Hi Nancy,
I have not read Kelby's book on CS2, (I have his CS[one?] book) so I don't know what he says to do. However I load a folder full of images into Bridge by dragging the folder to the Bridge icon (in the Dock - I use a Mac, but on a PC, put a Bridge shortcut icon on the desktop and drag to that.)
The folder will open in bridge and I can rank, order and look at them. To open them with ACR (or Photoshop if they are not NEFs) select as many as you want to open (select at random by holding the Command [or Control on a PC] while you click.)
Then, in Bridge's File menu, select "Open with Camera Raw...". As a shortcut, you can just double click on one of the selected pictures. They will then open in the Camera Raw (or Photoshop if they are not NEFs.)