Clap Books

Review by Sherry North, Author, Because You Are My Baby

This is a rare book that calls for more than passive reading - it gets kids up and dancing around. Almost like playing Simon Says, preschoolers will love trying to follow the silly instructions. The funny illustrations only add to the smiles.

This is one of those books designed for the fidgety story-time goer.

It's full of instructions - clap your hands, tell me your age, I'll tickle you if you tickle me, find something red, that sort of thing.

Great fun for kids to get to move around instead of sitting through a story, this might be a good way to end storytime!

But, because of those good points, board book format might not be the best way to go. The pictures are too small for moving around - you have to sit close to really see them - and some of the instructions are really too hard for the younger rip-up-books crowd anyway. You might be better off waiting a year or two and getting a normal edition instead.

Great book for kids of many ages. My two year old grandson LOVES it....but so do my first graders. It's a great book to read when the class needs to get up and move around...it has become a class favorite! I had never seen it until a colleague who joined our staff this year shared it with me. It will be a book I'll be giving to LOTS of people in the future!

I originally bought this for my 9 month old, but my 2 year old gets more out of it right now. It's a fun, active, educational book. Because my girls are so young I just wish there was a cd so that we could play it since it's hard to use my hands to hold the book and act out the activities at the same time.

I have read this book to various ages (preschool 3 yrs old through 1st grade). As my children have grown,I have always read this book to their class. A 1st grade teacher asked where I got it and I am getting her a copy as her end of school gift. It holds the kids attention with the simple words, fun actions and sing-song type way that it is written. You cannot go wrong adding this to your personal library - it comes in paperback too!

the book i purchased was all right. i don't remember reading anywhere that a "tab" for the pop-up was missing. if i had read this i would have opted to purchase a new one. If You're Happy And You Know It, Clap Your Hands!

It kept her attention, night after night. She kept asking
to read it over and over night after night. It is a keeper,
very cute. I am happy I purchased it.

My pre-school children love this book. lots of fun and familiar song.

I saw this book during a library storytime and just had to get it. I thought it was the most creative concept. Both my children (6 months and 2 1/2 years) can't get enough of this book. It's thoroughly entertaining. I sing the song and my daughter pulls and pushes all the arrows to move the different parts. She finds it exciting everytime. I would highly recommend it.

My daughter, almost 2, loves this book and so does everybody else that reads it to her. The whole book is "if you're happy and you know it..." and it has "flap your wings", "pat your head", "touch your toes", "shout horray", "wink you eyes", etc. The book is interactive and allows her to move the parts in the book and also she can do all the activities herself too. Its just way too cute to watch her "flap her wings". A definite favorite in our house!

My 6 month old daughter loves this book! The elmo puppet really grabs her attention. The book is pretty short, however. But, she's all smiles during the songs. She tries to grab the book, of course. It's OK with me, as long as she doesn't put it in her mouth (I don't know what kind of glue they use on board books). It gets her interested enough to sit through a few more books afterwards.

What a wonderful concept! Elmo, the puppet, is placed at the center of this book so that the reader can control Elmo's mouth and hands while having Elmo sing, "If You're Happy and You Know It." This well known song has a couple of different lyrics such as, "If you're itchy and you know it scratch your nose." Elmo is able to act out all of the lyrics and it becomes great fun for your child. My toddler adores this book. Highly recommended.

This book was so cute at the local *Mart! I was in the children's book aisle and my eyes zoomed right in. My two year old DD (Dear Daughter) loves Elmo. And she is really into songs now. I thought this would be perfect for Christmas! I had to write a review. Some things you just don't notice online. Sometimes you just have to look around at the store, but hopefully this review will convince you!

The review below mine is a A++++ description of the book.

This is a hard-cover book with an Elmo hand-puppet sticking up through of the middle of it. You put your fingers into Elmo's arms and head to make him come to life standing in the middle of the book. Each page has a verse of When You're Happy and You Know It. As you page through the book, you help Elmo clap his hands, scratch his nose and rub his tummy while you sing along. Elmo is furry and red and so cute. My 6-month-old baby loves this book. Her 3-yr-old brother can even read it to her using the hand puppet and following along with the pictures. Adorable entertainment!

We borrowed this book from the Library and our 9 month old loved it so much we decided to buy it. Two months later and it is still one of her favorites. She would bring us the book, put it on the floor, and start clapping. It's a great book that I would recommend to anyone with young children.

My one-year old LOVES this book! She acts out what the babies are doing on every page -- putting on a "hat", making believe to brush her hair and teeth, clapping her hands, and waving "bye-bye". She is so proud of herself! I highly recommend this book.

If you've ever watched Alan Rickman(over & over again) in the download from "Brits, Bits, and Clips" of the BBC production of Revolutionary Witness's "The Preacher," you will want to order this.

Barnes is a genius. His work is irreverent, funny, shockingly true to history, and great for performances by wonderful actors. Try it and see.

Barnes' recent NBC hits Merlin, Noah's Ark and Alice in Wonderland can be seen as the 'lite' versions of his plays. These are the pure thing--really huge scale theatre. Jokes, drama, wit, wisdom, songs, dance, vaudeville all mix for a total theatrical experience. Called by academics, the Shakespeare of our age, Barnes plays are intellectually tough but win all the awards, and sell out. Barnes wrote the cult classic film The Ruling Class and Enchanted April (Oscar nominated). (He has a new hit play Dreaming on in the UK--info on his website.) A real theatrical treat. A joke a minute but a challenging read--and a ball to act.

Larry Tomczak relates his quest for success in the world, his encounter with a real Christian faith and renewed interest in the church of his youth, the Roman Catholic Church. Although Larry's narrative is specifically applicable to Baby Boomers all catholics can relate to the events in his life, his disenchantment and rejection of the Church and his surprising return. Tomczak's book is refreshing in the minimal evidence of Catholic bashing and his candid assesment of his own life and actions. A must reading for Catholics looking for more than just Mass on Sunday. (For more in this vein read "More Than A Carpenter" by Josh McDowell.)

This book describes almost identically my Catholic upbringing. Any Catholic will identify with this book as far the rituals (legalism) or bondage found in the church. I grew up without a bible (we were not allowed to read one), and had to take the priest's word as God's word. The Catholic Church never preached "salvation" per se and how critical it is to be "born again." This book explains the gaps in the church that have driven away members when they find the real "truth."

My son received this book and companion audio cassette at age 3 from his grandmother in 1997 after she saw the group pieces of 8 peform the story live. He LOVED it immediately and so did I. I had the opportunity to take him to see Pieces of 8 perform their a capella show featuring "handclaps and fingersnaps" stories later that year and we had a great time. My son listened to this tape and followed along with the book every night for nearly a year. I am purchasing another copy of this book now, in 2003, because we have misplaced the audio cassette and my I want to introduce my now 3 year old to the story. I recommend this book highly.

This is a great book for little kids. They love the music and the book is hard covered so they can read themselves. Would recommend it to every grandmother to buy their grandchild.

I love this book about my many times great grandfather. It is very well written (although deep) and tells the story of one who is never really appreciated outside of CT (and Dorcester, MA)

Norton has focused on the Georgian Era, when he says that an organized gay subculture first emerged in London society. Prior to that, there may have been small groups at court or among a particular group of associates, but this was at least semi-public and quite extensive. Norton has done much of his research using court records, which of course biases the study a little, although he may have little choice. Most of the men appearing in those records are working class, not aristocrats. There were gay clubs (molly houses), cruising grounds and secret signs for identification. According to Norton, there was an intense campaign against vice, including homosexuality in the first thirty years of the time period. After this, while sodomy remained punishable by death, Norton's account seems to show mixed feeling among the populace. One "respectable" woman calmly informed the court that one man shared dressmakers with her, and had asked to borrow her red suit. Many people seemed not to care, as long as the activity was discreet and didn't impinge on them, but this tolerance could be punctuated with terrifying incidents of arrest and violence. This time span which includes the popular Regency era, should be of interest to fans of that era as well as gay histories.

Norton seems to me to be massaging the material a bit to fit what he wants to see. He avoids more problematic issues such as bisexuals, transsexuals and transvestites. He argues that the gay fad for dressing up in women's clothes corresponded to a period when masquerades were generally fashionable, which is true as far as it goes. One still wonders why the men almost always seemed to have dressed as women and had "maiden names." They could have dressed up like male icons, like the 1970s disco group The Village People.

Norton also gives a brief recounting of the preceding history, beginning with the first secular sodomy laws in the 1530s. I was annoyed by his take on the tale of the 2d Earl of Castlehaven, tried and executed for sodomy and rape in the 1630s. According to Norton, Castlehaven had homoerotic relationships with his servants, and invited and assisted them in raping and conducting adulterous liaisons with his own wife and his 12-year-old daughter-in-law. Norton (somewhat reluctantly?) concedes that Castlehaven deserved to be punished for his wife's rape, but seems distressed that paying attention to his alleged violence against women might interfere with Castlehaven's status as a gay martyr. (Castlehaven denied participating in his wife's rape, and in engaging in sodomy. although he apparently did engage in homosexual activity. For a very different take on the case, see Cynthis's Herrup's A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven, and Richard Rambuss' review of her book, A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven.(Book Review): An article from: Shakespeare Studies.) Rambuss argues that this case is a stress point between women's studies and gay studies, and that applies to some parts of this book as well.

What I find outrageous is that Norton defends not only consensual sex between adults, but also sexual assault. As a woman, I have had quite enough of the "relax and enjoy" school of rape theory. He informs us that the heterosexual rape rate was much higher; one would expect it to be nine times higher in absolute numbers, all things being equal, if ten percent of all men are gay. He then proceeds to tells us about two cases of rape, one which he thinks is false, and the other that he describes as being more humorous than horrible. I failed to be amused by it. He attempts to soften the homosexual aspects by arguing that the victim was perhaps angrier at being partially strangled (maybe that was the humorous part), than he was at being raped. He also tells a case of a man who threw a mail boy up against a gate and fondled him. I don't think that the mail boy deserves to be called a sneaky rogue for talking his way out by promising to meet the man in a week. The mail boy returned with reinforcements and the attacker was arrested. Stripped of all sexual connotations, it remains that the two victims were assaulted.

In sum, I think that it was for the most part well-done and well-written, even if I ground my teeth through large parts of it. Hopefully, I will never meet Norton.

This is a serious and well-researched book on a little known chapter of history.

Many authors could have taken the same material and produced a ponderously dull tome of purely academic interest, or a polemic for the disaffected. Despite the obvious depth of his understanding of the subject material, Norton manages to write in an easy, accessible style with frequent flashes of real wit.

Mother Clap is a thoroughly worthwhile read for the serious scholar and the curious amateur alike