Understanding animals and "Creating the Best Life for Animals" is the focus of Temple Grandin's new book. As it turns out, we have more in common emotionally with our animal friends than we knew. "All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain." The Core Emotions are: 1. Seeking, 2. Rage, 3.Fear, and 4. Panic; plus three sophisticated, special-purpose ones: 5. Lust (sex drive) 6. Care, and 7. Play.

Temple Grandin, as a person with autism, brings her unique perspective about animal emotions and behavior to her readers. Her tendency to "think in pictures", rather than in words--among other things--aids her ability to "see things from animals point of view". Despite the fact that she is autistic, she has achieved an almost unheard of success in the "real world", academically and within the industry of animal husbandry, as also the lay public. Dr. Grandin has authored or co-authored numerous books, and is also a popular speaker.

"Animals Make Us Human" is not only quite readable to the "lay" audience, but the book is also firmly rooted in scientific research. Her co-author, Catherine Johnson, PhD; is a writer in the field of neuropsychiatry and the brain. The book is well-indexed and extensively footnoted. This is a huge improvement over her earlier book,"Animals in Translation". She sites over one hundred scientific papers (which I find amazing)that help back up the information she bases on her personal intuition and experiences with the animals she works with. Also, she loves them.

I found her previous book, "Animals in Translation", intriguing and readable. Although I found much of her reasoning to be rather speculative, it did give me a lot of food for thought. I found myself quoting from it, or remembering passages that relating to dogs or cats that made me see my pets in a different light. While she writes lots of interesting things about these house pets, her very favorite animal is the cow. I just love the part where she lies in the middle of the cow pasture, until the cows get curious and come over to her and lick her face!

I've been excited to read Grandin's new book,"Animals make us Human"; every since I listened to a 38 minute interview she gave on the NPR "Fresh Air" program on January 5th. This subject promises to be just as interesting and eminently relevant to us human-animals. The first chapter, "What Do Animals Need?" laid a good basis for understanding the subsequent chapters. In "A Dog's Life" I learned that some assumptions that we make about dogs, e.g. pack behavior and the concept of "alpha wolf" may not be entirely correct. (No spoilers here! You'll have to read it yourself to find out why!). The next chapters are also about my animal favorites: Cats and Horses. Of course we read about livestock animals (Grandin's speciality), as well as wild and captive wild animals.

Regarding prices and availability of the book, I checked all the major national bookstores, and each of them had a significantly higher price for this book than the price here at Amazon. Some of the stores don't even have the book on their shelves yet. So you can get it faster and cheaper from Amazon. Free two-day delivery for members of Amazon Prime. Or add $3.99, as I did, for overnight delivery. An excellent price for an excellent book. I also appreciate that the book's binding, print, and the paper it is printed on is good quality. It's a keeper. Recommended.

After hearing Susan Thompson Moore speak about her book I had to buy it. It covers just about every academic and social difficulty you can think of. The author easily explains to the reader what Asperger Syndrome is and how it effects the individual through language development, social interaction, sensory integration, motor functioning, and cognitive processing. Many positive strategies are provided on organizational and curriculum accomodations as well as developing social skills and team work.

I have enjoyed reading this book and can see how easily the strategies can be put into place. I also like the charts and graphs that can easily be reproduced for my own use. I recommend this book for parents with children with AS in elementary school and younger (we need to plan!) and well as elementary teachers with special needs kids in their classroom.

I gave this book 5 stars due to the exciting, romantic story line. It contained one crisis after another. The wedding was all ready to take place when it was postpooned due to a mix up in the bride's incompleted divorce papers. The baby kept growing as they waited anxiously, eager for the marriage to take place before the birth. It was touch and go throughout the book. Anxiety filled every page. The whole family was in turmoil, hustling back and forth trying to get the papers signed, registered in court, dealing with premature labor hitting at a most unopportune times. It was hustle and bustle daily, everything going wrong, nothing orderly, personalities clashing, extreme bride and groom jitters while the bride endured a long difficult labor. Not a relaxing read, however enjoyable, shuffling through the countless, agonizing processes trying to get the marriage performed before the baby is born, which was touch and go to the last pages. It was wonderful to finally see the couple married with their baby girl born healthy and well, even though the parents were totally exhausted yet euphoric to finally become a family. Carole Beighey

After years of issues with fine motor skills, social interaction and noise intolerance,my 11 year old daughter's secondary school are now questioning autistic spectrum disorder. This book gives a very readable overview of the subject and it's reassuring to learn that Asperger's is often not picked up until the age of 11.

Adam is a 9-year-old boy who has Asperger's Syndrome (AS). AS is a neurobiological condition that is on the autism spectrum. People who have AS confront any number of sensory processing and communication issues. Adam gives good, factual explanations for how and why people with AS run into social road blocks. The best part of this book is that Adam appears to accept himself and the AS part of himself. That is what makes this book so outstanding.

This book will no doubt prove helpful to adults on the spectrum in helping to approach the subject of being on the a/A (autism/Asperger's) spectrum with NT (neurotypical) relatives, co-workers and other peers. It is a wonderful introduction to a/A and bridges the chasm between a/A and the NT population. It brings all readers onto neuro-neutral ground.

How I wish I had had this book when I was Adam's age. How lucky Adam is to know what his "undefined differences" were at a young age! This book is definitely worth reading and I can't recommend it highly enough. It will help remove those road blocks that people on the a/A spectrum confront on a routine daily basis.

Please read this and share it with somebody. You will be so glad that you did.

OK, so I was skeptical but for the price of a tall latte how could I go wrong? I had been listening to my knees and ankles crackle every morning for the last ten years. I am not a sun worshipper, being of scandanavian (read:paleface) descent, so the logic made sense to me - I'm out of the sun, I'm missing naturally occurring D3, so I have issues. HOWEVER, I started taking 10,000 units of D3 about two weeks ago, and I have no more crackling! I pop out of bed and am ready to go. Nice!!!