DWD's Reviews

Great introduction to Lincoln for children Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) Where Lincoln Walked is a wonderful little history mostly about Lincoln's pre-Presidential life. Lots of beautifully shot full color pictures of such places as Lincoln's mother's home in Kentucky, Lincon's boyhood home in southern Indiana and his law offices in Springfield. The author, Raymond Bial, took most of these pictures himself. He has a good eye for photography and does a great job with the text and the captions. Recommended for budding young history buffs, classrooms and the hardcore Lincoln collectors. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Where Lincoln Walked . Reviewed on December 6, 2008.

Race is an issue in this great mystery Published by Hachette Audio Read by Dick Hill Duration: 10 hours, 55 minutes. Unabridged Michael Connelly Angels Flight , an early installment in the Harry Bosch series, is as good as the rest in the series meaning, at least in my mind, it is a proud member of one of the best set of detective novels currently being produced. Michael Connelly 's books are usually deep and gritty and this one is no different. The lead character is Harry Bosch, the leader of a 3 detective team in the LAPD that is assigned an unusually sensitive case. A well-known civil rights attorney that has successfully sued LAPD over and over again for violations of federal civil rights laws has been murdered on the eve of an especially notorious case against the LAPD. Of course, everyone inside LAPD and out believe that a police officer killed him in a fit of revenge and the city is seething. Set just a few years after the Rodney King riots and t

A slow start but don't let that deter you Although I am a history teacher, I have to admit that I am woefully under-informed on the Korean War - at least when compared to our other wars. Sadly, I am not alone in this fact - there's a reason why the Korean War is called "The Forgotten War". Drury and Clavin start off slowly, in part because there is no context as to why the soldiers are marching around in the subzero weather in northern Korea. However, once they explain the purpose of this particular campaign in the war as a whole and show the reader a few maps I got a lot more comfortable with how they were telling the story and appreciated it a lot more. Marines during the Chosin Campaign in the Korean War The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat is not a fancy history - it is told from the ground level perspective of the the Marines on the hill and is full of tales of bodily fluids, men too young to actually join t

  Fascinating. Disturbing. Inspirational. Alexandra Robbins The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids is a fascinating investigation into the lives of some of America's top students - the kids who want to do it all and oftentimes do, but at great personal cost and for dubious reasons. Alexandra Robbins befriends and follows several students from Whitman High School in Maryland through one school year as they try their best to score perfect 1600s and 2400s on the SATs, be accepted into Ivy League schools and pad their resumes to impress the admissions officers with tons of extracurriculur activities (one student she interviewed had SIX typewritten pages of extracurricular activities!). Robbins intersperses research and interesting facts with her stories of the students and discusses the unhealthy obsession with perfection and how the true values of education (knowledge, exploration, wisdom, self-discovery to name a few) is often subverted in th

A strong and relatively short re-telling of the classic tale Gareth Hinds If you are like me and are well read, are mildly interested in Beowulf but just plain lack the desire to read a 3000-line long medieval poem, this volume may be the answer. I plowed through this graphic novel in about a half an hour and certainly was entertained and a bit more enlightened as to the tone and nature of the Beowulf saga. I was aware of the outlines of the first two sections of this story which are about the battle against Grendel and the battle against Grendel's mother. I was totally unaware of the story of Beowulf's death from the fight against a dragon. To his credit, Gareth Hinds includes sections of a translation of the original text to narrate his text. Hinds' artwork is fantastic, especially his renderings of the beasts that Beowulf fights. Does it replace the original? No, of course not. But, it's a pretty good stopgap substitute and its pretty darned en

Didn't do much for me Marvel 1602 just didn't do much for me, which is surprising since I'm a casual comics fan but a serious reader of history. I figured (correctly) that there'd be no problem taking superheroes into a different time period. But I also figured (incorrectly) that the story would be more interesting and have more of a focus. Lack of focus is really the problem I have with the series. Is it a spy novel in which the familiar superheroes are involved in a complicated web of deceit and danger? Yes and no. Is there more than that and the entire world (actually every universe) is threatened with destruction and everyone must bring their unique talents to save the day? Yes. It degenerates into that. Degenerates? Yes. Degenerates. Every character is brought into the fray and the storyline is muddied by bringing everyone in for a token cameo and the whole story becomes an over-the-top "jump the shark" type of plot usually reserved