Children Books

I saw the author on TV about 30 years ago, got the book and only read the first third. It saved our family. My daughter is now 32. I never told her she had to study, have a curfew, or brush her teeth. She made decisions on herself much younger than most, graduated from UCSD with a 3.8, has a wonder job in mergers and acquisitions, and recently bought her own beautiful home in San Francisco. Don't get overwhelmed in the beginning, it works!

I read this book 20 years ago as part of a parenting class. I have a strongwilled, intelligent, high energy child who is now 25. We were struggling with how to keep 'the good' things and help her control the 'out of control' things... This book set the foundation for everything we did. Natural consequences work. Respect for her 'right's works. Teaching her that we have 'rights' too works.

Today, she's working productively, has a master's degree, is a caring, wonderful friend (and daughter)... and... we give this book to all of our young friends with their 'first babies'.... or second if we meet them later.. So I've bought MANY of them over the years .. and I always get a 'thank you SOOO much' after they've read the book.

I first purchased this book 21 years ago when my oldest daughter was 9 months old. I didn't want to be the same type of parent as my parents with yelling and spanking. With the help of Children: The Challenge, my husband and I have raised two beautiful daughters with many compliments on how well-mannered and polite they are. People often joke that if they could be guaranteed a child exactly as my oldest, they would not hesitate to have children. I now purchase this book to give to friends that are expecting their first child.

I raised my children on this philosophy, a few things I disagreed with but most of his basic principles were extremely beneficial, considering there were 2 children and my husband was an only child and my sister was 14 years older, so we had no idea about sibling interactions. The 2 children are now 37 & 39 and decent, responsible human beings, and they are very close as brother and sister. Interestingly enough, my daughter now has a child and seems to have the same kind of philosophy as I, much of it Dreikur's based. I highly recommend for it places responsibility where it belongs in raising and living life with your children and entire family.

I was given this book when my daughter was young and found it excellent and easy to read after a long day dealing with children. The examples are a bit dated but it is easy to get over that with such good practical advice on raising responsable children. I now share it with all parents to be that I know.

We purchased this book upon my sister's recommendation. We absolutely loved it. I sat the whole family down and read it to them, even my teenagers. It provided some really nice new conversation about the Nativity and also about how grumpy, unhappy people can be softened with kindness and service. I highly recommend this book.

This is one of those books that adults and children alike will enjoy for the Christmas season! Definitely worth having in every family collection.

Great book...good quality...arrived in record time. I will highly recommend ordering this book for a Christmas present for any age.

This story will rank among my all time favorite Christmas stories! It is heartwarming and humorous, and conveys the true spirit of Christmas!

This book is a GREAT human interest story that uses a man's skill-carving, with a family need for a nativity. In the process of carving the characters and the friendliness of a woman and her son, Jonathan changes from a bitter, lonely man to a believer.

This a great one for a preschool child, it focuses on music and fitting in with others which children this age begin to recognize. Beautiful illustrations will also keep your child interested.

I wish I could give this book more stars! Not only is this my 3 year old's favorite book, but mine as well! It teaches children that just because someone is different doesn't mean they are any less special than anyone else and that they can't do something as well. Wonderful book that teaches important values in life!

This is one of my top 5 favorite picture books! The story itself -about Gerald, a giraffe who can't dance and gets teased by the other animals but finds his own rhythm with the help of a cricket and then wow's the other animals with his dancing - is very endearing and easy for children to follow, all the while teaching a subtle lesson. What I especially love are the beautiful illustrations and wonderful rhyme and rhythm. The book is an absolute joy to read and look at. We never get sick of reading it. My husband thinks it's the best children's book ever, which is a big deal since he thinks most children's books are stupid or way too corny!

My father-in-law bought this book for my 3 year old daughter and she just loves it! It teaches empathy in such a cute and fun way! When Gerald falls while trying to dance all of the other animals laugh at him and he walks away sad. Gerald however is determined to dance and doesn't give up. Finally he finds his inner music and is a fantastic dancer. All of the other animals come around and can't stop watching him dance. This story is told in such great rhyme it is so much fun. After reading this book I looked up the author and bought an alpahbet book which ended up being equally as fantastic..."K is for Kissing a Cool Kangaroo"

Do you like calm and weird books? If you do then is the book for you. The story Giraffes Can't Dance is about a Giraffe who is very clumsy and can't dance and gets teased a lot by other animals. Then he figures out that there is something called a jungle dance that will happen in a couple of days and all the animals practice some in groups more then two like the baboons and some just two like the lions. So then he practices but it's no help. So then a wise cricket helps him practice. I won't tell you the hole story but I will give you some more details like the setting is the jungle and some of the characters are the Giraffe, the baboons, lions and more animals that you will love. I thought the authors message was that just because someone or something can't do some thing doesn't mean you shouldn't be their friend or bail on them. So if you want to see what happens by the book I am sure you will like it.

Wow this book is filled with action and excitment. The Jedi Apprentice series just keeps getting better and better!
A must have for any Star Wars fan.

Obi-Wan has at last become the Padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn and is about to leave on his first official mission. Things couldnt be better, right? Think again! The Jedi are kidnapped and taken to Phindar, a planet ruled by a criminal who has people's memories erased. Things only get worse when one of the Jedis falls into his clutches and is slated for a memory wipe!

This is an exciting story and explores further the developing relationship between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. Auxiliary characters are fun, especially the jovial Derida brothers, and Yoda is present in spirit if not body. There are a few battles but violence is not graphic.

This story is officially the beginning of Qui Gon and Obi Wans master, Padawan relationship. As with just about all of the books in this series, this book comes with a moral, as well as an interesting story. You get the sense of how both Qui Gon, and Obi Wan help each other to grow not only as individuals, but as Jedi knights too. The author does a good job of illustrating the fact that even though Obi Wan and Qui Gon are both loyal members of the Jedi, they both have very different, but accommodating, personality traits.

[...]

Finally! Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn has taken thirteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi as a Padawan learner, and they're off on their first mission to the planet Gala, to make sure the planet's governmental elections go smoothly. Then, just as quickly as they take off, their ship is hijacked (uh-oh!) to the planet Phindar. But the good news is, Obi-Wan gets to meet up with his new Phindian friend Guerra Derida, from the previous JA book. They also meet Guerra's sister Paxxi. To paraphrase the Derida brothers... not so! Paxxi is Guerra's equally likable, equally funny brother. Together they work to outwit the Syndicat, an evil organization that controls Phindar by renewing the citizens (wiping their memories) and sending them off to another planet. One of the leaders is the Derida brothers' renewed sister Terra. There are also appearances of the Deridas' gentle mother Duenna. Can they foil the Syndicat's evil, or does renewal await them?

As said in the title, this is THE absolute best JA! It's clever and poignant, with clever characters design and interesting environmental details. Really, it's like nothing you've ever read before. It'll blow you away. And without the Deridas, what would the story be? Garabage? No, something worse than garbage. Even if you think "George Lucas is dumb and Star Wars is just a bunch of idiocy!", you'll love this. I highly recommend it! It rocks! Really. It takes poignance and sci-fi adventures where they've never gone before.

Finally! Qui-Gon has taken Obi-Wan as his Padawan learner, right when Obi-Wan turns thirteen, and they are off on a mission to the planet Phindar, a planet ruled by a group named the Syndicat. The evil members of the group renew people as punishments. That means they wipe their memory, and send them off to another planet far, far way. Pretty cruel, huh? Plus, Obi-Wan gets to meet his Phindian friend Guerra Derida again, and Guerra's sister Paxxi. To paraphrase the two... not so! Paxxi is Guerra's brother, and they are both extremely likable, funny characters. Together the four work to outwit the Syndicat, plus maybe recover Terra's memory. Terra is Paxxi and Guerra's sister, but she has been memory wiped and now leads the Syndicat. Can Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, with help from the Derida brothers, foil the Syndicat's evil? Read The Hidden Past to find out.

I'm serious, read this book! It is THE best in the JA series, and definitely worth your time. You're gonna find it hard to put down, even if you think Star Wars is just a bunch of idiocy. This'll change your mind. Extremely poignant, with clever character designation and interesting environmental details, this may be one of the best books I've ever read. It rocked. Really.

I like the story " A PINKY IS A BABY MOUSE'', because it tells you names of baby animals. I think Pam Ryan is a great writer. Ilove her books and I hope you read her books.

A Pinky is a baby mouse is a good book because it tells me what all the baby animals are in the world.

I thought the book a pinky is a baby mouse is a good book. It had so many baby animal names. I liked all the baby animals names. I think Pam Ryan is a good person. I like her for who she is.

I like the book A Pinky is a Baby Mouse. My favorite baby animal is a seal and it is called a beach wiener. I like all of her books. Some of my favorite books are Doug Counts Down, Where is Porkchop, and A Pinky is a Baby Mouse. Those are all my favorite books.

I was aghast to read the reviews Amazon quotes on this book! It is fantastic! My children have loved it for years. It is so good that my 9-year-old will still sit and listen to it. I also take it to school on Read Across America Day and classes aged kindergarten through third have been entranced by it. It is a very good addition to every family library!

This is a read that makes you think about your role in this world. I enjoyed it very much. It's a must read.

I really love reading this book. It's so interesting to me; all the stories and insights are wonderful.
I think it would be so fun to have the gift that Jim has, and it is indeed very helpful in my life. I am glad he took the time to put this book together, and I am very glad that I took the time to read it, too.
Thank you Jim!

"The Spoken Words of Spirit" by Jim Fargiano is one of those books that you keep on hand so that you can refer back to it throughout your life. Each message shared with us is a gift from God. At different times in our lives certain messages will have a stronger meaning for us than others but that is to be expected since our lives are forever changing. At this point in my life page 144 "In the light" holds special meaning for me. For those of you blessed enough to come across this book congratulations and for those of you yet to read it I am excited for you and hope that once read you will share your thoughts as well.

I witnessed the subtle transformation of my best friends life after she read this book and couldn't wait to read it myself! It is a read that will stay with you, It connects you so deeply between heaven and earth. I have read many books...but without question this one will embrace you, body,mind and soul!

I brought this book for my cousin, who is very spiritual and into Native American customs. Since she lives out of state, and we were headed to a family reunion...I decided to just pick a page in the book and start reading...to my surprise or maybe not...it was just the message I needed to hear at that particular time. The Spoken Words of Spirit is a great compliment to everyone's library, especially if you are spiritual and like to receive guidance from the other side.

Thanks Jim for sharing your messages...they are always inspiring and warm my heart!

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This series of books has a special place in my heart and played a role in my greater understanding of God as a pre-teen and middle-school student. I am buying them now for my niece who is in 6th grade in hopes that she too will one day have a special place in her heart for Christie and her revelations.

I could not find a series to stick to. I would pick up a book and then set it right back down, that is till I found this series, then i couldnt put it down! I totaly could relate to Christy, and she bacame like my best friend. I have read the series at least twice and Love it. I also enjoy the Sierra books. I cant wait to start on the college years and the Katie books. Also no one gives this book lower than 4 stars and honstly you cant they ARE amazing i wish i could give this book 5ooooo stars!!

Through Christy's struggles I learned a lot. I love these books, they are like a calm in the storm. Just read these books, I guarentee that they will change your life.

The story of Christy Miller goes from her preteen years up through college and finally to her wedding. (This book is the first in the series.) It's a coming-of-age story of a Christian young woman. Themes include purity, relationships, romance, school stress, family issues, and negative influences.

Each story in the series has a moving ending, is uplifting, entertaining, and makes you feel as though you are friends with each person in the story. Well written and enjoyable - I highly recommend.

This series was is one of my favorite teen series. The first book really got me hooked, then the next three still kept me reading. I really liked Christy because she was kind of insecure and shy, but she blossoms throughout the books. Todd was such a sweet guy, but sometimes he was a little slow when it came to Christy. I really got involved with the characters, and I felt Robin Jones Gunn did an amazing job of making the characters. They were 3 dimensional and so realistic. I recommend this series!

After many failed attempts during the past few years to find a book or series of books for her to read for pleasure, I gave this book to my 14 yr. old daughter, Amber, in June hoping she would enjoy reading it this summer...I am thrilled to say that she couldn't put it down!!! Not only have I also purchased Vols. II, III and IV for her (she is currently reading Vol. IV)...she has shared her love of the books with her friends and now they have the series and are reading them!!! This has made me so very happy...especially since these are Christian based books with valuable life lessons for our teens. What a wonderful gift to be able to give to our teenage daughters in this challenging & confusing world we live in~~~Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Robin Jones Gunn...from the bottom of my heart!!!!

This book was a favorite of my daughter's for a long time, it makes a great gift.

i gave this to my two-year-old son as a gift. he loves it. i will definitely purchase more books by Matthew Van Fleet in the future...

I love Matthew Van Fleet's boardbooks. They are always colorful and funny, with lots of things for little fingers to touch, pull and open. I work at a library, and when I wanted to buy a boardbook for my nephew, I checked to see which of the Van Fleet books had been most popular with our preschool patrons. TAILS was the winner! Even my husband thought it was cute. When my nephew's a little older, I plan to get him Van Fleet's ABC book. The kids love it, too.

Disclaimer: my wife used to work for the publisher (we
got it free along with every other new release). This
was by far the most fun of any of them. We bought several
extra copies for gifts to friends.

Great book to read to pre-readers. Too many complex and unusual
words for learning to read. The pull out fun (and wagging tails)
are made of many layers of cardboard, so it lasts a lot longer
than most active books.

A well-meaning friend gave us this book, along with a bunch of others, and all I can say is that the other ones were infinitely better. It's true that our little girl (less than 2) is pretty keen on the book, but within a matter of months she had ripped out the waggling tails and I had grown very, very tired of the artist's limited repertoire of facial expressions, jokes, limp rhymes and cutesy-cuddly anthropomorphic animals. A sign of how much it compels our own toddler is that by now, she is only interested in the (admittedly mildly impressive) peacock. Elsewhere, you too will get bored and irritated by the sheer repetitiveness of it all, not to mention the actually kind of nauseating smell of the scratch & sniff skunk's tail.

There are a number of other books for very small kids that I would recommend more than this one. Judith Kerr's 'The Tiger Who Came To Tea', for example, is a truly strange and mysterious story that our girl returns to over and over again. 'Tails', however, is a one-joke book which tries to be educational but which is meanwhile relentlessly inaccurate from a zoological point of view - if you're going to show something about animals that doesn't actually feature them as characters, you could at least show them behaving in something like the ways they really behave, instead of having lions cheerfully hanging out with porcupines. Avoid.

Christy Miller thought that returning home from an intense experience working at an orphanage in Switzerland would be relaxing. However, in AS YOU WISH, the second book in Robin Jones Gunn's Christy and Todd: The College Years trilogy, she finds that settling into life at Rancho Corona University is far more stressful than she ever could have imagined.

Christy was looking forward to finally getting to have a more active social life and spend much more time with close friends Katie and Sierra. However, with her parents telling her to get a job and her counselor suggesting she take more classes, it looks like Christy's schedule is going to be full. When long-time boyfriend Todd informs her that he has volunteered her for yet another activity, Christy reaches a breaking point.

As she tries to sort out her chaotic life, Christy soon realizes that her problems lie far beyond her weekend social calendar. With less than a year until she graduates, and a long-term relationship, Christy must finally make some bigger decisions --- decisions that will last a lifetime. She knows that Todd is in love with her, and has been for some time. In fact, she's pretty sure that he would be ready to marry her at any time. But something is still holding her back.

As Todd reveals more and more about his background and childhood, Christy feels closer to him than ever before but also realizes what different worlds they come from. When her first childhood crush from Wisconsin comes to town, Christy begins to wonder if she might be better suited to someone with a similar background, or if she's really ready to commit to anyone at all.

Confused about her romantic future, Christy must also deal with ongoing drama in her family. Her erratic Aunt Marti is threatening to leave her husband and join an "art colony"; Christy must try to stop her before it's too late. As she grows more and more sure of her feelings and intentions, Christy gets ready to make a big declaration. However, a tragic accident occurs before she can reveal her true feelings, and it may be too late. As Christy's friends and family gather at the hospital, she becomes painfully aware of just how important it is to express your feelings while you still can.

AS YOU WISH seems to be an attempt to combine the worlds of all of Robin Jones Gunn's characters into the ongoing storyline of Christy and Todd. For fans of the Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen series, this will certainly make sense. However, new readers will experience some difficulty following the many different characters and plot lines that are thrown into the mix. The story comes a long way from its predecessor --- from Christy considering breaking up with Todd, to thinking about marrying him.

Although this (presently) final series in the world of Christy Miller is not Gunn at her best, and relies on quite a bit of recycled material, it is still very readable and will undoubtedly keep fans satisfied.

--- Reviewed by Jennifer Crosby

I loved this book to pieces. Christy struggles with saying 'I love you' to Todd, because she isn't sure of her love for him. She makes a sudden revelation that Todd is 'the one' and feels she is confident to say those three little words, until a tragic event happens, changing Todd and Christy's life forever. Christy is having a hard time finding when she can confess that to her beloved, especially when the life-altering accident occurs. Christy and Todd both grow closer to the Lord, and Todd discovers that it is his calling to work in the church. Christy helps, and discovers she is in her element as well. The very end is beautifully written, and wonderfully romantic and sweet, which is another event that changes both Todd and Christy's life forever. Grab the Kleenex box, the end will have you wiping your eyes.

I think these books are the best I've ever read! Once you pick it up, don't expect to put it down anytime soon!! I've read them over and over, and still love them. They're clean, focused on God, and have a sweet romance in them. I also recommend the Christy Miller series.

You won't want to miss these books!!!
~Hope

I was very happy with the shipping time and condition of the book. It actually arrived before the date given to me, so I was very pleased. I would definitely buy again.

I just finished this book and loooove it! It is sooo awesome how Christy and Todd work things out. And Todd is so creative at the end when he... oops i almost said it!! But I won't give it away! You have to read it for yourself to find out what a superb novel this is! It also helps if you have read the other books in the series first.

My entire family enjoyed this book. The illustrations are wonderful. We love the bat beach snacks! Being a family who loves the beach and vacations there several times a year we decided to purchase this book and it is often selected for bed time reading by my 3 1/2 year old. My 8 year old also enjoys reading it too.

We enjoyed this book so much that we also purchased 'Bats at the Library'. It is even better!

Recieved this as a baby shower gift because we like bats and already I love to read this as our bed time book. Gorgeous illustrations, nice flowing story and perfect for an evening reading. Though I would have loved to have this on a board book; I don't let the baby play with the book.

Do you love verse in iambic tetrameter? Do you think bats are inherently funny? Do you enjoy great illustration? If so, then it's likely you will find this book to be completely satisfying. In the standard, 32-page format, hardbound; it's a keeper. "We hurry down to test the ocean, Don't forget the moon-tan lotion." Picture Mama Bat applying moon-tan lotion while sitting under one of those little paper drink umbrellas! Ha!! It's delightful. I keep mine in my office for stressful moments or nap time after lunch.

I have all of Brian's books, and I must admit this is my favorite. The words rock you to sleep, and the illustrations make you laugh and make your heart smile. I love this book for so many reasons, but mostly the spirit of his love for the beach and the outdoors shines through. Bravo!

This is one of the few kids books hat both may kids and I enjoy.