The treasury contains 5 of Jan Brett's stories including The Mitten, The Wild Christmas Reindeer, Trouble with Trolls, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Hat, Christmas Trolls, and The Night Before Christmas. Jan Brett's illstrations are very bright, colorful and detailed. This is our favorite winter book. My oldest daugther age 5, continues to find details in the borders and pictures of these wonderful books. Jan Brett is one of the best children's writers and illustrations ever! She also has a wonderful Web site to enjoy!

This big, bountiful treasury of Christmas stories by talented author and illustrator Jan Brett brings the full over-sized glory of seven beloved wintry tales together in one colorful book. The best-selling books that are included in this treasury are The Mitten, The Wild Christmas Reindeer, Trouble with Trolls, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Hat, Christmas Trolls, and The Night Before Christmas. Brett's signature bold details and bright colors bring the Scandinavian traditions and style, typical of her work, magically to life. Reindeer and big Malamute dogs, mischievous trolls, hedegehogs, and children have adventures in the snowy North that will have you turning the pages all through the winter holidays. This is indeed a treasury and should not be missed. The stories are fun and full of action and the illustrations are second to none. This book is a lovely investment destined to be a family tradition that can be passed down through the generations, creating memories as it goes.

This book was one of the best book purhases that I have ever made for our family. Well worth the price, when you consider the cost of six hardback books separately. My now-seven-year old son and I have had a Christmas tradition of purchasing a new Christmas book for us to read together every year. Since this Treasury came out, the tradition has changed to buying a new Jan Brett book every year.

The stories and pictures are fantastic, but our favorite part about the Jan Brett book experience is looking for Hedgie the Hedgehog to make his appearance in each book. He's there, you just have to look! Try this with your little one. You're sure to have a great time, and maybe start a new tradition with your family!

I picked up Jan Eliot's first collection of "Stone Soup" by chance, and was impressed enough to order the next two. This, the third volume, collects strips that follow the adventures of the Stone family. There's Val, who raises two kids while struggling with workaday woes and finds sudden romance with a motorcycle cop. There's Holly and Alix, Val's daughters, who struggle as kids do against Val and against each other. There's sister Joan, who tries to raise two-year-old Max while running a copywriting service from home. There's Gramma, who lives with the lot of them and offers a constant critique of their lives and lifestyles. There's neighbor Wally, who, after a long and epic struggle, has at last made the romantic connection with Joan. A bunch of finely-drawn characters---in both the "literary" and "cartoon" sense.

It deals with any number of hot button nineties issues: the nature and place of women, life at work and home, the struggle to make ends meet, modern romance, child-rearing. Turn to nearly any page, and you're sure to find something profound and thought-provoking. Plots spin out over several pages, and one-strip gags are frequent. Certainly it held my interest.

My only regret: trying to catch up to the presently-running strips. I can only hope there will be further volumes.

Oh, and did I mention it's extremely funny? It's extremely funny...

Jan Eliot has put together quite a strip with Stone Soup. It's the story of a widow raising two young daughters. The comic strip depicts the day to day tribulations and challenges of being a struggling single parent who must balance her career and family without going crazy. Eliot's portrayal is funny because it's accurate--everybody will remember how hard it was to be a teenager. The family is not perfect--they quarrel and fight--but at the same time really do love each other, and Eliot is able to portray this with sincerity but avoids phony sentimentality. The name "Stone Soup" is taken from the old folk tale about making something out of nothing, which is appropriate for the strip. I believe Stone Soup will become one of the most popular family strips in the funny papers. Did I mention the art work is excellent too?

You must read this!! The story of two single mothers,always broke, three children, a grandmother, and a dog girl hyperactive interacting with the boyfriends of the two young mothers can be very boring or an amazing fun. You will start reading from page one to the end, and them try desperately try to buy the other two books of the collection. Remember that you can take a daily peak on your newspaper, and if not demand the editor to publish it.

Y2K Connections is the best scenarios learning tool I have ever used. Each time I use this learning tool I am treated to another demonstartion of how creative and resilient groups of people can be when offered the opportunity to think for themselves and grapple with developing solutions for a wide range of potential challenges. Y2K Connections supports creative thinking and empowers groups to generate ideas that I, and they, know would not have come up individually.

It is affirming individually to be part of a successfully creative group and it is inspiring collectivelly to encounter such stirring examples of effective group solutions. Even though the situations posed, are theoretical - the soultions generated during Y2K Connections are workable.

I am surprised and delighted every time I facilitate this game. Every time groups coalesce differenctly and come up with unique solutions that reflect the particular circumstances they imagine and respond to.

Y2K Connections informs people about the wide range of possible challenges. Rather than causing alarm . . . people leave reassured by their own creativity and the positive support to be found in groups of people working together to solve problems and care for the people in their communities.

The fact that each scenairo card has a piece of a map of the world on its flip side creates a visual opportunity to bring the world together and simultaneously challenges the group with a real-time puzzle.

Y2K Connections is a 5 star learning tool, suitable for all ages and all walks of life.

"Y2K Connections™" addresses a wide range of therapeutic goals such as problem solving, critical thinking, social skills, communication skills, and how to develop a plan of action. Few games or books I've purchased offer both a therapeutic value and a social impact. I highly recommend it." Rondalyn Varney Whitney, MOT, OTR

This game provides its players the opportunity to learn from each other through group scenarios. The game promotes unity, compels quick-thinking, develops problem solving skills, and requires creativity. This is a great game for team building at the office and for encouraging more interaction among family members at home.

My copy was inscribed to me when I was six, in between Dr. Seuss and the Phantom Tollbooth. Looking at it again now, I marvel that it was only eight stories. Bits of them have stuck in my mind ever since: the necklace of raindrops, each with a special power, the girl who had to be washed with her dress on and hung out on the line to dry so it wouldn't shrink past her, the train station in the desert, the cat who ate the yeast, the quilt and the camels and the traffic lights from Beirut. Get a copy and wear it out, then read Joan Aiken's other marvelous books.

I am thrilled to see this book back in print after so many years. I read it when I was a kid and even after 3 decades I still remember the story of the girl who gets a magic necklace of raindrops and the story of the cat and his wishing mat made out of a gray dress. The new illustrations are nice and I like the fact that it is in hardback, because it will last longer.

Eight stories designed for bedtime reading or relaxing newly independent readers will find appeal in a wide age range. From a flying pie to elves on shelves, A Necklace Of Raindrops And Other Stories is packed with whimsical scenarios and fun moments.

"Little ones, stay safe inside! It's best to stay at home and hide On hallowed Halloween." This certainly must sound like good advice to young kids, because on Halloween there are skeletons and ghosts, vampires and werewolves, and all sorts of other creatures out and about. The pictures by Jan Brett strike a nice balance between obviously being costumes but still looking wonderfully frightful. Eve Bunting's story is told in simple rhyme and offers a delightfully little surprise at the end regarding the frightful green eyes under the front porch of the house. "Scary, Scary Halloween" shows how much fun it can be to dress up and go out scaring people, so young kids should get a sense of the excitement and not been so worried about going out into a night filled with scary costumes. Then you will have less than two months to get them ready to go sit on Santa's lap.

I love this little book about Halloween night! It has the usual bright, colorful work that we have come to expect from the talented Jan Brett. Eve Bunting's fun-filled rhymes have just the right amount of spookiness for little ones. The Halloween images are fresh and creative and include the autumn ambiance of the orange Chinese lantern flowers on the cover. You will see a marvelous, flowing ghost, a jaunty dancing devil, a hunched and sauntering werewolf and so much more. Be sure to notice the mummy costume...what kind of kid is in there under those winding cloths? This will be a Halloween treat for any little goblin that you love.

we bought this book when my son was about 3 years old. he immediately memorized every word, every sound we made when we read it together, and every picture. he used to lay in bed "reading" it to everyone (with voice inflections, too!). i still know the book by heart, and it brings back wonderful memories every time i see it. i buy it for every child i know each halloween. enjoy!

I first learned of this excellent book at a professional development workshop that was offered by my school. I was immediately driven to buy it and learn all that I could about the backwards design process. One year later I find myself planning ALL of my units around enduring understandings and essential questions. It really makes sense that students can demonstrate understanding in various ways, and that it is our duty as teachers to allow them to do that with as many opportunities as possible. This year I finally feel that my students are really connecting with what I want them to learn, and they are seeing the "big picture." I will never design a unit the "traditional" way again!

McTighe and Williams successfully expound on a subject often mired in philosophical debate: how to assess understanding and evaluate true learning. It is an outstanding framework for developing curriculum intent on extending beyond traditional methods of teaching and preaching to students. The authors contend that true understanding can be assessed by measuring performance against six facets of understanding: explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. These facets are vital to developing curriculum and the authors do an outstanding job of presenting the material in charts, and exercises, making a difficult topic easier to understand. Comparing and contrasting covering material and uncovering knowledge serves to help teachers think like assessors, rather than activity planners. Helpful design tools are included throughout the book and teachers are instructed to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching with thoughtful and probing questions.

Understanding by Design will serve as my guide for evaluating my own effectiveness as a teacher. I expect to rely on it to gauge my own competency in developing and executing lessons. Examples throughout the book illuminating the practical applications of each of the six facets are well organized and easy to follow. I found the use of keywords and charts especially helpful in furthering my own understanding of how to uncover knowledge. I am confident that if I remain faithful to the tenets of this book, I will be able to put into practice what I believe constitutes effective strategies for learning: student-centered activities which call upon students to question assumptions, draw upon past knowledge, and advance understanding through incremental learning

"The student ...(believes).. that there is neat and clean knowledge out there and it is my job to learn (i.e., memorize) and use it as directed. A key challenge in teaching for understanding is to make the student's view of knowledge ... more sophisticated by revealing the problems, controversies, and assumptions that lie behind much given and seemingly unproblematic knowledge."

I found this book on the way to another book, and I couldn't have been more delighted. Professional educators often feel the dichotomy between meeting national, state, and local goals and standards, and the real teaching that seems to have nothing to do with district benchmarks or standardized tests.

These authors propose a "backwards design process" that begins with the standards or outcomes desired, but then using these as guidelines to developing essential questions & understandings that actually matter beyond the classroom, then structuring the curriculum around these posed questions. They discuss the difference between covering the material, and using questions to 'uncover' the material. They using first hand examples of practice and texts to clearly exemplify what they mean. I found it exciting, inspiring, and extremely helpful.

Dipersloot has been practicing various forms of the 'soft' martial arts for quite a long time. This volume covers his discovery of the importance of Qigong standing meditation from three masters. He then discusses some finer points of Taiqi's 'Grasp Bird Tail' which is the only moving form now practiced by the senior master he trained under.

Dipersloot has quite a lot of good tips for standing meditation which is great since too many authors seem to imply there is nothing to it. It is true that, like sitting, you just need to stand _but_ it does help to have some pointers. That is, if you start standing meditation then eventually your body will find the correct Qi position but this could take a long long time for many.

His points about the correct posture and breathing from the Dantien are communicated quite clearly. So are the guidelines from Master Cai about the energy points and general alignment. There is a great section, taken from one of Master Cai's discussions, that very succinctly covers the important aspects of meditation in general and standing meditation in particular.

The real weakness here are the very crude computer-modified "photos". Diepersloot apologizes at the beginning about the quality of the photos (he was busy writing down everything the masters said) but that is not an excuse for what is used in the book. Spending some extra time with some volunteers to get quality photos would help the give the book the image of quality it requires; they would also help make some points much more clearly.

A good reference for anyone with some questions about standing meditation. Should go up on the shelf with Mantak Chia, "Qigong Empowerment" and "The Roots of Qigong". better yet, find out when WISH is holding a class near you and go meet a real master for proper instruction.

That's really a good book.
Good for absolutely beginner as well as for experts. It explains theory (without any mystics) and how to develop skills. Very deep, simple and consistently step-by-step approach. It tells you how a joint (just to give an example) should be used and how to work to consistently achieve that skill. The best think I appreciate of this book is about "how to do" and "how to develop" sensitivity (with clear examples and the work to do) on both your body, the external environment, rooting, push hands .......
You can use this book as beginner to just start your journey on Internal Martial Arts as well as to get insight from it on improving your study and to help your pupils advancement with the exposed exercises.
I read this book some years ago and I have to admit it greatly influenced my practice, knowledge and skills.
I highly recommend this book (as well as the other Diepersloot's book) it absolutely will not a waste of money.
I really have to thanks Jan for writing these books and to apologize for waiting so much to review them.

At the age of thirty-one I was told I had borderline high blood pressure of 140/90. I was also told this was not a good omen, to be thirty-one with that b.p. I tried yoga, meditation, eating fruits and vegetables, supplements like Carnitine and Co-Q10. Bupkus. A friend who studies tai chi told me about this book. I've done some tai chi and was open to reading the material which, though not tai chi, concerns exercises for cultivating and regulating internal energy. Particularly since tai chi is supposed to lower blood pressure, it made sense to check it out. After two months of doing no other form of exercise but the standing exercise in this book--but doing it daily for up to thirty minutes at a time--my blood pressure dropped to 120/74. My stress test rated the medical equivalent of an A+. That was four years ago. When I stop exercising from laziness, the b.p. creeps up. When I go back to the book, it goes down and stays down, my energy goes up and stays up. The cardiologist said "I don't know what you're doing but keep doing it." In short, I strongly recommend this book.

This was one of the best children's books I have read, and I recommend it for children that are getting ready to move. This book was written by Stan and Jan Berenstain.
Moving day is about a family of bears, they are Papa bear, Mama bear, and brother bear. Before they moved to the valley, they lived in a cave. Mama had a vegetable garden, and Papa cut down trees and made furniture. Brother kept busy playing with his many friends, which were animals. Then Papa bear said that they they needed to move because the trees were getting farther and farther away and Mama bear agreed that they needed to move because the soil was getting too hard for her vegetable garden. Brother bear was very sad about moving because he would miss his friends. Mama bear said that he could write his old friends and make new friends when they moved into their new house. They moved into a treehouse that needed alot of work. As they looked at it and imagined how it would look after it was fixed up, the neighbors came over to say "hi". Now the bears had new friends and after they fixed up the treehouse it was just perfect!

This book is set before the bear family has moved into the tree house. It tells about why they are mvoing and how sad brother is but how he does have even more fun when they get to their new house.

If you have read any of the story books in this series you know how great of books they are. I suggest this book for any kids who loves great book!

In 1981 we moved cross coutry with our three year old son. This book helped "develop" the pictures of the process for him. Now I am in the "mentor" position for other young mothers facing long distance moves. This is my first gift choice for them and their three or four year olds to make the process understandable and FUN. Patricia Smith, RNS, MS

Most children are afraid of going to the doctor (well a lot of adults are, too, but for completely different reasons). When the word doctor is mentioned to kids images of needles, blood, bandages, and strange looking objects come to mind. Reading THE BERENSTAIN BEARS GO TO THE DOCTOR may help relieve some of the fears that children have when they know they are going to the doctor.

In the story, Brother and Sister Bear have to go to Dr. Gert Grizzly to have a checkup. Brother isn't too bothered by the whole thing, but Sister is a bit worried. The next day Sister is able to help out some frightened younger cubs while she is in the waiting room and sets an example for all the children to follow.

Overall, a delightful little book that helps relieve children's fears of going to the doctor and gives them a broader perspective about life.

Its the cubs time for their first check-up. Sister is VERy nervous, but both of them are worried because they thing that they might get a shot.

It is a good book to read to your kids if they are going to be going for their first check-up or anytime.

The berenstain Bears Go To The Doctor is a great book.I especially like how it has the cubs (brother and sister) going to the doctor for a check-up. They ended up not finding anything wrong with them and getting a shot anyway so they don't get sick. It turns out that papa, whose convises them that he never gets sick, gets sick. This is a really good book and fun to read. I would recommend this book to anyone.

I gave this book four stars because it is a great book for children dealing with questions about Santa Claus. Papa Bear answers all these questions with a simple answer, "Christmas is such a special time of year that very special, almost magical things can happen. And the most magical thing of all is Santa Bear."

Plot: The family arrives at the mall, with the parents worried about the cubs' reaction to all the excitement of Christmas rolling around. Papa tries to assure Mama they're calm cubs... until they see them fired up in front of the new toy store, and then Sister gets even more fired up when Brother points out that Santa Bear is coming.

Eventually, Sister gets a little too carried away and makes her Christmas list a mile long. Brother explains that Santa's probably gonna think she's greedy. Sister worries about that and the times she hasn't been good. She then learns from Brother and the parents that Santa doesn't expects kids/cubs to be perfect. Then Brother tells her that presents for parents is the kids' jobs. So they get out their money and Sister shortens her list.

While visiting Santa and buying presents for their parents, Sister can't help but wonder... what Calvin wonders about Santa in "Calvin and Hobbes". By the end, Sister (and the readers) learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Bloopers and Plot Holes: I guess Stan and Jan had the artists make names for the bear-hug teddy, the pink pony, and the RC robot.

Just curious... shouldn't Papa look a little embarressed when Mama says "Calm and sensible, eh?"

Hey, how much did those gifts cost?

This book is a good book about caring, especially during the Christmas season. At first Sister wants to receive many presents, but latter realizes that Christmas is about giving. it deals with Santa Bear and even wonders how he does such magical things. This book answers these questions in a way children can understand.