Mark A. Andersonas Ma Ma, Iam Home is written for 10 to 13 year olds. The second story is A Day at the Amusement Park. The genre is paranormal. Tweens enjoy mystical plots. The third story, Shadow People, is also paranormal. There was a deeper sense of the unknown in this story. Myron is a character with greater depth. The plot has great possibility.

In this latest instalment of Martha Long's real-life account of abuse, deprivation and cruelty at the hands of her mother's partner and the establishment, Martha is now 16 and her time at the convent school is up. In Ma, It's a Cold Aul Night an I'm Lookin for a Bed, she leads us through her first months of freedom. With no home to go to, Martha leaves the convent carrying her suitcase and a burning ambition to shake off her impoverished past. Hungry to become a person who will blend in with the middle classes, Martha yearns to be accepted as someone who can be loved, respected, and one day have a home of her own where she will be safe. But this is 1960s Dublin, where poverty is rife and the Church works together with the Irish government to keep the poor and the ignorant in their place. Martha first finds work as a home help with a loving, lively family, which leads her to a job in a shop, an Italian fish and chip café, then as a skivvy in a miserable household where she is reminded of the terror Jackser brought into her life. Chance meetings with brothers and old friends from the convent lift Martha's spirits, but soon she is back on the streets searching for work and a warm bed to call her own. Martha is not often deterred when fate deals her a blow. 'Life is a bowl of cherries!' she reasons. But heartache awaits as people turn her away and predators lurk in the shadows.

Aged thirteen, Martha is rescued by the courts from the clutches of her evil stepfather, Jackser, and her feckless mother, Sally. After numerous arrests for shoplifting, a judge rules that she is to be sent to a convent school with the instruction that she is to get an education. Her initial relief at escaping the abuse and neglect she suffered at home is, however, short-lived, as she soon realises that there are many forms of cruelty in this life. As she says, 'You can have a full belly, but your heart can be very empty.' Ostracised by the other children for being a 'street kid' and put to back-breaking work by the nuns, she leads a lonely existence, her only joy coming from the books she devours and her mischievous sense of humour. Desperate for love and a little place where she feels she belongs, despite all that she has suffered Martha retains her compassion for others and still continues to hope for a brighter future when she will be free to make her own way in life.

At 16, Martha collapses on the streets, suffering from starvation and exposure. She has reached rock bottom, but after Martha is taken to hospital, Lady Luck smiles kindly on her and she is given the opportunity to get off the streets for ever. Before long, Martha is on the way to leading the normal life she has so long dreamt of. She makes friends, begins to put the misery of her past behind her and even experiences her first taste of love. For her, love is a powerful feeling. She has never experienced real affection before and is now plunged into the complex world of love between a man and a woman. The intense emotion consumes her, for this is a forbidden love that can never be requited. After all, Ralph Fitzgerald is a priest, and he will never break his vow of chastity. This love brings heartbreaking consequences and changes the direction of Martha's life for ever . . .

After a failed suicide attempt and recovery in the mad house, Martha is heading for France to be reunited with the one true love of her life. Father Ralph Fitzgerald rescued her from the streets when she was sixteen and was the first person to show Martha true love and affection. But their relationship threatened his vocation and he eventually fled to Africa to take up missionary work. Martha never got over losing him and now, after nearly twenty years, he has made contact again. She sets off on a mission to find him and uncover his motives for getting in touch. Does he still love her? Has he left the priesthood? Is he now free to marry her? She needs to know what the future is going to hold.

The wide range of information currently available on the packing of particles is brought together in this monograph. It has been two decades since a book on the subject has been published, so the need to review and extend what has already been done was badly needed. The approach adopted throughout the text is a systematic one, starting with an introductory chapter describing some early work in the field and the types of packing which occur in nature. This is followed by a chapter on the packing of finite areas with circles. After this two-dimensional case, there is a chapter on the three-dimensional situation where a volume is packed with spheres. Initially, mono-size spheres are considered and then the complexity increases with binary, ternary, quaternary, quinary and, eventually, n-component systems. There then follows a chapter on practical considerations in particle packing and this includes some observations on future developments in this area using, for example, computer simulation. The book will be of value to engineers and scientists who have an interest in the way particles can pack, particularly those concerned with the densification of a powder mass.