When Bat Was A Bird

Product Description

Why does Monkey fear Leopard? Why does the Reed Warbler babble? How did Jabulani outwit the Lion? These and other intriguing questions are answered in When Bat was a Bird. Twenty-four fresh and exciting stories feature memorable creatures both real and magical. In his latest collection, author Nick Greaves draws once more from the lore, mythology and history of various southern African tribes to relate a new collection of tales that is bound to become a firm favorite along with the highly successful When Hippo was Hairy, When Lion Could Fly, and When Elephant was King.

When Birds Could Talk And Bats Could Sing

Average customer rating:

ENJOYED EVERY PAGE OF THESE STORIES AS DO THE KIDS
Beautifully illustrated, wonderfully told...
Wonderful African American tales from the South

When Birds Could Talk And Bats Could Sing
Virginia Hamilton
Manufacturer: Blue Sky Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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

Look Inside Teen Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 0590473727

Customer Reviews:

ENJOYED EVERY PAGE OF THESE STORIES AS DO THE KIDS.......2006-09-07

This is truely a wonderful work for young folk. The illustrations are absolutely great. The depiction of each species of bird and animal is actually quite accurate, even dressed in the human clothing provided by the illustrator. This is a collection of 19th century African American folk tales, quite similar to the famous Brer Rabbit tales. These stories have been reworded so that 19th century dialect can be understood and be ralated to by children of today. Each story has a wonderful teaching and the text throughout the book matches the illustrations perfectly. In addition, there is a nice section at the back of the book which tells the source of these stories which is quite interesting standing alone. Recommend this one highly.

Beautifully illustrated, wonderfully told..........2005-05-12

You couldn't ask for more in a children's book. I tripped across this book at our local library, picked it up and started reading it to my two sons, ages 8 and 10. It's a book that is meant for out-loud reading. Hamilton's prose is written in a very conversational tone, which mimics the way in which these southern tales were originally passed along: orally. Each story is about 3-4 pages long, with a lesson learned at the end of each one. Birds and bats engage in ridiculous actions and we -- the humans -- can learn from them. The book is as much fun to look at as it is to read, due to the beautiful artwork of the illustrator, Barry Moser.

Wonderful African American tales from the South.......2004-07-26

These stories were meant for telling. Virginia Hamilton adds a voice that is full. It is deep and loving. Most of the stories have a bit of verse or song. Each tale ends with the teller speaking the moral plainly to the children listening. For example, "How Bruh Sparrow and Sis Wren Lost Out" ends, "So, children, here's a leaf from the book of birds: Pick on your own size. For it's no use squabbling over what's too big for you to handle." I think these tales would be perfect for the mid to upper elementary audience as well as for adults.

There is a table of contents, but the stories are in no apparent order and are not grouped. Barry Moser's vibrant watercolor illustrations are not necessary for the storytelling. However, having seen them, it is hard to imagine the story without them.

Source Notes: The Afterword helps readers and tellers know the history and origins of these Southern, African-American tales. The stories in When Birds Could Talk & Bats Could Sing were originally written down by Martha Young who wrote them in the so-called black dialect of the plantation era. It is impossible to tell now which stories she heard from African American's and which she wrote herself. These stories are written in the prose style called cante fable. They include verse or song and end with a moral for children.

There is an entire page detailing and crediting the book designers and artists who helped put this book together.
Karen Woodworth-Roman

Average customer rating:

WHEN BIRDS COULD TALK BATS COULD SING

Manufacturer: Blue Sky Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Book Description

This, the seventh volume in a respected series of books, continues a policy of presenting significant reviews by outstanding authorities in the field. The chapters in this volume include reviews of molecular biology of orchids, mycorrhiza, embryology, ethnobotany and research in Japan. Like previous volumes in this series, the present one will serve the need of orchid scientists and growers and botanists in general.

Book Description

Venture onto the backbone of North America, exploring the famous Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Rocky Mountain National Parks. Discover hidden wonders, do the big-name hikes or scale a 14,000ft mountain with this comprehensive guide.

detailed descriptions for more than 50 trails, from day hikes and weekenders to multiday backpacking trips
precise, two-color contour map for every hike
illustrated guide to Rocky Mountains wildlife
planning trips, trail access details and nearby accommodations
advice on choosing equipment, staying healthy and mountain safety

Customer Reviews:

Best hiking in the Rockies in one small package.......2006-08-02

My husband and I used this book as the primary reference for three separate hiking & backbacking vacations over the past four years in the Rockies: Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park + Maroon Bells + Holy Cross + Mt Zirkel Wilderness in Colorado, Grand Teton Nat'l Park + Yellowstone in Wyoming, and Glacier Nat'l Park in Montana.

The hikes covered in this book really are the cream of the crop for these areas. The table up front, together with the nice tabs throughout the book help find hikes by area, interest, and difficulty quickly. Doesn't swamp you with quantity, you know that each of these hikes is exceptional--perfect for those of us travelling into the area who have only a week or two to soak up whatever we can. There's even color pictures from some of the most scenic hiking spots in the book to help get you excited to go and give you a little taste of what to expect for that region. Each hike has a map and description with enough detail to almost ensure that you don't go wrong. There's also good information on nearby towns and facilities, local campgrounds, and some detail on permits and when to go.

Only issues: failed to mention that a lot of trails in Glacier may not be accessible without ice ax and crampons until mid July due to snow (certainly we weren't prepared for the trips we really wanted to do when we were there in late June, and the Ptamigan tunnel doesn't open until it has been cleared using dynamite every year), and we did count on being able to buy fuel and other supplies in a town recommended by the book and turned out that the grocery store and camping goods store had almost nothing (this could have been that the book was 4 years old by this time).

I still give the book 5 stars for its excellent coverage of the entire Rocky Mountain area which inspired us to travel to places we might not have otherwise, its usefulness in actually helping us figure out which hikes to do once we got there, and that I would pick it over any of the other books we used for our trips. I picked up Hiking in the Sierra Nevada also by Lonely Planet on the strength of this book, but haven't really tested it yet.

Lonely Planet is the best overview of Rocky Mountain hikes.......2006-05-04

I first used the LP guide in 2005 to safely get me through a solo 6-day hike. (Highline Trail / Ptarmigan Tunnel Loop in Glacier National Park.)

It is excellent. The best guide for the entire Rocky Mountain region.

Once you decide on a specific hike, compare against the available local guidebooks. For Glacier National Park, for example, this is still the best option.

Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park - Spring, 2003 is not bad.

Hiking Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks - Erik Molvar, 1999 - the most widely available guide, is surprisingly weak.

Lonely Planet has the best maps. And the succinct style makes it easy to find what you are looking for.

Disappointing.......2005-07-13

I have used Lonely Planet guides for several years, and have found them to be uniformly excellent -- except for this one. An experienced climber, backpacker and hiker, I recently completed a loop hike described in this book (Needle Mountains, Winnemuche Wilderness in Colorado). Surprisingly, my hiking companion and I found the time estimates given for each section of the hike to be laughably incorrect (i.e., at least 50% too short in duration). I then checked time estimates given for other hikes I have done in past and found the same problem (e.g., backpacking into the Cirque of Towers in the Wind River Range from the Big Sandy trailhead takes 6 hours -- pure rubbish). I am now quite suspicious of the book's accuracy, and wonder whether anyone who wrote the book actually undertook the described hikes. I was also quite annoyed with the gratuitously sniffy descriptions sprinkled throughout the text, such as "the poor food and urban sprawl characteristic of the Rocky Mountain region" -- remember, however, that the book's authors are British. Save your money for better books written by local writers/hikers who actually know the trails.

Tom Woods
Lyons, Colorado

Book Description

There is a strong movement towards uneven-aged forest management based on the idea that such stands increase or at least maintain soil fertility, increase biodiversity, and improve stand resilience. This shift in forest management practice renders existing yield tables increasingly unreliable. Among potential alternatives are tree growth models, because they predict the growth of each tree within a forest stand. This book summarizes three years of work related to the topic, carried out as a joint effort of leading tree growth modellers across Europe together with forest companies. By means of nine specific examples it demonstrates the problem-solving potential of tree growth modeling theory as required by various end-user groups.

Book Description

The primary aim of this monograph is to clarify the undefined primitive concepts and the axioms which form the basis of Einstein's theory of special relativity. Minkowski space-time is developed from a set of independent axioms, stated in terms of a single relation of betweenness. It is shown that all models are isomorphic to the usual coordinate model, and the axioms are consistent relative to the reals.

Customer Reviews:

The way our world really was..........2004-01-17

I originally wrote this about the original edition, now out-of-print.

Bryce-Echenique's semi-autobiograhy is a wonderful reminisence of growing up in the wealthy suburbs of Lima, Peru, during the 50s and 60s. The book reminded me of my childhood in San Isidro and Miraflores. He writes very personally and vividly, painting all the cultural blessings and curses of Peruvian high society with impressionistic softness, but, with that beauty and grace of how life used to be, he paints a sometimes dark and painful picture.

One piece of advice: to fully enjoy the book one should read it in Spanish -- as much of the impact of the book comes from its informal, evocative, and hilarious use of local colloquialisms.

Extraordinario.......2000-12-19

Un Mundo Para Julius es probablemente la mejor novela de la literatura peruana y una de las mejores de la literatura latinoamericana.

Bryce no solo logra desarrollar una critica aguda pero sutil de la oligarquia peruana, sino que desarrolla una historia sencillamente extraordinaria acerca de la perdida de la inocencia.

El retrato de la tristeza que rodea y de alguna manera define la vida de Julius es conmovedor pero contenido y no desborda en tonos melodramaticos como tantas otras novelas latinoamericanas.

Mas alla de ello, creo que el estilo narrativo de esta novela, llega a cotas muy dificiles de alcanzar. Por momentos, nos embulle en el proceso mental desordenado e incoherente de una persona dejando una sensacion extrana.

Para los cineastas; creo que este libro constituye un extraordinario material para adaptar.

No le busquen cinco pies al gato.......2000-08-17

This is Spanish for "the cat has four limbs and only four" meaning...don`t look for more!

I was moved to write this critique after reading the comments of another reviewer...he founds the novel enjoyable but he complaints that the author "digresses from what is happening"..."not adding to the message of the novel".

I just have to say that the beauty of this novel is that the author is SO refined at casually "touching" the message that the novel comes trough as natural and very witty.

Bryce Echenique has ridiculized novels having a "social purpose"...a "message purpose" frequently...(just read "La vida exagerada de Martin Roma~na for example).

This novel is great because it was written for the sole pleasure of writing.

It has some message, it is intentional, but is not "intended"...and only a satirical person like Bryce can succeed at this.

Al que no le guste, no quiere a su mamá........2000-05-29

Inexplicable que alguien que haya vivido en suramerica donde el contraste entre la pobreza extrema y la frívola riqueza es demasiado grande para ser ignorado pueda considerar esta hermosísima novela como una mera lectura banal. Un mundo para Julius del peruano Alfredo Bryce Echenique es una de las novelas más importantes que se han escrito en nuestro continente porque es el fiel retrato de una sociedad decadente donde a veces las personas son tratadas como meras bestias de carga y los niños críados para seguir esta tradición. Lo grande de esta novela es que en ningún momento se siente una obra de resentimiento social sino un bello retrato casi proustiano de un sensible niño que crece en el seno de una tradicional familia limeña, rodeado de lujos, de amor, apenas percatándose que es un privilegiado. Poco a poco se ve enfrentado a un sinfin de peripecias que desenmascaran ante sus ojos la crueldad de la vida al igual que en el cuento "El Principe Felíz" de Oscar Wilde.Como en todas las obras de Bryce Echenique: humor y ternura hacen que esta bella novela sea una inexperiencia inolvidable. Y al que no este de acuerdo conmigo, lo reto a un duelo.

Worth reading, but be patient.......1999-12-27

I considerably respect Alfredo Bryce Echenique for his responsible intellectual and political postures in favor of the desenfranchised and destitute of Latin America. His novel "Un mundo para Julius" ("A world for Julius") is an excellent example of his world view, written with an ironic subtlety that effectively unveils the empty values, crass materialism, extravagance, hypocrisy, and lack of empathy of the Peruvian high society. As most of Bryce Echenique's novels, the style is, at times, digressive, almost verging on sloppiness, and thus tends to take the reader away from what is actually happening, or supposed to be happening. There are many episodes in "Un mundo para Julius" that don't add much to the message of the novel, and, in fact, by harping too often on certain subjects and becoming repetitive, the novel becomes too long and loses the impact that was so deftly and powerfully established in the beginning. It is, nevertheless, an enjoyable read, and I highly recommend it to those interested in Latin American literature and in Bryce Echenique in particular.

Un Mundo Para Julius: (A World for Julius)

Average customer rating:

Un libro que te acerca a alma de un niño atrapado en un mundo dividido por clases
Powerful, Subtle and Beautifully Crafted
Great novel, great anthropological work ý
Growing up in suburban Lima. 1950s

Un Mundo Para Julius: (A World for Julius)
Alfredo Bryce Echenique
Manufacturer: Planeta
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Spanish | Foreign Language Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 987580004X

Customer Reviews:

Un libro que te acerca a alma de un niño atrapado en un mundo dividido por clases.......2007-06-11

Novela de Alfredo Bryce Echenique publicada en España en 1970. Se conoce como el retrato de la sociedad peruana del periodo entre finales de los 50 y principios del 60. Una sociedad en extremo clasista, para la que importaba más las apariencias que el mundo interior, donde la elegancia sustituye la individualidad, donde la tristeza, la frustración y tragedia viven ocultos detrás de un muro de frivolidad. La novela atrapa con una desbordante ternura que me hizo sentir abrazada. Julius es un personaje maravilloso, un niño que está en el medio de esa sociedad clasista, entre sirvientes y oligarcas. Julius se destaca por su sensibilidad intelectual y gracias a ella desarrolla una amplia visión social que lo deja fuera de su mundo en la alta sociedad y sin posibilidad de adentrarse en el otro más humilde. "Julius, un niño en plena edad de curiosidad ante distintas cosas, quiere vivir libremente sin prejuicios, ni desprecios, ni discriminación, quiere vivir con toda "clase" de gente, y tener unas relaciones de manera normal, de manera única, no como su padrastro q es incapaz de amar y de sentir la humanidad en su interior." escribe Victor Hugo Quijada Tacuri en su excelente análisis de la novela publicado en monografías.com

Powerful, Subtle and Beautifully Crafted.......2005-11-20

ENGLISH
Julius is a young boy growing from childhood to the beginnings of adolescence in a Lima family of inherited wealth and power. Devastated by the loss to illness of his adored older sister Cynthia, he struggles to fit in at his exclusive private school, while his predilection for socialising with the family servants makes him a source of concern to his mother and business magnate stepfather.

The genteel 1960s/70s Lima of "Un Mundo para Julius" no longer exists. But anyone who has spent some time in Peru will recognise the manners and attitudes depicted here. Bryce Echenique patiently and expertly satirizes the Peruvian obsession with social status as delineated by class, race, culture and language. The central figure of innocent, sensitive Julius is a window through which these values are viewed, at times with humour, at times with barely restrained indignation.

But "Un Mundo para Julius" does not merely lampoon the oligarchy in whose midst Bryce Echenique himself grew up. Beyond the powerful social criticism, it is a portrayal of the universality of human suffering. The novel's great achievement is to maintain empathy with the anxieties of the rich and powerful, at the same time as exposing their hypocrisy and complicity in the suffering of the powerless. Regardless of the walls erected by privilege, Bryce Echenique shows, no one can escape from the encroachment of age, disappointment in love, or the loss of a child.

Some patience is required for the long and detailed passages of stream of consciousness, which bear comparison with Proust or Joyce. But patience is rewarded by the subtle and skilful development of character. An additional pleasure comes from Bryce Echenique's success in capturing the rich flavors of Peruvian idiom--this is a book best read in the original Spanish, if possible.

ESPAÑOL
Julius es un niño que va acercandose a la adolescencia en una familia limeña de gran riqueza heredada. Trastornado por la pérdida de su adorada hermana mayor a una enfermedad fatal, le cuesta integrarse en su escuela exclusiva, y su tendencia de buscar la compañia de los empleados de la casa preocupa a su mamá y su padrasto

Ya no existe el Lima de "Un Mundo para Julius", pero quien haya pasado algun tiempo en el Perú reconocerá las actitudes representadas aquí. Con paciencia y pericia, Bryce Echenique satiriza la obsesion peruana con el estatus social y las diferencias de clase, raza, cultura y lenguaje. La figura central, el ingenuo, sensible Julius es una ventana por la cual se examina los valores sociales, a veces con humor, a veces con una indignación apenas contenida.

Pero "Un Mundo para Julius" no sólo se burla de la oligarquía en medio de que se crió el mismo Bryce Echenique. Más allá del fuerte criticismo social, es un retrato de la universalidad del sufrimiento humano. Lo que logra esta novela es mantener la empatía con las ansiedades de los ricos y poderosos, al mismo tiempo que va descubriendo su hipocresía y su complicidad en el sufrimiento de los pobres. A pesar de las paredes que construye el privilegio, nadie puede escapar el envejecimiento, la decepción en el amor, o la pérdida de un niño.

Se necesita algo de paciencia para los largos y detallados monólogos interiores, que se pueden comparar con Proust o con Joyce. La recompensa de esta paciencia es el desarrollo sútil y hábil de los personajes. Otro placer viene del exito de Bryce Echenique en capturar los ricos flavores del lenguaje peruano.

Great novel, great anthropological work ý.......2004-07-09

Great novel, great anthropological work ...

Very few times I have come across such great novel.
The one I read is in Spanish, I do not know if this has been translated to English, I expect it has.
The writing style of the author is very original; I could not detect patterns that reminded me of any other book or author, very original.
The story is just great; it has many ingredients that make it unpredictable, but not just for the sake of being unpredictable, but because it is original to its core.
This books describes a part of Latin American culture of which a lot of people are not aware, and I believe is part of the fundamental data one needs to try to understand the world we live in.

Hope you like the book

Growing up in suburban Lima. 1950s.......2001-09-04

Bryce-Echenique's semi-autobiograhy is a wonderful reminisence of growing up in the wealthy suburbs of Lima, Peru, during the 50s and 60s. The book reminded me of my childhood in San Isidro and Miraflores. He writes very personally and vividly, painting all the cultural blessings and curses of Peruvian high society with impressionistic softness, but , at the same time, a sharp-edged line. To fully enjoy the book one should read it in Spanish -- as much of the impact of the book comes from its informal and evocative use of local colloquialisms.

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