the DVD since) there is a tale of Henry Jones Jr (long before the Fedora and whip) being taken as a child on a world tour with his Father the Medievil Scholar and his Mother. The tour begins with Egypt. So as not to fall behind in his studies he is accompanied by the stern and aged Mrs Seymour.
Adventures follow as Henry Jr and Ms Seymour visit Giza and the Valley of the Kings meeting Lawrence of Arabia and Howard Carter. The story grows in intrigue when a Mummy's Curse is thrown into the mix while visiting a dig. The episode was aimed at being fun and educational. The book surpasses the episode in its educational aspects with more detail, expanded story and facts about ancient Egypt and archaeology. As a child I enjoyed learning a few hieroglyphs and about the grizzly process of Mummification.
I have bought this for my daughter in the hopes it will trigger a love of the archaeological science and the adventure of History.
I recommend this for children (as I was when I first read it at 10) who aren't easily absorbed by books.
4337871
This book challenges our traditional educational path.  Without formal training and education, this remote civilization manages to live their lives supporting each other and remaining in rythym with the world around them.  Even when offered the opportunity to partake of the "advanced" world outside of their native lands, they understand that there is nothing there that will improve their happiness and satisfaction.  By paying close attention to the natural world around them and within themselves, these people individually learn everything they need to know.  Unfortunately most of the civilized world does not recognize the inherent wisdom available from these sources and fails to include them in the educational experience presented to our children and young adults.
2831332
Like the tip of an iceberg, this seemingly easy fiction unexpectedly delves into a subject of consequence. With music and through magic, it gently highlights a form of dyslexia or learning disability - a disease, that if undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and managed poorly, can lead to much suffering with devastating results to a person's life.
It shows us that with research and patience, not everything is always as it seems. Education comes in a myriad of forms, and sometimes what's suitable for the masses may not be suited to an individual.
3982206
You must suffer and serve before you can rule.  That is the theory in the mythical kingdom where Beauty is a princess.  In her world, young royals are sent to serve in a neighboring kingdom where BDSM is the rule and the "slaves" are the royal princes and princesses of surrounding lands.  Erotic, mysterious, and charming all at the same time, Rice weaves a spell of sensuality over her readers.  Beauty is taken from her parents by her new master, and forced to walk, bear breasted to the neighboring kingdom. Her torments begin in earnest when they stop for a night at an inn along the way, ad of course Beauty's bondage is prominently displayed for all the local riffraff.  Arriving at the castle where she is to spend the next year in bondage she's displayed naked for inspection.  Rice describes many erotic and painful tortures that Beauty and other royal scions suffer through.  It's a classic of erotic BDSM fiction.  You might as well buy all three to start with.
607819
So these girls have been selected by a committee to come and live in the palace and vie for the hand of the crown prince.  The story occurs in the future in a United States besieged and conquered by the Chinese who are finally fed up with our taking all the stuff with bad debt.  There are castes by profession, and our heroine America is a lowly five, a singer.

Of course America originally does not want the prince.  Her simple sense of style soon puts the showier girls to shade.  But what is a girl to do?  The food is fabulous.  The clothes are lovely and made from natural flowing fiber.  She has a team of maids, and a castle to hang out in.  Soon we have my favorite porn going on: rich people stuff.  The story is fluffy and invites the reader to overindulge, but the aftermath has left me feeling bloated and vaguely restless.  I don't like the Bachelor shows either, so it is probably me.  In the end I actually sort of wish our spunky girl would be just a bit more polite.
550580
At first glance, the residents of the Novanglian College of Lucidity seem harmless, if a little eccentric. They prefer to call themselves by numbers rather than by names, and are fascinated by astronomy and philosophy. Octavian has lived with the members of the college for as long as he can remember, leading a life dressed in silk, wearing powdered wigs and never worrying about the status of his next meal.  His mother Cassiopeia, a displaced African princess and the only woman at the College, is treasured by the College's scholars. She entertains them with her wit, charm and beauty. With Octavian, though, she is reluctant to speak and doesn't want to answer his many questions about her life before the start of her residence at the College.

As Octavian grows older and learns more about the world, he discovers a horrifying truth: instead of being a cherished godchild to the College, he is its science experiment. In Massachusetts, in the years just before the Revolutionary War, the College wants to prove a theory, and Octavian is their test case: Can African boys and white boys, educated in the same environment, have equal success in their educations? In some regards, Octavian becomes everything the College could have hoped for, but studying science and philosophy also makes Octavian into his own person with his own ideas, not all of which the College agrees with.

After a "pox party," a gathering in which attendees are infected with smallpox in hopes of inoculation, ends in disaster for Octavian, he runs away from his life at the College. Although he is smart and has achieved beyond what most of the College's residents thought he could, he is still considered a worthless failure. He now must make a life for himself in a place that regards him as a lesser form of life, and he cannot trust anyone.

At times, Octavian's journey through brutality and enlightenment is just as dry as the Greek fragments he is forced to read. Despite this, the picture of pre-Revolutionary War life for Africans in America is something new and fascinating. Octavian faces his own chance at independence from the College less than a year before America declares its own independence from England, and the physical fights give him the strength to hold on to who he is even in the face of what was later deemed cruel and unusual punishment. If you live for philosophy and the language of classics, this is the book for you.

  --- Reviewed by Carlie Webber
2509364
JK Rowling gives us the second installment to the Harry Potter saga in THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, which covers his second year at Hogwarts, the school of wizardry and magic.  Rowling knows how to spin a good yarn, and "this Potter is hotter" than its predecessor.
Harry returns for the summer to the Dursley household, much to their chagrin, for they would wish him out of their lives.  They give Harry much more respect this time around due his learning the art of wizardry, until Uncle Vernon discovers that Harry cannot use his magic on a Muggle, because it is against school rules.  Almost immediately, Harry's life becomes a living hell again, even to the point of Uncle Vernon chaining him up in his room.  It is here that Harry meets an interesting little creature named Dobby, who warns him not to return to Hogwarts for fear of his life; nevertheless, Harry does not heed his advice and returns. This sets the stage for an interesting plot.
Harry quickly discovers that Dobby was correct in his assessment.  At Hogwarts, danger looms around every corner, but all are warned by the writing on the wall, "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED, ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE."  What does this mean?  Who is the HEIR?  Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the reader will have to discover answers to these questions before it is too late!  It is and could be a petrifying experience for all.
Rowling builds on some of the characters introduced in the first edition. Harry's Slytherin enemy, Draco Malfoy, is still up to his old tricks and possibly more, along with his father, Lucius Malfoy, a major player in the story.  Moaning Myrtle, the bathroom queen, returns with a bigger role in this book.  Remember she is the ghost that lives in the toilet, the one with the terrible self-esteem.  Rowling introduces new characters into the story as well.  There is Gilderoy Lockhart, the famous Gilderoy Lockhart, the author of many of the textbooks at Hogwarts, who does NOT lack in self-esteem, and Ginny, the little sister of Ron Weasley, begins her first year.
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS is a wonderful read as the author keeps the reader turning another page, so get ready for an exciting adventure with Harry and the Gang as they face the powers of the Dark Arts...again.
4190483
My students loved this story. They hated it when we wouild have to stop reading for the day.  Many want to do research on the fever that made history.
4087716
The Ming were a complex dynasty, difficult to write concisely about.  Proudly ethnocentric, they sought to undo the policies of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty and "Sinicize" China after its conquest by its northern neighbors.  Politically they began voyages of exploration generations before the Portugese and Spanish; ironically the seeds of its economic destruction were planted by European silver, the result of their colonization of the New World.  Intellecutally, the Ming witnessed an explosion of literacy the likes of which China had not witnessed since the T'ang Dynasty 400 years earlier.  In spite of its accomplishments, the MIng only lasted 257 years - although many of its institutions would be continued by the Qing, begging the question why were the Ming ultimately unsuccessful?

Dardess, professor emeritus from the Universtiy of Kansas, explores this question through five lenses, each increasingly smaller in scope: the frontiers (examining Ming foreign policy), emperors (providing a brief synopssis of the 16 Ming rulers), governance (specifically at the provincial level), literati (those among the educated classes who for whatever reason were either not admitted into the civil service, as well as anecdotes from the lower eschelons of the government), and outlaws.  The deductive organizaiton of the book was a bit odd, having only a rudimentary understanding of the Ming.  While taken as a whole, the direction and purpose eventually becomes clear (Dardess shows the interconnectedness of Ming policy from a macro-level to the micro, thereby highlighting both strengths as well as flaws), it required patience and trust to get there.  I much would have preferred a more chronological approach in organization.

In discussing the Ming, Dardess brings a wealth of information: in discussing governance, the literati and outlaws his history is rife with anecdotal examples from everyday Chinese to illustrate larger concepts - the competitiveness of the civil service, the role literacy played in the variety of writing that is such a part of Ming intellectual life (in terms of prose and poetry), the influence of Buddhism on both the civil service and the scholarly class - as in any good history, it gave a face to the time period.

In answering the question, why were the Ming ultimately unsuccessful, Dardess is clear to point out that there was no singular cause - in fact, the final MIng emperors (Tianqi and Chongzhen) were capable and earnest rulers.  Rather, Dardess aruges, it was a perfect storm of large-scale internal rebellions, outside threats (from pirates on the East China sea as well as from the Manchurian Qing who would succeed them), ecological disasters and economic crises.  The system of governance the Ming had in place was sound - the Qing largely maintained it in their ruling of China -the mechanisms, however, were ill-suited to face the scope and scale of challeges presented in the mid-17th century.

Dardess' history is an excellent one - while organizationally a bit clunky, the details, writing and information are excellent and the narrative is easy to read.  Recommended for anyone interested in a fascinating period in Chinese history.
1398366
This is a delightful and clever book, with nice picture and rhymes. Adventurous young Princess Katy is taught by the court wizard, the wise Merlin the grey. She learns the alphabet, but is unable to remember the K, which seems to have "gone away." She searches all over, including among the other alphabet letters, even in the stable, but she can't find it anywhere. But then her mother helps. Children reading or hearing the tale will be encouraged to learn the alphabet.
1057773
Sven Beckerts book is a challenge to read, but provides rich insights to readers who are patient and persevere. The book spins a tale about cotton and weaves a fascinating tapestry spanning two and half centuries across Asia, Africa, Americas and Europe. Beckert painstakingly narrates how cotton became the first global commodity and how it shaped and reshaped lives of peasants, workers and merchants across the world. It is astonishing to learn how Britain became the capital of the cotton empire, without growing cotton, without the expertise of spinning and weaving and without domestic demand. It came as a huge personal shock to learn that British poached the technical expertise of spinning and weaving from India. Liverpool became the hub of the cotton empire, importing cotton from America, dispatching it to Manchester for spinning and weaving and then exporting the cloth to markets in Asia and Africa. Cotton gave birth to industrial revolution in England and slavery in America. American Civil War and the subsequent abolition of slavery was a big turning point in the growth of the cotton empire. The balance shifted from America to Asia. It led to colonisation of Asia and Africa as European countries wanted more land to grow cotton for their factories. It accelerated the progress of railroad construction in America and Asia to move the cotton faster from farms to ports. If there is one common thread in the thick fabric of this book, it is capitalism. Land, labour and capital  the three main resources for the cotton industry  were marshalled differently in different regions of the world in different points of time. Beckert takes pains to establish how capitalists collaborated with the power of the nation-states to further the growth of the cotton industry. And ironically it was this dependence that workers finally exploited to gain some advantage for conditions of their labour.

Empire of Cotton is a very academic book and Beckert drives home messages pedantically, repeating them not just once or twice, but multiple times in the same chapter and across chapters. The book is replete with statistics and it gets very overwhelming. Beckert wears his scholarship heavily when he informs us that Chinese cotton industry employed 252,031 workers in 1925 (page 414). Beckerts sentences are unwieldy and sometimes they yield little meaning even after multiple readings. The paragraphs and chapters could have been better organised for easier reading. The book has bloated to twice what it should have been. It is an editing disaster. Beckert writes without any feeling. Slaves who shed blood and sweat in American plantations and women and children who worked 64-hour weeks in English mills are mere caricatures in the book. There is hardly an anecdote that you can remember after reading 448 pages. And most importantly the book, despite its humungous size, does not make any mention of BT cotton. The agricultural aspect of cotton is completely ignored by this book, and that is perhaps its greatest flaw.
4521917
Da Chen describes in aching detail his uphill battle to get his foot in the door of Chinese higher education with it's exposure to greater intellectual challenges and the potential for higher rewards. This book takes up from the point of his childhood described in "The Sounds of the River" in a flyspeck provincial village to the big city life of the capital Beijing. The persecutions visited on Da and his family due to their former lives as "landlords" continue with beatings, insults and threats of death or expulsion from school. Navigating the corrupt eductional system, living on pocket change, driving yourself into sleeplessness and bleeding ulcers, figuring out who and how to bribe in order to make it from day to day under Communist rule are explained and illustrated. Mr. Chen made an appearance at the Decatur Book Festival yesterday and my reading of his books was prompted by the opportunity to meet this extraordinary individual. His fluency with a brush and flute-explained in "Colors of the Mountain"-was evident. Do yourself a favor and delve into his books and into another world.