Meredith, Christopher

The Drop in My Drink: The Story of Water on Our Planet

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The Drop in My Drink
Stirs a remembrance of the interconectedness of all life

The Drop in My Drink: The Story of Water on Our Planet
Meredith Jean Hooper
Manufacturer: Viking Juvenile
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0670876186

Book Description

Water is a part of your everyday life. But when you fill a glass with water, do you ever stop to wonder where it comes from? Water was present during the Earth's dramatic formation billions of years ago. It has carved out canyons and worn away coastlines. It has spent thousands of years at the bottom of an ancient sea, and traveled for just a few hours as vapor in a cloud. It has been part of millions of organisms over time, including a worm, a Tyrannosaurus rex, even an Egyptian princess. In this engaging science picture book, water takes on fascinating new significance as readers discover the amazing complexity of a substance so familiar we often taken it for granted. Includes a detailed depiction of water cycles, amazing facts about water, plus important environmental information. Meredith Hooper and Chris Coady last teamed up for The Pebble in My Pocket (Viking), which Kirkus Reviews called an outstanding picture-book overview of 480 million years.

Customer Reviews:

The Drop in My Drink.......2001-04-11

I recommend this book for (2-and higher) because it has many hard words that I could not understand. The book is good. I liked it because it is like a science book and I like science.

Stirs a remembrance of the interconectedness of all life.......1998-12-03

We forget where things come from in our lives. After reading The Drop in My Drink, neither you nor your children will question where your water comes from, or why it is important to know. With water quality and availability named as the number one problem of the new millenium, this exquisitely illustrated book is a must read for both children and adults. Donate one to your child's classroom!

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Most objective book on the topic, still room for a classic, though
An Almost Solid Meta-Analysis of a Persistent but Not-So Perplexing Educational Problem
right, in a way...
Overwhelming evidence
Honest and Reflective Essays on the Test Score Gap

The Black-White Test Score Gap

Manufacturer: Brookings Institution Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Research | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Social Psychology & Interactions | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Testing & Measurement | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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Inequality at the Starting Gate: Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School
Hatred in the Hallways
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Approaches To Teaching (Thinking About Education Series)

ASIN: 0815746105

Amazon.com

Ever since affirmative action was adopted as a wide-ranging policy in education and employment, controversy has surrounded it. Opinions have flown thick and fast, but there has been little hard evidence to support either side. The prosaically named Black-White Test Score Gap, a collection of essays on the subject, attempts to rectify this situation. As one authority after another weighs in, it becomes increasingly clear that the causes of African Americans' inferior scores on standardized tests have less to do with nature and everything to do with nurture (or lack of it). Not surprisingly, conditions such as poverty and lack of opportunity at the beginning of a child's life seems to have terribly detrimental effects on test scores and thus the chance to go to school or find a well-paying job later on. Editors Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips have done a good job of selecting both the topics and the contributors for this often contentious, always fascinating study of affirmative action.

Customer Reviews:

Most objective book on the topic, still room for a classic, though.......2005-12-24

This book could have been a classic. Following "The Bell Curve", a provocative mid-90s book that argued for underlying genetic causes to black-white achievement gaps, a rigorous, articulate rebuttal was necessary to show that gaps do exist, but there are causes beyond genetics that can be addressed to reduce inequality. "Black White Test Score Gap" is certainly a rigorous rebuttal, but this book is really, really hard to understand unless you have completed a quality statistics course. This book is clearly written for a purely academic audience, and I struggled with it, despite having a strong nonstatistics math background and a hunger for reading social science books such as William Julius Wilson's "The Declining Significance of Race".

Many of the conclusions are pertinent and do shed light on the subject, however. The article that argued *against* the disadvantages of acting white for black students was very insightful and weakened my support for the conventional wisdom that black students do not achieve largely due to peer pressure. The article comparing black students and white students performance at highly selective colleges rang true with my experiences as a black, Ivy league college student. An article focusing on teacher's expectations confused me, but it did help me appreciate the magnitude of the problem and that ultimately, all of the numbers in this book must be complemented by risky narrative research as well. We can perform regression analysis forever and identify that high teacher expectations and teachers with high test scores yield better student performance. But if we lack the psychological will to fight and the human stories to inspire, much of the accurate research in this book will be in vain.

One essay that I strongly disagree with is the Claude Steele essay documenting "stereotype threat". For me, this study is a boutique research project. A very small sample of Stanford students does not convince me that stereotype threat, a theory that black students perform worse when they are informed that a test assesses their intelligence, is a major problems for the majority of black high achievers. Several authors in this book herald this study as a breakthrough in potentially addressing the gap. Short of training teachers to be psychologists and motivational speakers, I do not see how we can address this problem if it is a large cause for the black-white test score gap. Even worse, I challenge Steele to replicate his findings amongst a more representative sample of black high achievers, such as those who attend some east coast scores, those at historically black colleges and universities, and those who receive full scholarships at less selective and state colleges. The high achieving black student is not the high achieving white student, I agree. But I don't think that Steele is helping issues with putting this research in this book.

This book is still helpful for those with a strong research background and understanding of the subject. It should be required reading for any educational professional Masters level and above who works with black students. For the layman, however, there are better books out there perhaps, or at least room for a book that translates the conclusions of "The Black White Test Score Gap" into more articulate, clearer language and analysis.

3 stars

--SD

An Almost Solid Meta-Analysis of a Persistent but Not-So Perplexing Educational Problem.......2005-11-29

The editors of this collection of carefully worded journal articles have brought the public (and often less informed) debate about racial disparity in test score results back to the academic arena at a critical juncture. As another reviewer noted, the quantitative analysis can and does indeed distract from the thrust of the arguments being put forward, but not overly so unless one is a lay reader uninitiated in this lingering debate. If you have grown weary of ideologically-charged elements in this debate, you will welcome this collection. The editors have included articles that address with varying degrees of success the many issues and causes which come to the fore when the topic of the test score gap is broached. My only criticism is that more should have been offered by way of a contrasting viewpoint about how the current phenomenon of the decline (and in many instances) disintegration of the nuclear black family has exacerbated this racial learning gap. Concern for a lack of social and economic capital is legitimate fodder for discussion but one should not ignore the elephant in the parlor--the fact that 7 in 10 black children are now born out of wedlock.

Cook and Ludwig's article on the burdens of acting white should be well noted as it gets at the most overlooked source of the problem. Few articles over the past two decades have appeared in either the academic or popular press about this pernicious trend in the black community.

Steele and Aronson's social psychological study at Stanford University in the early 1990s that led to their promulgation of a stereotype threat deserves special attention if only because the study has not been replicated on a comparable or larger scale. Yet the existence of such a threat is now taken as a given by many eager to assign blame beyond the home. Yet few who embrace this factor will publicly admit that the very affirmative action policies, for instance, that include "National Black Achiever" categories for PSAT test takers continually remind black high school juniors that they have not and do not need to achieve at the same level to receive some semblance of national academic recognition. Low expectations emanate as much if not more from political decisions beyond the school door as behind it.

It is this last point that the reader should most bear in mind as he or she reads these articles. A previous reviewer from Cleveland and a college minority affairs officer would have us believe that most white teachers in the inner-city are biased in their regard for the academic potential of their black students and are themselves relatively incompetent. As one who taught for a decade in the inner-city at a predominantly black SWS (school-within-a-school) high school (and taught some of the participants in the Steele-Aronson study) and had occasion to visit dozens of schools with similar demographics, I must take issue with his point. Indeed, as this volume neglects to address, perhaps inadvertently, many of the most indifferent teachers are themselves black and, to the contrary, many if not most of their white colleagues are anything but complacent. In magnet (re: college preparatory) inner-city schools, in particular, the bulk of the teaching staff is well-trained in addition to being highly motivated.

So after reading this much needed compendium, one would do well to read John McWhorter's "Losing the Race" (he is a young black linguist at Berkeley) for an eloquent appraisal of the victimhood mindset that besets many would-be civic leaders in the black community nowadays--a mindset also overlooked in this otherwise solid collection.

right, in a way..........2005-10-18

i personally believe that environment has a larger effect on black test scores compared to the other races. but it's not the whole story either, and is definitely isn't "everything to do with nurture". the true answer lies somewhere between this book and the 'bell curve'. there are racial differences. these are easily measurable in athletics (ex. the dominance of west african sprinters, east african long distance runners, arab north african middle distance runners, eastern european/russian weightlifters, white swimmers), but not so easily measured in 'intelligence'. there are macro differences which are readily apparent (advances in civilizations/cultures (arts, sciences, wealth, infrastructure, etc.)). but to blame everything nazi-style on race would be equally incorrect. there are differences between the races and their capacities to do (or excel) at things. but the genetic component is small and can be no more than plus or minus 10 percent (between the races) for the average person. there's always that one russian guy in the 100m olympic sprint final, and there are black geniuses. so the average black student in america isn't genetically inferior to the other students, they are mostly being held down by the shortsighted black 'community' and lack of both parents in the average 'family', not being taught discipline and responsibility, etc.

Overwhelming evidence.......2005-04-18

This book brings together numerous research studies for various reasons behind the Black-White test score gap. It compares and contrasts studies, reveals skewed statistics and backs up grounded ones. I would recommend this to teachers and other professionals associated with the learning of children and giving of standardized tests. I can't say that after reading this I have any major findings, but it did open my eyes to some of my own biases and confirmed teaching methods and classroom community building ideas I have. I found the statistics in this book a bit overwhelming, but the related underlying ideas were well-explained. I would suggest that a top-notch mathematician would be very interested in how research was tabulated. Other than that, I find this a worthwhile insight to the facts associated with the B-W test score gap. It raised many questions as to the validity of some research, and showed me that many answers are not just "black and white" in response to the situation.

Honest and Reflective Essays on the Test Score Gap.......2001-02-09

I work in the minority affairs at a major univerity. One of the questions I often get from majority and minority students and faculty is, "why are the scores--on average--so much lower for minority students than other students". Sometimes the implied message is, are the Black students dumber? The Black-White Test Scoe Gap is the best source I know for answering this and questions without getting defensive. The book makes plain that their is not just one "answer", but many theories. I have always thought a big chunk of the problem had to do with so many lower middle class white teachers who had low expectations for Black children. Interestingly, one of the writers agrees that the gap has something to do with the teachers, but notes a different problem: teachers (regardless of race)in urban areas tend to have low standardized test scores themselves and therefore may find it difficult to improved the scores of their students. I highly recommend this book.

The Pebble in my Pocket: A History of Our Earth

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Delightful reading for any child

The Pebble in my Pocket: A History of Our Earth
Meredith Hooper
Manufacturer: Viking Juvenile
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Astronomy | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

The Big Rock (Aladdin Picture Books)
If You Find a Rock
How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World
Everybody Needs a Rock (An Aladdin Book)
Let's Go Rock Collecting (Let'S-Read-And-Find-Out Science. Stage 2)

ASIN: 0670862592

Customer Reviews:

Delightful reading for any child.......2001-05-29

I work with children in environmental education. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is that many children have no concept of the soil except that it is dirty! This book helps the reader examine this presious resource and contemplate the longevity of soil and the importance of it in a fun manner. Hooper takes the child on a creative adventure of reliving some of the possible experiences of the piece of rock that they take for granted. Although a scientific topic, "A Rock in my Pocket" is also a delightful romp through the history of the earth. I highly recommend this book for any child who thinks soil is dirty, and even for those who think it is cool. In addition, Hooper's book "A Drop in my Drink" deals with water in the same manner. You should not get one of these books and not the other.

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Griffri (Edward Upward Series)
Christopher Meredith
Manufacturer: Seren
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Wales | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1854111302

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Sidereal Time
Christopher Meredith
Manufacturer: Seren
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1854112392

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The 36-Hour Day Book
Everything I needed to know
Caregivers' BEST resource
Still Great. A Must Read
A must for family members of people with dementia

36 HOUR DAY
PETER RABINS, BEVERLY CASTLETON, CHRISTOPHER CLOKE, EVELYN MCEWEN, BARBARA MEREDITH NANCY MACE
Manufacturer: HODDER ARNOLD HS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Household Hints | How-to & Home Improvements | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0340563826

Download Description

Updated with the newest information on Alzheimer's Disease and dementia, this bestselling book has remained the "bible" for families who are giving care toafflicted loved ones.

Customer Reviews:

The 36-Hour Day Book.......2007-06-10

I had this book when my mother had Alzheimers. I bought this for a friend whose wife has Alzheimers. It is concise, supportive with lots of information at a reasonable price.

Everything I needed to know.......2007-05-22

A wonderful book that has reinforced my observations and been enlightening about areas that I was struggling with. It is clearly and articulately written, and easy to read as well. I throughly and heartily recommend it.

Caregivers' BEST resource.......2007-05-14

There is a gold standard in Alzheimer's caregiving resources, and "The 36-Hour Day" is it! This book is as easy to understand as it is comprehensive. In the 20 years I've been helping people care for persons with memory disorders, I have referred more families/caregivers to purchase this book than any other. It is overwhelmingly complete. This is not a book you want to read cover-to-cover. Rather, you put it in your nightstand, and as issues arise, find some simple-to-implement tips and suggestions. Best of all, you learn that what you've experienced with your family member is "normal" for this condition. When caring for someone with a progressive memory disorder, there are so many myths and half-truths out there. As it continues to be updated by the expert authors, this trusted resource has been recommended by clincians for more than 2 decades.

Still Great. A Must Read.......2007-04-29

I am an elder law attorney who helps clients who are going through the process of Alzheimer's disease. I often give this book out to my clients who just don't seem to know what to do next. When faced with this devistating disease process you cannot hope to know what is coming or how to even begin to deal with it all. This book helps...alot. In my opinion this book should be mandatory reading. I give it 5 stars and strongly encourage you to get this book.

A must for family members of people with dementia.......2007-04-11

Actually a rather depressing book, but invaluable in helping you prepare for what is to come. If a loved one has exhibited signs of dementia, this is definitely a book you want to read - recommended by my mother's physician, it has been a God-send to our family.

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Von Horvath: Plays Two
Odon Von Horvath
Manufacturer: Oberon Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Continental European | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Odon Von Horvth : Plays One

ASIN: 1840021527

Book Description

These two plays are set in the period of roaring inflation that caused so much suffering to the German people after the First World War. In Sladek, we see how social conditions can lead people to desperate action and violence, opening the road for dictators and fascists. Written just as the Nazis came to power, A Sexual Congress predicts with frightening accuracy the cycle of violence that was to spread throughout Europe.

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GRIFFRI
Christopher Meredith
Manufacturer: Seren Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GQG6IS

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Melog
Mihangel Morgan
Manufacturer: Seren
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1854113933

Book Description

This novel tells the story of the dull life of unemployed academic Dr. Jones and how it changes forever when he sees a young man naked on a building top, threatening to jump to his death. Persuaded to descend, the stranger is befriended by Jones. The stranger, named Melog, explains that he has been exiled from Laxaria, a country colonized by Sacria, which has banned the Laxarian language and destroyed its culture. He has come to Wales in search of a lost Laxarian manuscript, the Imalic, the only surviving copy of his country's legends. Drawing on themes related to cats, noncommunication, and political oppression, this tender story of friendship is a satire of the purpose and intent that dominate people's lives.

World Disarmament: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

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World Disarmament: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Ron Huzzard
Manufacturer: Dufour Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books

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