Jan Adkins

When I visited Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona they did not have Frank Lloyd Wrights autobiography for sale and a worker in the gift shop direct me to this book. After reading this book I don't know if I care to learn anymore about him. I find it difficult to say someone is a great architect if their roofs leak when it rains. He was a scam artist and while the building are beautiful if they are not functional, are they good?

I'm not certain that I can be an impartial critic of this particular book.

This is the first of a series of neatly done books, presumably intended for children, but thoroughly enjoyable for adults as well. Mr. Adkins, a student of architecture although he apparently never entered the field as a professional, brings an architect's sensiblilty to, in this case, the art and industry of sandcastles. With his neatly drawn illustrations and his hand lettering throughout, you are immediately drawn show more into his personal and wonderfully perceptive world. Even the copyright statement, which is normally the publisher's boiler plate written in legalese, is here re-worked by Mr. Adkins into a humorous, yet no less legal statement of the intellectual rights of the author.

I first acquired my copy of this small masterpiece in the early seventies, shortly after it was published. Over the years it has been one of those books on my library shelves that I go to in order to escape the all-too-real world that surrounds us all. Several other books in this series -- books on tools, sailing, the alphabet, and others -- happily sit waiting for when I need to escape into this other world for just a bit. Thank you, Mr. Adkins, for inviting us into your wonderful world. show less

As Luther Tarbox pulls up his lobster pots and sings, a heavy fog rolls in. One by one, people in boats large and small hear his singing, ask for his help---he tells them he will lead them in after he pulls his pots---and they go to the back of the line of boats and sing with him. That evening they all join him and his wife for the best chowder on Buzzards Bay.
I'm more familiar with Jan Adkins nonfiction work with wonderfully detailed drawings. This is a sweet story with a happy ending show more thanks to Luther Tarbox; without him, it could have been tragic. show less

Drawings and descriptions of big trucks and other heavy equipment. The final page warns that these machines "can be dangerous as well as wonderful . . . it depends on the men and women who use them. If the people who use them are quick and greedy, the big machines will destroy. If the people are patient and thoughtful, the machines will build. Heavy equipment has no mind of its own."

The concluding message is similar to my understanding of what Norbert Wiener said in God and Golem about show more people being ultimately responsible for the actions of the machines they create. show less