My son brought this book home from kindergarten for me to read. I love the way it's written and plan to buy it as a gift. Even on the first reading, the words really flow off the tongue and it's a blast to read out loud. The story itself is charming and quite silly. Why would a grandmother put a cow in a child's bed to help him sleep? This is a typical story format for young children, basically repetitive with new items added each time. The repetitive style is naturally good for children around age 3, while the illustrations,zany nature of the story and the acceleration of reading speed enchant older children. The text invites plenty of sound effects for those who get dramatic while reading out loud. This is one of those stories your child may want every night -have fun!

My 3 year old son loves this story. He enjoys the repetitive story and is bemused by the grandmother who runs around trying to help her grandson get to sleep. This is not a scary story and in fact, helps me get my son to sleep. It is also very funny, especially when all of the animals are in the bed with Nathaniel and the bed breaks. It is a fairy tale which is why it is so fun. Enjoy the story with your child or grandchild.

As a Love and Logic instructor, a parent and school counselor, I am familiar with many of the L&L tapes and concepts. Because of this, it is unusual to have an "ah-hah" moment such as the one I had listening to "Homework Battles." As parents and educators, our dream is to find a way for our kids to do homework for their own benefit, and hopefully take ownership for grades, missing or late assignments, and to enjoy the benefits and fun of school. In an enjoyable and nonjudgemental format, the authors point out how parents can do the exact wrong things for the right reasons, making homework and grades into an adolescent power struggle or a drudgery by forcing our value systems and expectations down our child's throat at the exact time they are rejecting our values out of hand. The authors also point out how we, as parents, do not receive report cards in regards to our parenting skills, so we take ownership of our child's performance at school as a close surrogate. Bad idea, and fundementally counter-productive.

This tape helps parents focus on a child's strengths, thereby building self-esteem and a good self-concept, through placing ownership of the grades squarely on their shoulders. All the pizzaz is placed on the positives while only gently touching upon the student's weaknesses. The authors compare this with having your spouse review your output during your day when all you want is to come home to a safe, supportive house. Even with the spouses best intentions, how long would you stay married to someone who only concentrated upon your weaknesses?

Get the tape...it has changed how I work with parents, students, and my own children! It works, and it makes the whole process much more fun for the parent.

This tape was my first introduction to the Love & Logic program and now I'm hooked on the idea! The ideas presented in the tape are just what I needed to give me the freedom from my teenager's homework and turning the responsibility back to him! It all makes so much sense! Most parent's probably need to learn from these tapes that our responsibility to our children is to let them learn to take responsibility for their actions!! Excellent tape and they're fun to listen to!

Faletua Ala'ilima has done it again, contributing a work that provides a great deal of historical insight while captivating the reader's interest. This well-researched effort chronicles the life and changing times of one of Samoa's well known characters, weaving a rich narrative that touches on colonial times and the rise of modern Samoa. Like her other book, "My Samoan Chief," Ala'ilima's understanding of Samoan culture and her sense of humor provide a delightful treatment of indigenous life in the modern era. Her works are important in their own right and for the information they provide on Samoan culture, a topic with very little quality writing to date. This book is ideal for anyone wanting to know about Samoa specifically and the changing political and economic situation of the South Pacific generally.

It's been on my coffee table for about 6 months now. I got quite a few remarks on it, though I must admit many people are confused as to why I have a book of kitchen utensils on my table...

They're just amatures who don't understand art though :p

Fay Weldon is the author of twenty-four novels, five short story collections, two children's books, four works of nonfiction, several plays, and now AUTO DA FAY, a memoir. This delightful autobiography is imbued with the same audaciousness and perspicacity as is her other works. As a woman of deep insights she highlights the key, transcendent events of her life. On page one, titled "Pre-name", she writes, "I long for a day of judgment when the plot lines of our lives will be neatly tied, and all puzzles explained, and the meaning of events made clear. We take to fiction ... because no such thing is going to happen, and at least on the printed page we can observe beginnings, middles and ends, and can find out where morality resides." She declares that, while life moves into entropy, each individual does the best with the hand s/he is dealt.

Weldon was born in 1931 and raised in a rural New Zealand town called Napier. She was the daughter of a troubled but creative mother who, along with Fay and her sister Jane, was abandoned by Fay's father, a selfish, philandering doctor named Frank Birkinshaw. The girls attended a private parochial school and, early on, Fay displayed her dislike for authority and disdain for pomposity. "Mother Teresa was nice and motherly, and would hug you and give you sticky treats: all the others ... ruled by sarcasm and violence. I liked their names, but that was about all."

When the sisters wanted to baptize the girls, Fay's mother wouldn't allow it. She describes her parents as "... freethinkers, rationalists - humanists" and, while Jane had been christened as a Protestant, Fay had not even had that benediction to her name. This state of her soul meant that Fay was excluded from much at school and learned to enjoy her own company. She also had to learn to take care of herself and approach life's challenges with a sense of humor. She says she was the 'good' girl, always wanting to please.

Affable or not, Fay grew up in a strange milieu that was often as perplexing as it was pleasing. She attended school, made friends, and her relationship with her troubled mother was as exasperating as any normal girl finds her mother to be, even under the best of circumstances --- and these women certainly didn't have it easy. In 1946, at the end of World War II, upon the death of a relative, Fay's mother received an inheritance of ... "nine hundred pounds." This gift changed all of their lives because it allowed them to go to England. There, the schools Fay attended and the people she met offered the opportunity for her to nurture her genius for writing.

Weldon's life, at times, unfolds like the lives her heroines lead: she became pregnant and gave birth to a son; she married a man whom she thought would take care of her, but didn't want to have sex with her and insisted he be her pimp; she went to work for an ad agency and did so well that she wrote herself out of a job; and twists of fate kept her on a journey into an interesting life that keeps going on and on. Her words are but amulets of power, both here and in her other writing. She uses well her flawless sense of timing to limn her own story effectively and inspirationally. Weldon's fans will delight in visiting the places, sharing the experiences, and looking within themselves, as she does, and asking some of the same questions about life, love, work, parenting, survival and family. But Fay Weldon will deny this. She says of herself that she does not enjoy the journey inward. She does not enjoy examining 'who she is'.

But fortunately for us, she does raise 'those' deep questions; the ones we all struggle with and, fundamentally, Fay Weldon is as unconventional in her writing as she is in her life. Her honest approach to her writing reflects her observations as they regard the 'war between the sexes' and the roles people play in their relationships. This memoir ends when she is getting on with her first novel, THE FAT WOMAN'S JOKE, and the rest is, as they say, history. Enjoy!

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

A mix of various odds and ends, ranging from medium (some of the longer adventures) to excellent(the Greg Staford stuff) quality. But even the medium bits have excellent ideas well worth lifting, such as Queen Guiniveres Garden of Love, and one of the excellent bits happens to be the guidelines on how to run a Pendragon campaign. Likewise, the area described, Angleland, is the setting for the primary wordly conflict in the game, and has a wonderfull Enchanted Forest. The put-together feel of the book is similar to many other older role-playing products (wich i happen, personally, to find charming) but do not be fooled: its contents are far more subtle and complete than the glittery computer-decorated tinsel put out by most companies nowadays.
I would certainly reccomend this book to serious Pendragon players- in fact, its the most usefull supplement after "Boy King".

Children learn to take only what they need when Bessie picks all the blueberries and forgets to leave some for the bears. The bears take matters into their own paws and eat all the blueberries in Bessie's cabin. Bessie gets a bit of a scare and a big blue mess. The illustrations are delightful and the reading is fun.

This is a true solutions manual. This manual will show the student how to work all of the problems in the book. For the first time in my college life I can do my homework without that empty feeling in my stomach that I might be doing it wrong. If you have the McMurray Chemistry book and your teacher doesnt want you to call them at 11:00pm when you cant figure out a problem, this book is a must!

Through all the confusion of how to pick the right school for my child, I found a book which comprehensively guided me through the process. The book is filled with great information that always keeps the individual needs of your child in mind. I strongly recommend it.