Tag Archives: Library Journal

Science in Seconds for Kids: Over 100 Experiments You Can Do in Ten Minutes or Less (Paperback)

Science in Seconds for Kids: Over 100 Experiments You Can Do in Ten Minutes or Less

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4?A collection of quick, simple projects that use materials most kids will have around the house. Grouped into such subject areas as gravity, water, and light, most have just a few steps to follow. Instructions, illustrated by black-and-white drawings, are easy to understand and always note when adult help is needed. Each procedure is followed by an explanation of what should have happened and why. At times these explanations involve concepts that children might not easily grasp from the experiment alone. A description of light rays and focal points, for instance, is hard to follow without elaboration or diagrams. In another case, molecules are introduced as “…the smallest particles of a substance that can exist on their own,” which is accurate, but not the clearest way to describe them. Some activities are so predictable that reading about them can substitute for performing them. Other projects are more intriguing, such as using oi (more…)

Self-Defeating Behaviors: Free Yourself from the Habits, Compulsions, Feelings, and Attitudes That Hold You Back [Paperback]

Self-Defeating Behaviors: Free Yourself from the Habits, Compulsions, Feelings, and Attitudes That Hold You Back

From Library Journal

Cudney (counseling, Western Michigan Univ.) and Hardy, a practicing psychologist, offer a thorough investigation into the psyche by explaining those attitudes or actions that may have worked at one time, but ultimately cycle into adult behaviors that backfire. Self-defeatists, they claim, harbor mythical fears that stifle creative thought patterns, causing faulty conclusions which perpetuate the destructive cycle. The authors outline steps to work toward a breakthrough, although they caution that counseling may be necessary to stop the self-defeating cycle. This guide is recommended for self-help and therapy collections.- Lisa Wise, Steele Memorial Lib., Elmira, Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Some of my patients would not need therapy if they would read this book.” — –Dr. Alan Loy McGinnis, author of The Power of Optimism”The mo (more…)

The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (Paperback)

The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School

From Publishers Weekly

Claiming that our current educational system teaches students to worship technology and consumerism, Postman argues for more humanistic “narratives” as the basis for schools. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

After 20 books (e.g., Technopoly, LJ 1/92), Postman, social critic par excellence, has returned to his original turf: education. Sharp, witty, and frequently quotable, he demolishes many leading popular themes as lacking in meaning. Education without spiritual content or, as he puts it, without a myth or narrative to sustain and motivate, is education without a purpose. That purpose used to be democracy and could still be, if only we were willing to look for the elements that unite rather than separate. Postman considers multiculturalism a separatist movement that destroys American unity. Diversity, however, is one of the themes he would employ in teaching language, history, and culture. (more…)