In this story, Grandma Nan calls Pip and invites him to spend a weekend at her cabin by the lake. Nan has already invited Grandma Sal and told Pip that he could invite his best friend, Ski.
At the cabin, the Grandmas disagree on everything. Grandma Nan is too strict. But Grandma Sal is too laid back. Pip and Ski are bothered by the feuding grandmothers and try to escape them by going for a walk in the woods. But the grandmas follow! When Grandma Sal declares it "Nap Time," Pip and Sal sneak out of the house and hop in Grandma Nan's row boat. The two paddle out into the middle of the lake.
When the grandmas wake up and find them in the boat, Nan grows upset, but Grandma Sal just questions why they weren't invited! Grandma Nan demands that they return, but they make the both the grandmas promise that they will stop arguing! The grandmas promise!
I thought that this book had a nice storyline. This story, like the other "Grandma Sal and Grandma Nan" stories, is meant for early readers. I found this an entertaining, humorous story and I highly recommend it to all.

This story of an endangered animal is moving and should start children thinking about protecting wildlife. The author creates a sense of urgency by having the last-of-its-kind farivox say "Hurry!" Then Tom Elston, the 10-year-old who wants to buy the farivox, rushes home and frantically tries to collect the ten dollars necessary for his purachase. Children will be anxious to see if he gets his pet or not. The ending is moving and effective, and is an excellent vehicle for the author's ultimate lesson about real endangered species.

This is a very short and simple book about Molly going on an adventurous journey by way of her back yard. My son loves this book and wants us to read it over and over. Molly is a small child whom he can relate to, is independent in preparing herself and her bag for her trip, and says goodbye to her comfort zones (her mom, her house) to begin an amazing adventure on her hike. I would recommend this book to parents of small children, 12 to 18 months, as a great way to begin talking about adventures and what Molly may find. Children of this age begin to become more adventurous themselves whether in their homes, backyards, neighborhoods, etc. and I believe can somehow relate to the freedom Molly feels as she prepares for her hike. I rated this book with 4 stars only because I would have liked to have seen Molly take a little longer hike. Her journey seemed a bit quick to me, but perhaps not to a small child. Their imagination of Molly's hike may take them on a longer journey than my adult eyes can see!

This book is a good book to use to encourage children to make up their own story using the illustrations. The book has very simple illustrations that will not confuse the child. This book is fun for children because the characters are mice that go on a picnic. Another good wordless picture book is First Snow written by the same author. It also has some great illustrations that are easy for children to understand to create their own story.

Mssrs. Lapin and Blanc, rabbits, are former pirates who now own and operate the "Spinach Main", a popular restaurant in Provence. But business takes a turn for the worse when Msr. Reynard the fox decides to visit. "My compliments to the chef!" he says after a lunch of bread and wine, "I look forward to eating you -- I mean, eating *here* agains, soon." Will old friends Lapin and Blanc take up swords again and fight Reynard, despite their vow that their life of violence is over?

This is a completely charming picture book. The story is peppered with French words and phrases [a small glossary (sans pronunciation guide) is included in the front of the book, for those new to French.] Impressionistic watercolors illustrate the tale nicely.

This books tells a story based on an account from Abigail Adams in a letter to her husband John Adams during the revolutionary period. It is in simple English and an emerging reader could read this.

A greedy store owner in Boston holds back his stores of goods until there are shortages and then raises his prices higher than other merchants' prices. The women in the community are busy sewing shirts for the men who are away fighting as soldiers in the American revolution. The community feeling is that the greedy merchant is being unpatriotic and not pulling with the community, but rather using the tides of war to enrich himself. So the women take action and force him to open his stores of coffee to them, to which they help themselves without payment at all.

I like the book for telling a story that is historical, shows some of the difficulties of war, and portrays women as doers and solvers. I'm somewhat troubled by the actions of the women, which in everyday life would be considered criminal.

This book is recommended as a core curriculum book. It could provide a very good basis for discussion; but I wouldn't want my child reading it without having some thinking talk afterwards.

In this Grandma Sal and Grandma Nan story, Pip's baseball coach is sick and if the team does not find a new coach, they will not be able to play in the big game on Saturday! Grandma Nan overhears Pip talking on the phone with his best friend, Ski about the big game.
"I can coach!" states Grandma Nan.
"I can too!" says Grandma Sal.
Both grandmas will coach together they decide. At practice, the grandmas are how they usually are. Grandma Nan is too strict, but Grandma Sal is too laid back. The Stings, Pip's team, are all bothered by the grandma's arguments and ways of coaching.
At the big game, the Stings are losing and Pip tells the grandmas that they need to play on their own, without the help of coaches. The Stings continue to lose and Grandma Nan and Grandma Sal agree that they must do something to help the team.
I can't tell you what they do, for that will give away the ending, but it is silly, like always! I love the grandma stories! They are so fun. I would recommend this story to beginners at reading. It is easy to comprehend, but definitely not boring.

The book explores jealousy as a little bear perceives her family is treating a non-family member better than her. I thought the book did a good job of exploring the different emotional swings and winding up with a happy ending, but I have to admit that my 4 year old daughter doesn't like it.

Dickinson is a difficult poet, and one of the main purposes of this book of the life of her and critiques of her poems is to
try to clarify any and all points where the meaning would not be perfectly clear to a reader of reasonable intelligence.
Bill Arnold makes use of poem variants recorded in the Johnson editions which had not come to light. His pages are full, detailed, and extensive, and in addition offer full commentaries on all her love poem. He tells us that his aim was to create a new understanding for the general reader, which would bring these cryptic poems to readers both in America and abroad. He offered, "The untold story of Emily Dickinson's 'Secret Love' can now be told in its entirety. She disclosed their affair and his name via acrostics and anagrams in the tradition of the French court-love poets." It does that and more. As sometimes exasperatingly obscure poems hit you, Bill Arnold details exactly which code unravels the mystery of who was the Master in her life. The poems are preceded by interesting prose passages and the book is rounded out with a biography of the author. It's a compact easy to read book and pleasant to handle. Now, readers can know that her secret love was Sam Bowles, a publisher of the Springfield Daily Republican, and an intimate of her brother Austin. In a book of this nature the problem is always that of trying to strike a balance between giving the reader too much help or too little. Bill Arnold is a Dickinson scholar who has put sufficient details to prove why the scandalous relationship did not surface in Emily Dickinson's lifetime. As the author comments, "Thus, the reason Emily Dickinson remained unpublished in her lifetime becomes self-evident." The secret-love affair is not so shocking as revealing of what her poems mean, and her anagrams do "now make sense." Although Bill Arnold may have given some readers a bit more help than they need, on the whole he seems to have struck a nice balance, and most readers will probably find most of his notes and commentary to be both helpful and illuminating. It is an excellent introduction to those who know little of the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson.

I enjoy Emily Dickinson's poems. This book does justice to her love story. It is a wonderful book which I will share with my poetry friends. It beautifully captures her inspiring life. Now I know why she wrote from her heart.

This is great book for poetlovers. I got mine at amazon. It teels me all i need to know bout the poet. She has got so many good pomes. My but i don understn the nasty rightups some people write. Book makes good cents to me. i wsrite pomes to.

I was suckered in by the beautiful watercolors of this Victorian age and the steam engines, etc. My 3 year-old is a train addict and I thought this looked wonderful and a great way to combine Thanksgiving and trains, but didn't read the text before buying it. The moral issue is the girl knows that she is in the room with a wanted criminal and she decides not to turn him in. Later, she again decides not to tell her mother because she is afraid her mother will get scared. The third opportunity is when they meet up with their father and she again decides not to tell that she knows where the criminal is. The reason is that she likes the criminal "as a person" and thinks he is nice. The train robber told her that he robs from the rich and gives to the poor and therefore he is doing good and is a nice person, and the girl believes this, also mentioned by the robber is that the real robbers are the capitalist railroad owners. The author's note at the end again references that the railroad builders/owners were terrible people who had a monopoly on the railroad system--rather than the train robbers being the criminal. WACKO value systems here--not what I want to teach my children. I think children should know right from wrong and that if one is in a situation with a known/wanted criminal, the child should have turned him in.

With picture books for children like this, it is no wonder our kids have trouble making choices and identifying real heroes! All that glitters is not gold...but you won't learn it here! May I suggest you save the money you were going to spend on this book to buy a book like Leah's Pony by Elizabeth Friedrich instead!

Fun and educational reading for the whole family. After reading the book my family would like to learn more about the famous outlaws and the old west.