I bought this because of its recommendation in Bauer and Wise's book (The Well-Trained Mind). It has some good ideas, but you'll have to use your common sense. Many of the ideas are repetitive -- kind of like variations on a theme. Also, the author often suggests activities that the child isn't developmentally ready for yet. And, be warned: this book is VERY homemade in appearance -- handmade drawings, old-fashioned type and layout.

We purchased this excellent book after reading "The Well-Trained Mind". Our son is only four months old, but we have enjoyed the early activies and will most likely continue using it for the entire five years.

Every week is given one developmental activity, including information about the learning goals and reason behind each one. The games are simple, and can be used to encourage you child to develop appropiately. There are lots of new ideas, plus old favorites like "Where is Thumbkin" that I had forgotten!

The book does have a simple, self-published feel about it, but I actually found that charming. It's kind of like having a built-in grandma who knows lots about little ones right at your fingertips.

One drawback that kept this from being a five star product for us: the "home-made" nature of many of the toys is a little over the top for me. I bought soft balls, rather than make ones out of old socks. And spools... this book must use spools in a dozen different ways! Who has spools anymore? I don't even know how to sew! Again, I substituted appropriately. But if you are the "crafty" type, you'll eat this up!

This is an excellent resource for new parents from the moment they bring baby home. Each week from birth to age 5, the author suggests excellent age-appropriate activities you can initiate with your child. Some ideas may seem so obvious you may wonder why you didn't think of it yourself; others you're glad she included. I loved this book from birth to age 4. The whole 4th year is dedicated to learning the alphabet, which I thought was unnecessary and redundant, but the rest was great.

This book is kind of boring. There are no evidence that she was really aborted. Her story seems like has been passing on to her by whoever the person that raised her.

Until her biological mother would show up and tell her real own story that abortion really takes place in that time, probably I would believe it.
Was this things had been documented? Who was the name of the doctor? Because I want to find out although I wasn't born in those year yet, but I am sure there are place that would give enough evidence for me.
But if it just one way conversation, without biological mother side of stories. This story has no appeal to me all.

I am almost 13 years old. This story is like a fantasy to me. The person who wrote it, doesn't have enough evidence. Sorry for you people that like the story. I agree it is a good story. I only give it one star because it entertained me.

Once I opened this book up I could not put it down. After reading the story of Gianna I was not only amazed by her and her upbringing, but I needed more. I did lots of research on her and her story and also on others.
This is a good book and I do believe that it should be a must read for high school.

I read this book in about a day and a half. Considering I stay at home with a 4 year old and a 20 month old, that's an acomplishment! It was awsome and incredible to hear what she had to say and how God is using her so very powerfully. I beleive she addressed Congress last year (2000). The book is written very well and is easy to read. I recommend this one to your pro-life library. Would be a good tool to give to someone who is pro-"choice", especially because it's so easy for them to focus on the choice and not the baby. Irene V.

Rick Hess argues from Scripture that Christian couples should not use birth control but trust their sovereign God to bless them with the number of children He will. Hess could have benefitted from having someone else actually write this book for him because his sarcastic tone reveals someone who is reacting to the wrong attitudes in our culture. It's irritating to find such good thoughts presented in so unpersuasive a style. Still, this is a perspective on family that Christians ought to think about. Read Hess's book with your Bible nearby, so you can read the verses he quotes in their original context.

If you don't want what you've always thought challenged... if you want to keep you head in the sand about what God says about children... if you want to miss out on unqualified blessings... don't read this book.

... The information, challenge and exegesis are right on. ...

This book has a trap title. I began reading this thinking that I would re-inforce my belief that my "Quiver" was indeed full. However, I came away from this book with the lingering question, "Can my quiver ever, really be full?" A biblically sound and challenging book.

For Dennehy, "how to argue intelligently about abortion" means what can one realistically expect to accomplish before a live audience in the space of a lecture: give them the minimal number of ideas that are necessary and sufficient to show the immorality of abortion. So he wisely explains how to argue that the mere probability that the fetus is a human being means that abortion implies a willingness to kill innocent human beings. The temptation is to try for more than that, which in that context would be self-defeating. The author's decision to write the book as an autobiographical account of "war stories" - against enemies on both sides of the abortion debate - makes the book down-to-earth, practical and an enjoyable read, despite his substantial academic credentials. Who says philosophers have their heads in the clouds?

This book is an adventure into what motivates, sustains, and illuminates the serious defender of innocent human lives, especially those tiny persons before birth.

Philosophical insight marks every page of Dr. Dennehy's story of the conflict over legal abortion in the United States. It amounts to a history of the defense of human dignity and personhood over the past four decades.

As someone with a background and experiences similar to Dennehy's over the same period of years, I can attest, from a mid-Westerner's perspective, to the validity and depth of his claims about the escapism and false rhetoric of the opponents of the right to life movement and about many other aspects of the struggle.

His treatment of the abortion issue is developed in accord with classical natural law theory and is not an appeal to any particular religious belief. The book remarkably sets a calm, deliberate tone for the sincere seeker of truth, who will have little to do with sophistic, slick, emotional appeals.

Anyone who is active in the pro-life/anti-abortion movement would find this book an absorbing and inspiring work of love and reason in the service of the truth. Those who are opposed to the anti-abortion position in the present debate will find, in Dennehy's dogged determination to clarify and illuminate the issues, grounds for increased respect for their opposition.

The presentation is clear and engages the reader in his endeavor of refining common sense in order to discover meanings for defending babies who are the most defenseless of our human community.

The title might bother pro-lifers. But the author, while he does not reject being called pro-life, likes to say in public that he is not pro-life, but anti-abortion. He calls the appellation short, clear, and emphatic. It gets attention and lets people know that he is dead set against the special evil of killing that abortion really is.

Anti-Abortionist at Large is virtually a manual for speakers and advocates for the pre-birth child and the post-birth bearers of severe handicaps. Professor Dennehy constantly refers to his experiences, both positive and negative, in speaking before large groups. He conceives his book as an autobiography, an anecdotal history, a debate manual, and as a personal testament, in which he hopes to give witness to the gadfly of Athens, Socrates, by being the gadfly of the San Francisco Bay area.

The work has been a long and lonely challenge, for the most part. And he speaks for many advocates when he says the silence from the Sunday pulpits has been "thunder in our ears."

The author is quite conversant with the work of some of the bigger theorists of the abortion movement, such as Judith Jarvis Thompson, Marianne Warren, and Michael Tooley. He chooses to dramatize his debate experiences with Dr. Marianne Warren. He also offers tips on how to relate to the usual speaker-types from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, ACLU, and other such organizations.

Many other aspects of pro-life, anti-abortion work are revealed. Dennehy became astute regarding the typical tactics of politicians as they dealt with the abortion issue and with pro-lifers. He gives examples of his efforts to write elected officials on the subject and compares it to fighting smog with a crowbar. Particular commentaries are included on the intransigence of legislators like Cranston and Edwards of California, and on the "demoralizing betrayal of Jesse Jackson." There are also bright spots, such as the courageous Presidential candidacy of pro-life advocate Ellen McCormack from New York.

Various highlights and "lowlights" from the abortion struggles of the 60's and 70's are mentioned. Quite notable was the "landmark" editorial in the California Journal of Medicine (1970). Now called the Journal of Western Medicine, the editor wrote about "A New Ethic for Medicine and Society," remarkably claiming that the Judeo-Christian ethic was decaying and needed replacement. And, as I recall, the article admitted quite frankly that everyone knows human life begins at conception and that it was necessary to use rhetorical subterfuge in order to let people gradually become accustomed to the new ethic.

He touches upon some of the critical legislative history of the year 1972, by which time the anti-abortion movement started to turn around the various legislatures. He mentions the overwhelming victories for the anti-abortion cause in the referenda that year held in North Dakota and Michigan. My recollection is that in 1972 not a single State fell for an abortion bill among the 33 States that entertained such legislation. Then the rug was pulled on the whole movement in January of 1973, when seven judges on the United States Supreme Court toppled the legal protection for pre-birth children throughout the nation.

In the jaws of the holocaust that was unleashed, Dr. Dennehy patiently and persistently has continued to expose the deceptive messages that the abortion culture gives young people. In fact, he says that in his 36 years of debating abortion, he does not recall more than two who were willing, in any serious way, to address the fundamental question: Is the unborn baby a human being?

The duplicity of the media is deftly dealt with, including observations such as how abortion proponents are being called "abortion rights" advocates in the same vein as one might refer to proponents of slavery as "slavery rights" advocates. He also duly notes the repressive behavior of the media in not showing photos and films of abortions, while indulging in many kinds of depiction of killing and mayhem in connection with warfare and street crime. And he cites various other ploys, conscious or unconscious, that serve to protect a "woman's right to choose" homicide for any one of her children at the peak of their vulnerability.

In deeply regretting the violence of a small minority of so-called "pro-lifers" against abortionists and abortion centers, the author calmly notes that "respectable, law abiding" abortionists deliberately kill millions of innocent human beings, usually for profit. An abortionist today might be called a "good citizen," but, the author says, that it is not the same as being regarded as a "good human being," as Aristotle once observed and as the Nuremberg Court noted in 1946.

In all of his speaking endeavors, Dennehy always tries to be sure that, after his presentation, the audience members never think the same way about abortion. He is determined to stay on message: Abortion is the direct killing of an innocent human being.

Slowly but surely, this courageous speaker and author says, the trend in this country is going anti-abortion. But every day, week, month, and year thousands of babies die in the womb of a careless culture. People who care will want to read this book. It lays out a remarkably thoughtful path to peace with our most intimate neighbors-a path determined to end their silent screams.

This is unquestionably one of the most enlightening, unusual, thought-provoking and original books that I have read in years. With so much of the public abortion debate in the hands of our so called media experts and academic opinion-makers, Professor Dennehy's honest and moving account of his 30 year defense of innocent, unborn babies forces all of us to question the assumptions and lies we have so easily embraced concerning one of the central issues of our time. And Dennehy minces no words when he says that "abortion is the bone in the throat of contemporary American society that slavery was in the 19th century." What happens in the following 200 pages is a fascinating, sometimes humorous, disturbing, but ultimately inspiring account of one courageous man's efforts to defend not only the innocent, but the values at the core of any decent culture: compassion and humanity. Dennehy has the intellect of a Socrates, the wit of a Jay Leno, and the overhand right of a Rocky Marciano, but he speaks to us over coffee at the kitchen table. With all there is to learn in this book the one thing I came away with more than anything else is a realization of how thorough the pro-abortion movement has succeeded in portraying people like Professor Dennehy and the pro-life movement as a threat to society when in fact they are indeed among the most compassionate and humane of all. Indeed, we learn how sophisticated and clever those in the pro-abortion movement have been in deflecting a serious consideration of their pro-death and cold-hearted agenda. In fact, we learn that in 1963 Planned Parenthood's official pamphlet noted that "an abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun - birth control merely postpones the beginning of life." What happened in the last 40 years to transform Planned Parenthood from lovers of life into purveyors of death? How have they so easily convinced young women that their unborn babies are as disposable as a diaper? Why do they ignore the psychological effects that haunt these young women for years afterward? Professor Dennehy's fascinating and heart-pounding account of his years debating pro-abortion opponents in front of skeptical, sometimes hostile pro-abortion crowds at university campuses represents a college classroom in how to debate this issue with reason and honor in the face of overwhelming odds. It also represents a character study in courage and commitment. Chapter 7 on partial-birth abortion is one of the most shocking and moving essays I have ever read and it will bring any concerned reader to tears. Hopefully Professor Dennehy's inspirational book will seep into the fabric of our nation and warm enough hearts as well as convince enough minds, one by one, that yes, an unborn child is a human being.

This book definitely takes a religious perspective on the issue of abortion. As someone who is not a Christian, I found much of the advice to go contrary to my own religious beliefs about life and conception. If you are a Christian person who has been through an abortion, this book would probably be helpful to you as you recover. For me, many of the suggestions about thoughts and activities for healing just did not fit the situation. The book, like many others on this subject, also does not do much for women like me who needed a therapeutic abortion due to medical reasons. I am still waiting for someone to write a book that deals with the pain of having to abort a wanted pregnancy.

This book is a god-send to the post abortive woman. I have suffered from this "solitary sorrow" for 17 years. This book, along with the study, Forgiven and Set Free, has changed my life.

I was one of the ones who believed I could never be healed from this terrible "choice". Please buy this book if you have had an abortion - your life will change dramatically.

In this book, Teri Reisser, a marriage and family therapist and a pioneer in the field of abortion aftermath and healing, has presented an outline of the aftermath of abortion and its resolution in a "reader-friendly", gentle fashion. This is an excellent book for someone trying to make sense of an abortion experience. Working in the field of abortion healing myself, I know that many women have found this book most helpful to them.

In the rush to point fingers at Planned Parenthood for being influenced by the sentiment of the time in which it was trying to shape public policy, Grant resorts to emotionally laden vocabulary and fails to distingush the organization was hardly alone in it's ambiguty towards race and ethnicity prior to the civil rights movement.

While it was encouraging Blacks and Hispanics to limit their families, the organization well into the 1960's, was encouraging white middle class familes "Let us help you plan your next child" and openly infered that they wanted clients to have large families. Decriminalization of birth control and relegalization of Abortion broadened the organization's mission and the women of color health movement pioneered a multifaced class-concious lens through which to work.

Ironically, the standard of measurement blindly advocated in this book would also require public schools and accomodations to be under attack with the same venom, because they also had several policies now recognized as elitist.

Disagree with Sanger if you must, but don't run around confusing the current organization with earlier operations.

I found this book very helpful in my research of the legacy of abortion, but I have found more helpful books. This book contained lots of information, but could definately have been presented with out all the flowery words and catchy phrases. I would recomend Intended Consequences by Donald Critchlow

This book, complete with impressive numbers of references, provides for compelling reading. As a person with pro-life sentiments, I was initially captivated. However, upon closer examination, I realized I was reading nothing more than an elaborate ad hominem of Margaret Sanger. In addition, the book overgeneralizes its "revelations" to paint present day Planned Parenthood with a black brush.

This book is may be pro-life, but it is unfortunately not pro-truth. It is progaganda.

We all know persons whose lives have undergone drastic metamorphoses - sometimes more than once. (Perhaps we ourselves have gone through the process!) Religious conversion, otherwise known as being "born again", is a fascinating phenomenon. This book is a sincere, sympathetic, but objective study of the process. Joe and Mary Ann Barnhart's clearly written volume scrutinizes John Henry Newman, converts to Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, Charles Colson, Buddha, St. Paul the Apostle, Ernest Renan, and others. The Barnharts suggest "it is a mistake to conclude that the new birth is nothing but a delusion." Neither is it "a supernatural event or process, but a complex personal process with at least three layers or dimensions - the psychological, the social, and the cultural [including] theological and metaphysical doctrines." The authors draw from a refreshingly diverse range of thinkers to deliver insight after insight: John Dewey, Henri Bergson, E. O. Wilson, Victor Frankl, Thomas Szasz, Emile Durkheim, and many others. This short (171 page) book is worth reading and rereading. There is a lot here!

I Needed to read this book. It is basically about the process of freeing yourself from your Mother to become your own person. I never realized the depth of the connection most of us have to Mother. The book makes a compelling argument on change and self-love. The appendix is a handy guide as well. This is not your typical self-help book. The answers are not obvious and they are rooted in real spiritual and psychological insight. If you like Carl ROgers, Thomas Moore and M. Scott Peck you will appreciate this.

It's impossible for this author to write about and understand something he's never been through.

The argueements presented in this book are less than valid and the writing it self is weak. I gave this book away to a pro-life friend of mine, and told her that she may like it (cause I certainly didn't). She later came to me and said, "You know, just because I am Pro-life does not mean I will automatically like everything written by a pro-lifer."

This is not the first book the well-known and prolific American philosopher has written on the subject of abortion. In 1983 he wrote The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion (Inter-varsity Press). Indeed, abortion featured partially in other works, such as A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews With an Absolutist (Ignatius Press, 1999).

But as Kreeft says, abortion continues to be "the most divisive public issue of our time". Thus another look at the subject is in order.

This volume, as the title indicates, is divided into three main sections. The first offers a philosophical argument against abortion. The second affirms pro-lifers as to why the debate is important and why they must continue in the battle. The third deals with objections from the pro-abortion side.

Part one of this book makes the philosophical case against abortion. Philosophical argumentation can be quite technical and convoluted, involving multiple steps, seeking the validity of an argument or the soundness of a premise. And Kreeft is a philosopher. But most people are not. Thus it is the task of Kreeft to take relatively complex concepts in logic and philosophy and make them understandable to the common reader. This he does quite well.

Generally any philosophical argument takes some amount of time to elaborate. Kreeft's 15 points take some 30 pages to unfold. But the are easy to understand and flow easily one to the other. Professional philosophers may demure, saying the argument is too simplistic, makes too many assumptions, or is not carefully nuanced enough. Possibly, yes. But Kreeft does seek to cover all the bases, and he deliberately has chosen not to go down the technical path.

The fifteen steps perhaps can be boiled down to several propositions:
-human rights are based on the condition of human reality (the nature of who we are)
-morality is based on higher law, or metaphysics
-metaphysics, not might, should determine morality
-morality (rights) should extend to all persons, not just some
-if we are unsure if the unborn are persons, then we should not abort them

If that does not seem like much of an argument, read the 30 pages and see how he carefully weaves his case together.

Part two of the book is meant to rally the troops to not give up on this vital issue. It makes clear why the debate is so important, and how it in many ways impacts of so many other crucial issues. Many areas, such as family, society, sexuality, human meaning and purpose, and even human survival, are impacted by the way we think about, and legislate on, abortion. If we give up on defending the rights of the unborn, we have given way a huge amount of moral ground. To surrender here opens up all kinds of other abuses of human rights.

Part three of the book takes on many of the common objections raised by the pro-abortion camp. It comes in the form of a dialogue between Kreeft and an opponent, a format Kreeft has successfully used in many of his earlier books. Engaging, witty and intellectually cogent, the argument made provides much useful information to the pro-life side.

The overall effect of these three sections is a strongly and tightly argued case for the protection of unborn life, and a refutation of many of the pro-abortion positions. While the book is written for people in both camps, one assumes it will mainly be read by like-minded thinkers. However, those on the other side who want to approach the issue with an open mind will find much to think about here, and perhaps even a few may find themselves changing their minds.

Kreeft believes that ideas really are powerful things and he certainly proves it in this book. By using logic and with a firm grasp on language Kreeft molds an argument stronger than most others against abortion. In fact, he is still waiting for someone to refute his "apple" argument.

If you want to find the logical basis of opposition to abortion, then you will find none better than within these pages. Kreeft is a masterful apologist and proves without a doubt that abortion is the greatest evil mankind has ever thrust upon itself...so far.

It's as if Lime 5 were written by two people. Mark Crutcher #1 is the researcher who gathers volumes of information and presents it in a clear and well-documented way that even the most committed pro-choice "true believer" can't refute. Mark Crutcher #2 is the politician who tries to sway public opinion with blanket statements and drawn conclusions that are impossible to verify - and earns as many enemies as friends in the process.

The strength of this book is in the volume of anecdotal and statistical evidence, copiously annotated, that tells stories that would make the so-called "mushy middle" of the abortion wars cringe and the hardcore abortion supporters run for cover. The sections on abortion injuries and deaths, as well as medical and sexual misconduct by abortionists, are drawn from sources ranging from newspaper stories to court records. The information is made more credible by the author's forthright admission that the it is anecdotal, and explanation about why it nonetheless can and should be considered reliable. The chapter on the abortion-breast cancer link focuses on scientific studies, with clear descriptions of the methodologies employed and why they are or are not reliable indicators of a link.

The weakness of the work is Crutcher's tendency to rant, which does little more than offer abortion defenders an excuse to dismiss the more scholarly aspects of this book. This is especially true in the chapter alleging a coverup by the CDC, in which well-documented events, policies, and conversations are intermingled with below-the-belt jabs which are entirely unnecessary to make the point Crutcher wants to make. And some of Crutcher's analogies throughout the book (e.g. between abortion industry self-regulation and tobacco industry self-regulation), though they have the potential to be quite enlightening, are written so simplistically and condescendingly as to drag down the sophistication of other elements of the book.

As an ardent and active pro-life feminist, I didn't really learn anything from this book that I didn't know already (though I did get lots of the sources for many of the stories I had heard). But pro-choicers and fence-sitters could have learned alot. I doubt they will, however, because Crutcher's inability to write an entirely objective scholarly work will probably turn off the very people who need most to read this.

The information found in this book is hard to find elsewhere, but it is well documented. He doesn't make it up. People need to know the risks, especially since the abortion industry is unregulated in comparison to other medical procedures, thanks to politics.

I found the information in Lime 5 shocking and depressing. Women fought for the right to abort, and now that same obsession with that right has led to an unregulated industry with serious health consequences.

Crutcher outlines these risks in this book extremely well, from the risk of death, sterility, breast cancer, even rape and sexual assault. It isn't a book to be read for pleasure, but it is necessary to be well informed. It is a must read on the issue of abortion.

Crutcher makes no bones about his politics on abortion: he wants it stopped, entirely. After reading this book, the reader will have a difficult time disagreeing. His descriptions of events are often taken verbatim from hospital records, court documents, and autopsy reports. They are not for the squeamish, and bring home a reality that numbers never could. A mother describes sitting at the bedside of her dying 13-year-old daughter: "I had to keep my hand pressed over my mouth to keep from screaming in horror." A respected abortion doctor reflects on his fellows: "Following good standards costs money. And people don't want to do that." An abortion clinic nurse describes her work environment: "The real philosophy is, each woman is worth X amount of money and the more women we can see, the more money we can make." Crutcher throws down the gauntlet, challenging those who defend legalized abortion to clean up their act. Yet he argues that ultimately such efforts will fail because abortion inherently contaminates everyone and everything it touches. The first rule of battle is to know your enemy, and Crutcher left no stone unturned. Lime 5 is painstakingly documented, and his sources are unimpeachable. Whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions, he presents a picture of abortion that every American should contemplate. Lime 5 is a must read for everyone.