Pants Books

This autobiography of a pioneer aviator is very entertaining and well written, as well as being a great historical narrative. I have re-read the book a few times over the years and thoroughly enjoy it each time. You would be hard pressed to find a better tale of an early aviator's personal experiences and adventures. A must read for aviation fans and anyone else who enjoys a first-hand account of historic adventure. Some of Dean Smith's experiences were also included in the recent PBS series, "Chasing the Sun".

Dean Smith saw it all--from Army pilot in 1918 to mail pilot to Byrd's venture to the Antarctic. Like Chuck Yeager's memoir, "By the Seat of My Pants" puts you right in the cockpit, as Smith learns how to fly (and how to avoid buying the farm), cracks up planes, plows into thundershowers, surveys the uncharted Antarctic, and more. Of special note is the last section on Byrd's expedition...a very revealing look at the man that hasn't really been revealed before...and this, in a book written in 1961! A must read for all pilots, armchair and otherwise.

This book tells outstanding stories of what early flying was really like. The adventures will keep you turning the pages. It is gratifying that a small publisher (BDKIng Press)has arranged to bring it (and other similar classic aviation books) back into print. If you like airplanes, or if you have a friend who likes airplanes, this book is one that you will enjoy greatly.

These books are absolutely wonderful. This is the type of book for ages from middle schoolers to adults. The stories are easy to follow and it's so addicting you'll find yourself scrambling for the other books! I loved the movies and the books both for different reasons but I highly recommend reading the books as well. It was great getting lost in the bond of young friendship, first loves, and ambition. Things that are all too easy to forget about in the adult world.

Courtney P. review of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, March 16, 2008.

Four girls, Carmen, Lena, Tibby, and Bridget, had been loyal friends for as long as they remember. However, they have to spend an entire summer alone, because each girl has a different place to go. Just before they head their separate ways, they discover a pair of ordinary blue jeans that turn out to be extraordinary, because they fit each girl. They decide to share these pants during the summer by passing them around and keeping in touch with one another.
Carmen spends the summer at her dad's house, where she is unpleasantly surprised with his new wife, her two kids, and an entirely new lifestyle. Bridget is sent to Baja for a soccer camp where she falls in love with a coach who cannot love her. Lena goes to Greece where she meets a boy, Kostos, who is destined to be with her, but causes trouble along the way. Lastly, Tibby is left at home, working at a grocery store, and befriending a young girl with leukemia, who passes away. Each girl endures trials and tough decisions, but their bond is strong enough that each girl works through it. Even in the hardest times, the power of friendship can shine through. In the end, each of these friends end their summer even closer to one another, and stronger than ever before.

Great books, either singly or as a set. These are geared to the Tween girl readers (11-14). everyone loves them. There are now four volumes to the set.

This Boook is Hooooot(Hot) Buy This Book if You don"t Belive me see a Docter And Tell Him To belive me.

This children's chapter book is one great book! It's both hilarious and sad. SpongeBob tries to fly with the jellyfish. He makes different gajets: a bat costum, an airplane, and ties himself to a kite. By accident he makes inflatible pants. He goes around Bikini Bottom (his hometown) and he becomes a superhero. He goes too far with the superhero thing. This book teaches a wonderful lesson of life. It teaches that you should never give-up on your dreams and you should keep on going in life!

This book is GREAT! It is better than any other book! This book is very easy to read I LUV THIS BOOK! I recommend this book to anyone who have seen the Spongebob Squarepants Lost episode. Well nothing else to say!

Either gender will enjoy this clever book as it teaches supplemental reading through an old expression, with a new poem and delightful illustrations.
Great for bedtime reading for parents and grandparents. The children will enjoy it too!

This is a cute book with a good rhyme. My just-turned four year-old son loves it and even knows it well enough to complete the sentences.

As for being a book for Reading Rookies I think it depends on how you define `rookie'. "Ants in My Pants" has no more than three sentences per page, but the font is small and the vocabulary is fairly advanced with words like: window, crawl, right, carpet, tiptoe, kitchen, maybe, bread, bedroom, instead, closet, favorite, crumbs, pocket, and together.

With my own daughter (just turning 6 y.o.) I have found that she can read it, but I'm not sure how much of her accomplishment is her remembering the poem, and how much is actually sounding out words. A sample of text follows so you can judge the level for your own child(ren).

I see them in a circle.
There are twenty, maybe more.
First they talk together.
Then they march across the floor.

Four Stars. [B+]. Good read-aloud that toddlers on up should appreciate. The drawings are large, bright and humorous. This book would make a good addition to the home shelves if your crew likes silly poems.

This is Andre's follow-up book to How to Rule the World: A Handbook for the Aspiring Dictator. It's a light-hearted look at the aspiring smarty-pants written in the same fashion as the previous text. There's a decent smattering of tongue-in-cheek humor mixed into the actual history lessons you'll get on past and present geniuses. You get some interesting facts and guidelines on what you need to do to join the ranks of the likes of Plato, Mozart, Curie, Einstein, and Stephen Hawking. You'll take cues on how to dress, act in public, how to date, and which line of genius you want to follow (science, music, philosophy). It's fun and you'll read it in a matter of hours.

Although this book is probably meant to be just harmless fun (and it really is fun!), I can categorically state that reading it has made me at least five times more intelligent. It's funny, witty, entertaining, and it's a great gift for anyone who thinks they're cleverer than they are. Or for anyone who needs help in the brain department. In other words, pretty much everyone.

After reading the book, I was attracted by the funny and colourful dream adventure. The illustrator was not only using the attractive pictures to arouse children interest, but also introduced colour names and descriptions to children through the elephant trousers. Thus it is not a book for children leisure only.

This is a great book, a must have for children. Excellent illustrations and a great fun story. I bought it along with a bunch of great picture books for my kids when they're a bit older. But sick of our board books, I broke this one out for my 2 1/2 year old, and she loves it! I think it would be even better for kids a little older, maybe around 3-6, but even tiny ones can enjoy. And I know I enjoy it!

When I started reading Mary Cooks book, it reminded me alot of Little House on the Prairie. The innocence of childhood that we all remember. A great book to sit back relax and enjoy

In Ontario when we think of Mary Cook we think of Liar Liar. We have all heard her tell these stories in person. These are great fun stories from a great personality and a great author.

My son loves these books! They make him laugh. I have purchased all of the Ready Freddy Books published so far and will continue to do so. He is 8 years old and they seem like the reading level is made for children his age.

My 8 year-old son loves the Ready Freddy series; the stories are fun, the characters are believable, and he enjoys the humor. Terrific series for young boys (and girls) in the late 1st grade through third grade age range.

I had high expectations for this book. I enjoyed the past three books incredibly. So when I picked up "Forever in Blue" I was excited. I was reading when I realized that it wasn't up to par with the past few books. The book seemed like the author was trying to speed up the growth of the girls and it went too fast. First, they're going to college - Carmen goes to Williams, Bridget goes to Brown but is in Turkey for an archeology dig, Lena goes to RISD and meets a cute boy named Leo, and Tibby goes to the New York film school and is unsure about the relationship she and Brian have created.

Carmen has this snotty, unappreciative, decisive friend named Julia who is a total user and tries out for a play but ends up getting an mediocre one instead of the one that she really wanted. Carmen gets the good role and Julia will do anything to get on that show. It's very infuriating when Carmen's notorious attitude is pushed far inside.

Bridget goes to Turkey and sees that she has an attractive colleague working with her and is immediately attracted to her, but unfortunately, he's already taken. It's very similar to when she met Eric, but now she's more controlled and less reckless.

Lena is taking some summer classes and finds this gorgeous boy named Leo who is a great painter. Twists and turns happen in her summer, and I thought she was the most interesting this summer to read.

Tibby takes her relationship with Brian to the next level, only to have it backfire and weeks of worrying. Tibby finally has the courage to break it off but finds that she really does love Brian. She may realize this too late.

All in all, this book was okay. I didn't especially like the sudden turn from fun-loving, careless teenagers to a group of grown ups who desert their heritage. I didn't hear much about the Pants except at the end. This book, though, left me with many questions unanswered. There should have been something where it fowards a decade to show where the girls are at. I hope that Ann Brashares makes something like a new generation of the Sisterhood, with the daughters of the four girls. I recommend the first three books and possibly the fourth.

I enjoyed the book completely. However, a bit explicit for my 12 year old daughter! And after she read the first 3 books, I allowed her to read this one, too - but with some discussions about how the girls in the book are in college, a lot older than she is and able to make more mature decisions about their own sexuality than she is now or will be for many years.
Bottom line - a great book and conclusion to the "Traveling Pants" series!

I enjoyed all of these books. Don't read this one though unless you read the other 3 first. This wasn't my favorite one, but I was still sad when it was over.

I am sure it will be great, but I have not read book yet, I am on book 3, but Amazon made me rate this book now. I am sure it will be good though.

I love this Pants book as much as the first three and I was sad to read the end of it. Very touching and hearfelt.

This book is such an easy read, I just need to get myself determined to do the actual diet!! My sister in law did it and was amazed!! She really looks great...I am for sure going to do it, I just am going to wait until after the holidays!!!!

I was constantly bombarded by Michael Thurman's commercial for the 6 Week Body Makeover every morning before I went to work. However, I don't always trust infomercials and how they handle payments. So I looked for the book format and found the 6Day Body Makeover instead.

I haphazardly skimmed the book and it took some time for me to decide to go ahead with the diet because it takes some preparation. I was stoked going through the body profile questionnaire till I found out I was the body type who couldn't have beans, white rice,bananas nor oranges as all of these were my favorite foods.

I lasted on the diet for only about 1 week and probably lost a pant size (I don't believe in weighing myself) so I had to go and buy new clothes after that one week. I would like to have continued it after one week because I am sure the first week was mostly water weight loss as the diet heavily restricts you from salt and sodas. There is a reason I didn't continue with the diet:

1) I starved.
The diet doesn't starve you at all UNLESS you really don't take the time to prepare your meals sometime during the week. I thought I could hack it with the grilled piece of chicken for the entire week... not so. You have to eat several times of day and then the variety is gone if you come in with the thought that two differently prepared meat dishes will suffice throughout the week. However, if you find yourself hungry, they allow for you to eat a little extra food like fruits or veggies or protein that's on your list of foods for your body type. So you really don't starve on this diet at all.

2) Its really restrictive.
I had to forgo milk products, salt, chocolate, oil, and bread. However, I still managed to lose weight even though I would cheat and have a cookie maybe once or twice a day. They have recipes to replace your sweet tooth foods... some of the recipes are okay... but not the same as a real chocolate chip cookie.

3) You become OCD.
As a person who rarely eats a prepared breakfast, let alone breakfast at all, this diet makes you super organized. I had to buy a super large lunch bag to carry all of the different tupperware containers of food for my day at work.

What really made it hard for me to get back on the diet is that I am the worse cook in the world. So I really couldn't get the variety I needed in the diet and enjoy the food at the same time. I am thinking about starting this diet again if I can find a local dietician who can prepare my food for me in advance. Or, I can spend the extra money and buy the 6 Week Body Makeover for the numerous of recipes that they have. The other downer about this diet is that a lot of people complain about having headaches due to your new salt intake. I never had headaches on this diet unless I cheated and ate something with salt in it- this sensation can keep you attached to the diet even if you want to get off of it.

Pros about this diet includes:

1) I actually got used to really yummy fresh foods.
I learned how to make my own salsa which didn't taste that bad and some of the baked chicken recipes didn't hurt either. Whenever I wanted to cheat, and had something from a fast food joint or a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner, the fast food or Lean Cuisine stuff just didn't taste as yummy as the fresh food I've learned to prepare on the diet.

2) You'll eat healthy for once and learn to incorporate a healthy lifestyle.
I really didn't understand this till sometime after ending the diet as I was listening to a nutritionist on the radio who talked about anti-inflammatory foods. The 6WBM makes you eat tons of these anti-inflammatory foods like strawberries and cherries which is good for those who are diabetic or may have heart issues.

3) I felt really good on that diet.
When I wasn't starving due to my lack of food preparation.
I had suffer from something some docs considered a groin pull and a pinched nerve with my arm and when I was on this diet it seemed to magically cure these issues. Also, I had bloated/aggrivated stomach issues and those also went away. Now my new, more responsible PCP has diagnosed me with endometriosis. This type of diet is a diet highly suggested for those with endometriosis and PCOS. Also, your sweat on this diet isn't stinky like normal sweat was, so I guess I was detoxifying my system at the same time.


One diet isn't best for everyone, but I highly suggest for everyone to look at this book if you suffer from weight issues, or even if you're still thin but just want to shed a few pounds because a lot of what is in this book covers what any basic nutrition class would teach you. The only thing that's unusual is the water intake amount it wants you to have. Some may consider it extreme according to people's weight and it may actually cause people to get sick. Instead of doing the 10 glasses or more water a day as suggested, I would just stick with 8. Even then I barely did 8 glasses a day and still managed to lose weight.

For a successful weight loss on this diet I would make a slow transition into it. For example, for one week skip having sodas and fruit drinks and drink water. Or slowly ween yourself off of cookies and stuff and substitute with fruits. Learn to give up your biggest sin before starting because if you go straight into it without shocking your body a little, you would probably go postal and no one at work will like you.

It took me some time to put on weight after quitting this diet. So that is why I am so sure this is a more successful diet than most.

The book looks thorough enough. It looks well-researched and seems to have some great menus put together that are nutritionally sound. My husband followed the diet to a T. And yes, two days into the diet, he noticed about a pound come off and had more energy.

Unfortunately, three days into the diet, my husband began having charlie horse-like spasms all over his body. The book fails to take into account that not all sodium is bad for you, and that your body requires at least some sodium to function properly. After three days, my husband stopped this diet and reverted to The Zone: A Dietary Road Map to Lose Weight Permanently : Reset Your Genetic Code : Prevent Disease : Achieve Maximum Physical Performance, which works much better, is suited for long-term use, and is nutritionally balanced.

Well, it does work if you can stick with it. I did one week and dropped five pounds but after that it's kind of hard to stick to. Well, at least for me. But you do feel good when you eat like that.

I was really hoping that this book would work for me. yeah..another diet book. hum. But since I'm a big fan of extreme makeover I thought I'd give it a try.
I currently have 20 lbs to lose. I lost 7 lbs in 1 week. After 3 days I was able to get a pair of shorts past my thighs and was able to button them up without passing out!

The diet is a challenge to stick to. The first day was the day I experienced the most pain and suffering. Drink 100ozs? I never did make that amount. 64oz was my limit. After each day I knew where all the bathrooms were in every store I visited. Felt like being pregnant again.

I did prepare all the meals in one day..it did take a few hrs to get it all organized, as it was my first time. That is a great bonus beacuse I was able to grab and go the right thing to eat instead of being rushed and eating unhealthy foods full of fat.
Plus because I made the meals in advance I had lots of time to prepare meals for my family and sit down with them at mealtimes..with my own special foods.

Eating 'on time' was a bit of a challenge because I'm not used to eating 6 meals a day. I now look forward to those little meals and my stomach is so full before I can finish all the foods. Even though I know I'm supposed to eat everything I never did make it.

THE PROS
This meal plan taught me:
*To discover new vegetables and they are healthier and tastier to steam.
*To discover new spices and found balsamic vinegar and love it, Mrs Dash table blend is awesome.
* To drink lots of water throughout the day.
* knowing I'm reparing the damage I've done over the years and being happier that I am healthier.
* got my children interested in my varieties of veggies and they now love them also. (children and steamed veggies? never thought I'd see the day)
* My husband wants to try it for himself.

THE CONS
*I hated the turkey patties. I know they would have tasted better with ketchup and if I couldn't have that as a dipping sauce that I couldn't even go there.
*I couldn't eat 'greens' without some sort of tasty dressing..so never ate them either. It was better to do without.
*It is hard not to break my bad habit of snacking after dinner. But I survived it by having 1/2 cup or 1/2 more grapefruit. The recipe with spenda and cinnamon is dee-lish! Also the rice pudding is amazing.
In the end I have learned to switch up meals. If I don't want egg whites in the morning I eat chicken. Then have my egg whites in rice pudding for lunch. I figure as long as I get everything in during the day this can be accomplished otherwise it gets boring.

I'm going to keep going until I reach my goal. I am looking forward to having a baked potato again but instead of a big one will settle for 4 small creamer potatoes. Its all about compromise.

2 days before I got started with the plan as I was busy reading this book I was thinking? Gawd Almighty! I was so excited I wanted to start right away. Thinking I had 2 more days of unhealthy eating made me sick.

We are going on vacation next week. We will get a hotel room with a kitchen. I am preparing all my meals before we go and will eat them all week. I know it can be done.

This book is the best yet because it really does work if you are committed enough to stick with it. I love the fact that everything is listed and the right amounts. It's really dummy proof.
I had no problem finding all the foods in my local supermarket.